The weekly updates:
2010-11-29 to 2010-12-05
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bike | 120 | km | 4:00:00 | 30 | 30 | 30 | kph |
| Run | 32.29 | km | 2:48:00 | 5:31 | 5:12 | 5:02 | min per km |
| Swim | 3200 | m | 1:20:00 | 2:30 | 2:30 | 2:30 | min per 100 meters |
| Weights | 0 | mi | 0:30:00 | na | na | na | no pace units |
| Yoga | 0 | mi | 0:20:00 | na | na | na | no pace units |
| Total Time | Two Days Off | ||||||
2010-12-06 to 2010-12-12
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bike | 120 | km | 4:00:00 | 30 | 30 | 30 | kph |
| Run | 24.67 | km | 2:12:30 | 5:43 | 5:22 | 5:18 | min per km |
| Weights | 3.11 | mi | 0:55:00 | na | na | na | no pace units |
| Total Time | 7 hrs 7min | Three Days Off | |||||
2010-12-13 to 2010-12-19
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bike | 80 | km | 2:40:00 | 30 | 30 | 30 | kph |
| Run | 24.12 | km | 2:02:39 | 5:08 | 5:05 | 4:58 | min per km |
| XC | 16.43 | km | 1:43:57 | 9.13 | 9.48 | 9.76 | kph |
| Total Time | 6 hrs 26min | Two Days Off | |||||
2010-12-20 to 2010-12-26
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run | 41.68 | km | 3:29:10 | 5:04 | 5:01 | 3:45 | min per km |
| XC | 50.77 | km | 6:33:31 | 5.05 | 7.74 | 12.09 | kph |
| Total Time | 10 hrs 2min | One Day Off | |||||
2010-12-27 to 2011-01-02
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downhill | 202 | km | 20:20:00 | na | na | na | no pace units |
| Run | 23.12 | km | 2:03:47 | 5:31 | 5:21 | 4:54 | min per km |
| XC | 24.25 | km | 4:05:00 | 5.31 | 5.94 | 6.35 | kph |
| Total Time | 26 hrs 28min | One Day Off | |||||
2011-01-03 to 2011-01-09
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bike | 60 | km | 2:00:00 | 30 | 30 | 30 | kph |
| Run | 40.08 | km | 3:31:35 | 5:31 | 5:17 | 5:00 | min per km |
| Swim | 2600 | m | 1:10:00 | 2:42 | 2:42 | 2:42 | min per 100 meters |
| XC | 14.2 | km | 1:25:00 | 10.02 | 10.02 | 10.02 | kph |
| Total Time | 8 hrs 6min | Two Days Off | |||||
I did a mediocre job of following my schedule in the few weeks leading up to the Christmas break. I did find bits and pieces of time to train but I was also doing stupid amounts of time in the lab turning the crank and churning out page after page of my MSc thesis. The thesis was considered relatively complete until my supervisor chucked it back at me with major revisions. It wasn’t a very nice realization, I’m not so much cut out for the world of academia, and I’m trying not to think about it too much. In fact I’m not going to write much about it either as that would require me thinking about it. In short, I hope accepting this new job starting March 1 isn’t a huge mistake. Then over Christmas break I just tried to run frequently, I wanted to hit 25 miles per week a couple times and I was successful for two out of the three, I would have been on track to hit it on the week between Christmas and New Years but I found myself in Fernie skiing my fool face off (and loving it!) and so I’ll take a mulligan. These next two charts show my progress up until Christmas and then my progress over the Christmas break.
’till Christmas |
through Christmas |
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The PMCs above show that over the Christmas break when I went totally off program and gave up on trying to schedule anything for myself I still did get in lots of general aerobic work as I had wanted to during that period. The little chart at the left here with the two overlays compares the planned training effect with the one that was actually completed over that break, it lines up just fine. I’m still on track in terms of developing basic fitness and despite not trying very hard at planning my instincts for how much, and how soon, were just about appropriate.
I am due for a MAF Test on the run soon but with the forecast at or below -20o for this whole coming week I might have to wait a bit. There isn’t a whole lot of purpose in measuring MAF pace while running with tights, fleece pants, shell pants and a fleece jacket, the measurement isn’t going to be very accurate anyhow. I do have an estimate of MAFHR from some recent treadmill running that puts it around 7.6-7.7 miles per hour which is slightly sub 5 min/km or a bit better than 8 min miles. That’s alright progression if you ask me, about 25 seconds/km pace improvement over the course of a bit less than two months. Slow and steady wins the race. As I mentioned previously I think it would be good to get to 4min/km at MAFHR in time for the Vancouver Marathon (a bit less than four months) which necessitates me being keeping up this kind of progression in MAF pace. I don’t really have a great indication from previous tracking of these metrics of how fast I can hope to improve, my testing last year started at around 4:20 pace and progressed to around 4:04 pace while I really developed a ton of durability to run at that effort while maintaining volume in the training program. Recently I’ve been able to do a lot of my running rather close to MAFHR and haven’t felt like I’m straining myself much to do it. That’s an alright sign, it indicates I’m in need of conditioning my cardiovascular system and that I’m not straining the muscular/joints as much as I did last year while developing my ability to run.
I was out of the pool for a LONG time and my first time back was tough work but I enjoyed myself, I don’t anticipate that it’ll be easy to swim a ton this winter but I am hopeful that I can do a decent job of it.
The planned training is a bit dubious, I don’t know how everything will work out with the weather looking so outrageously poor. I also don’t really know how the skiing works out as I typically will want to go with other people and just don’t have the interest to go and do three hours of skiing by myself in the woods. We’ll see how things stack up. I’ll have to be flexible here. The key workouts of the week are the runs. I want to put in a good solid effort at getting the frequency up to 5 times per week here or close to that for the next stretch. It’s mostly a matter of getting dressed up and out the door. That’s all it took yesterday and once I was trundling along I quite enjoyed myself, but when getting dressed takes forever because I have to dig up a dozen pieces of clothing instead of just shorts, socks and a shirt, it’s no wonder that it takes a bit more coercion than usual to get going.
Fingers crossed that a cold January makes for an early spring so I can get in the uninterrupted running when it will be the most frustrating to do it inside. I also wouldn’t mind the opportunity to sneak in a couple weekends of skiing in March if possible. Anyhow, here’s the training plan through until the Birkebeiner. Things might require some serious adjusting, but the running framework looks like it’s flexible enough to stick.