USA#1 >> Entire continent of pansies

Tuesday 8/17/21

Woke up; mobility for 20-25 minutes.

Finally picked up a bar...gingerly I might add. Elbow seems no worse for the wear. Just did rather light DL

5x5 225

All seemed good yesterday and this AM

In afternoon did speed work with the clubs and then ran ~2.5 miles on the treadmill (~25 mins).

Monday 2,100 calories

Moved my oldest in to college dorm yesterday so didn't do much. Although I was busting my hump setting up the room. Kid has a lot of ****.

wowee...major life milestone

Indeed. Not particularly happy about it.

Thursday

Mobility in the AM
Jumping, medicine ball, squat work after mobility
Speed work in the evening followed by a long walk.

Thursday 2,100 calories

Weekend

Played golf both days. Still not lifting much. Elbow is tender but improving. Seems to be fine swinging a club but anytime I put it under any load it screams a bit. Been about 2 weeks at this point. As long as it continues to improve I won't sweat it. If it gets any worse I'll go see an ortho I guess.

Played pretty well. All the hard work is paying off...Shot 73-71 and really under control pretty much in all aspects of the game. Still room to clean up some things and by no means "BACK" but getting there.

Ate pretty meh this weekend. Turned 52 on Fri and so had some pizza and ice cream one night. Back at it yesterday and today.

Tuesday

Speed training after work. Wasn't quite as fast yesterday as my last few sessions but that may be because I didn't get a sufficient warm up in.

Then did deadlifts. Seems to be the only lift that doesn't impact my elbow at all. Did 10 minutes pulling every 30 seconds. So 20 pulls of 275. Just something different to try.

Tuesday-2,025 calories

Have you ever tried squatting with your arms outstretched and hands on/close to the weight rather than bent and on or near the nurling? Might take the pressure off your elbow

No been doing air squats but maybe I'll give it a try.

Wednesday

Mobility in the AM

Had a lesson with my instructor in the evening. Hitting it really well ATM. Hopefully that will continue as I have a few tournaments I'm going to play through the fall.

It's so ****ing hot here tho.

Wednesday-2,075 calories

Update

Still working out and eating pretty well. Summer I was a little in and out. Weight is slightly lower than where I was when I stopped posting...currently a bit under 220.

Bought a mountain bike and rode A TON this spring/summer/fall. Was doing 6-12 miles routes that are quite literally right out my back door. Was riding 3-5x/week and was a lot of fun. I live on a reservoir with a ton of fire trails and riding trails. Literally 100 miles of trails depending on which you take. Loved it.

Then bought a gravel bike and rode that a TON through the fall. In theory I could ride that on the road but I don't trust myself or the drivers and I live 5 miles from a paved railroad trail. Been doing 15-30 miles there.

Averaging about 15-16 miles/hour. Don't think that's that great but not sure. Trying to increase speed because I signed up for 2 sprint triathlons in the spring/summer. 500 or 600 meter swim (both in pool), 20k bike, 5k run. Been running a bit but first race isn't until late May.

Have a pretty good plan of attack to get myself in shape for it. Hope to be under 200 lbs by then for the first time since college??

Golf

Golf was much better and more consistent this summer. Didn't really see much in terms of results but my handicap crept back down to scratch (0.0) for the first time in a long time. Hitting it 6-8 yards further off the tee.

I have 2 more summers until I'm 55 and eligible to play Senior AM events. My home club actually was granted the 2026 USGA Senior Am so I'd love to qualify for that. 2024 is the first I'm eligible for and is actually at a club where I previously played US Am so I'd like to qualify for that, of course.

Anyway, might post here more. Might not.

Hope all are well.

Lifted 2x since TH but jeeze my strength has regressed. Got close to 40 degrees today so went for a 7.5-ish mile mountain bike ride. Once you get going not too bad

Scale was surprisingly fine when I got on this morning after 3 or 4 days off eating more than normal

New Year same goals...not really a big resolution guy. Jan 1 is the same as any other day on the calendar to be honest

We had surprisingly great weather on Sunday so after doing front and back squats in the morning I did a duathlon of sorts.

Ran a 5k and then jumped on the bike and did 10k. Trail was fairly sloppy due to some of the frost thawing and that impacted the bike more than the run. Basically I'm running easy peezy 10 min/mile right now. Not really pushing it too hard. I realize this isn't really very fast but I'm fine with it for the moment. If I can make incremental gains and get down to a sub 30 min 5k I'll be ok with that.

Biking is a little harder to have a sense of how my time is. I have a friend that was on the support team for Lance Armstrong and bangs out 35-40 mile rides in 90-100 mins. He's also 6'3 170lbs and has no ability to help me with pacing expectations, etc.

Anyone have any knowledge on what I can reasonably expect on the bike in terms of speed or even wattage? Little lost here.

Basically I'm taking the aerobic base approach with a ton of Z1 and Z2 pacing. Following the Alan Couzens, Gordo Byrn, etc. approach to aerobic base building and it makes the most sense to me.

Basically it's the 80/20 approach or Run Slow to Run Fast...makes sense to me

Run 70% of max heart rate

Bike 70% of max heart rate

But bike has different max heart rate. So for your old arse, it's going to be something like

Run at 120 beats per minute

Bike at 110 beats per minute

But that's only if you follow the 220-age formula. Monte does not, arjun does not, and neither does feelwrath. I fall exactly under the formula, you might you might not.

These paces are going to be excruciatingly slow for a 220lb guy. Maybe 13-14 minute miles running?

So how do we translate to wattage on the bike? FTP test will give you an idea.

Personally I would find my max heart rate for running and use that. And then take away 10 beats and use that for biking. Easy game.

Couzens is an ego maniac who liberally blocks on Twitter but he is also top3 foremost authority on endurance training. And he is a huge Z1 lover, however he mostly trains professional athletes who train 14+ hours a week.

So yes you should do some slow arse Z1 and Z2 training but also realize we have to ignore Couzens. We don't have time for 14 hours endurance.

Couzens would recommend a lactate threshold tests to get your zones. Lol. I think he might be a little autistic.

For running definitely get 80/20 by Fitzgerald. I think they might have a triathlon book also. That will be better than Couzens, he is too pro for newbs.

Yeah I’m about halfway through 80/20 Tri book. Is good but haven’t gotten to the bike stuff yet. Going crazy slow is really hard

good to have you back Slimmers

to echo loco's point, HR zones are different for different exercise types. I also agree with him that working out what your HR zones is better if you're taking it seriously and that probably involves getting your blood lactate tested (or that's what the experienced rowers told me). I didn't but worked it out off max HR, which I did manage to calculate to within 1-2 % ...mine is about 179...so a little off 220-age, but that remains a good finger in the air

I abandoned the hr monitor back in early Nov when life, work and training was all getting very difficult and tbh I haven't regretted it but...before I abandoned it, I did callibrate down the speed of my 'long slow' training by approx 5 seconds per 500m, which equated to approx 5-8bpm to get me into the middle/bottom of my ut2 range as opposed to constantly flirting with the top of it.

unsure what the impact of that has been on my fitness (as it can take months and months for it to have an impact) but what I have noted is that

1. my long slow is less taxing and depleting...which is a good thing but
2. I find it more boring and I actually probably do less of it - I reach a point after 45 or 50 mins when I simply can't stomach any more of it for boredom reasons, despite watching tv/listening to music, whereas with the greater effort and exertion on previous rows, I could concentrate and enjoy it for longer. Maybe it would be different for you if you were running outside though as there's always things to look at etc if you're road running

idk...just keep moving and try different stuff to see what works for you

If he has the 80/20 book all the answers are there including how to figure out the zones.

I prefer max heart rate and then to get more precise, as a percentage of lactate threshold.

Fitzgerald uses zones based on percentage of lactate threshold and shows how to get them. Not sure what they are using for bike, maybe 95% of 20min time trial.

Surprised slim is even looking into this, thought he was from the Spy like hard knocks school of 1 mile time trials every week.

You will progress faster with 80/20 if you train at least 4-5 hours a week. If you train less, you will progress faster with the school of hard knocks. But it's so miserable you will quit unless you got feelwrath like big heart.

A triathlon is no joke, I would think 6 hours a week of endurance is the absolute minimum and thus 80/20 will progress you faster. No reason to doubt its too slow or boring. The science clearly says its better.

Thinking the easy training is too slow is like saying 15% gto vpip utg is too boring, gonna play 30% donk vpip. It's Negative EV. 14 minute miles bro. You can unleash the beast on the 20% of the training.

I got a 80/20 triathlon training program through Training Peaks and joined the local Y to have access to the pool. Frankly the swimming will be the easiest discipline for me as I swam through Junior year in HS and could have swam D3 but had gotten burned out being in the pool and more interested in girls and golf

We'll see how it goes

Going slow is hard. I was at like 12 min miles to maintain 70-75% HR yesterday.

Went for 30 mins. In the pool today

I'm trying to integrate running into my training too; had to give it up in Q4 last year because I kept pulling a calf muscle. I've also found that I need to go slower, but my experience running is so minimal that I need to some pre-work to prepare for a 10k program, which seems minimally what I'll need to be able to do for a Hyrox. Let me know how you like the program you got; I'm trying to figure out what to do after I get my weekly mileage up to something non-pathetic.

The Case for Slowing Down https://slate.com/technology/2023/01...-benefits.html



That was surprisingly pretty good. Just came out too.

I'll post the first week of Training Peaks after I'm done although the first week or two are REALLY slow baseline stuff...it's only an 8 week program and then if I like it there is an add on for 6 months I think

First full week of training. I like the fact that I have a specific regimen of workouts. Don't have to think about it. Goal in W1 was to spend all my time in Z1 and Z2. I did that for the most part but struggle in the running where I seem to spend most time in Z3.

Going super slow thus far which is oddly harder than it seems.

20 min jog 1.75 miles
20 min swim 600 yards
30 min spin 9 miles (managed to keep whole ride in Z1/2)
60 min ride (outdoor) 14 miles (trail was super crowded so a lot of start/stop)
23 min swim 800 yards
20 min jog 1.75 miles
35 min job 3.0 miles (managed to stay all but 3 mins in Z2/3)

Back in the pool today

Calories under 2k each day but one when I could tell I needed more fuel

Seems to be going well. Only lifted 1x which needs to be 2x/week

Week 2 in the books for this 8 week training program. Still like the ease of not having to think about what to do. Just do whatever it says. I might juggle some days slightly to try and take advantage of a particularly warm day or whatever but generally just following it to a tee.

I'm very compliant on the Zones on the bike and in the pool. I'm not as compliant on foot as I drift in to Z3 and even a bit into Z4. I know the answer is to slow down but I really struggle to just go slower. Seems weird to say that but it's the reality. Anyway here is the past week in terms of work done:

30 min swim 1,000 yards
25 min jog (2.3 miles)
45 min spin (~14 miles all in Z1/Z2)
25 min swim 900yeards
25 min jog (2.2 miles)
65 min steady ride (~19 miles; crept into Z3 and 4 late in the ride)
50 min jog (3.9 miles; all but 10 mins in Z1 and Z2 though at a much slower pace)

So for the week a bit over 5 hours of cardio training. Also did 1 lifting session and stretched 5 mornings.

Diet was on point for an average of 2k calories for the week

Looks like a good week. Are you enjoying the training?