Friday

Climbing, Craggy.

I went climbing. It was my third day out 4, and second in a row, which is a bit unwise. But it was a good session - 2 hours total.

My last route was a long term project. It was my third session where I attempted it. It took me about 6 goes this to me, but it eventually went. (The trick I had missed before was matching hands on some poor slopers, letting me feet swap and move the left foot to a small edge far on the left.)

Sunday
Climbing, Craggy.

I am in the UK's Office for National Statistics COVID survey, and so I needed to cut the session short to get home in time for a test. (As it happened, the tester was an hour late so I could have stayed on.)

So it was only an 80 minute session, and it felt like I'd just started to get into my stride when it ended.

I felt good an fancied a long walk post test, but a friend came round to drop off some scuba gear, I only managed 2 hours. (As it turned out, he was also an hour late.)

Monday
Rest day, although I managed a 6 mile walk in the evening.

Weight: 143 pounds.

Inspired by the giraffes in Malucci's log, I thought I would add some for me.

Calories consumed since 1 July 2019:


Mean is 2,453, which makes sense, as my target has generally been 2,400 over this period. Max was 3,800, on a day with a truly absurd amount of cardio (a 26 mile hike); min was 563 (on the day of my heart surgery.) Median was 2,416; standard deviation was 365.

7 day rolling average of weight over the same period (in stone, as I'm English. 10 stone is 140 pounds.)

Min was 140; max (after the initial fall) was 145. I aim for between 140 and 147, so I was in range for the period.

Tuesday

Climbing, 90 minutes. Meh. I was out of form. I repeated a lot of stuff, but only got one new route of any difficulty.

Over the last two years you’ve never had a day where you consumed more than 3,800 calories? That’s INSANE to me lol I had four of those last week on vacation alone.

What’s the primary goal of tracking for you? You have a lot of good data but I don’t necessarily see you using it to make adjustments.

3,800 does seem to be the maximum. Almost all my meals are home-cooked; and I gave up alcohol in the 1,200 calories a day bit of my diet as a way of meeting the target. That means my intake tends to be pretty consistent. Most of my holidays have been scuba, and food is never a big priority (grab a small, quick breakfast; grab a sandwich for lunch; then I'm on such low calories that the evening meal can be pretty big.)

My aim with tracking is to remain between 140 and 147 pounds. Since I'm generally in that range, I generally don't bother to change things. There was a period where I was at the top of the range, so I aimed at 2,200 for a few weeks; and another period where I was at the bottom so I aimed at 2,600 for a few weeks. Both of these worked, so were pretty short lived.

The other nutritional thing I track are protein (205 grams a day average over the period) and fibre (43 grams a day average). These are typically over my target, so I don't often take action.

Thursday
Climbing, 2 hours, Craggy.
I think this was a good session - nearly all the routes had been reset, so there was a lot of new stuff to try. One turned into a bit of a project. I inched my way up it, sending it on about the 10th go. I had completely different beta to everyone else, but my way was clearly best (as it eventually worked for me )

Saturday

I dived out of Brighton.
The first dive was the TR Thompson, a First World War wreck. It was 33 minutes at 31 metres.

The dive was very dark, possibly due to the miserable weather. (It was raining, with no break in the clouds.) The visibility was actually pretty good, at maybe 5 metres, although I needed my torch. .

The wreck was hard to see due to all the fish on it! (There were conger, wrasse, blennies, pollock, sea bass, and crab, as well as much more.)

The second dive was a gentle drift, 56 minutes at 12 metres. It was very nice, again with loads of life.

My surface air consumption rate was around 15 litres a minute, which is good, particularly as it is a new twin-set, and my drysuit properly flooded, so I was freezing at the end.

I also got a walk in, ending the day on over 20,000 steps.

Sunday

Climbing (Vauxwall East). Not a bad session, I got a few new routes and repeated a lot of old ones.

There is a tough v1 competition route I failed to get last time. I went backwards on it this time - there is a non-intuitive move at the start, and I completely forgot what it was, so always fell off on the second move. (I got to the final move last time.)

Tuesday
Climbing, Craggy.

Not a great session. I got two or three new routes, but failed to make any progress on my two main projects.

Wednesday
Leg day

I worked up to:
Squat, 80 kgs, 2 sets of 5 and 1 set of 10
Dealift, 100 kgs, 1 set of 10.

Diving weekend!

I spent Thursday packing - Friday promised a long drive and I wanted to be ready.

On Friday, I worked for about 5 hours (having booked the afternoon off), and set off at about 2 p.m. Traffic was terrible, so I got to camp site at about 9.30 p.m. Fortunately, there was still enough light to see what we were doing when we pitched the tent.

I only got 9,000 steps in, making the first day this year I've got fewer than 10,000.

Saturday went reasonably smoothly. We did a 26m wreck dive in the morning (although due to faff, I think we got in the water at about 1 p.m. missing slack water. It was neaps, so the current wasn't too bad - you could swim against it with a bit of effort.) Then we had a chilled reef dive in the afternoon. We saw a dogfish, loads of crab, wrasse, blennies, congers.

On Saturday evening, the boat trailer broke. The two doing the towing ended spending the night in the van where it broke down.

So Sunday was not effort-free: after breakfast, we packed the tents and cleaned up the site. We drove to the van to pick up tanks and kit off the boat. I drove to Port Gaverne, where we dropped the stuff off, and then to the top of of the hill about a mile away where the nearest non-full car park was. It turned out that some of the tanks were not full, so I went back up the hill to my car, back to the boat, and picked up more tanks. Then I went back to the port; dropped off the extra kit; back up the hill to park; and walked back down to get ready to dive,

The nice upshot of this faffing was that I had my 10,000 steps before the dive. I think I got into the water at about 1 p.m. The shore dive was lovely - we saw a cuttlefish, as well as the usual suspects. It was a 75 minute dive in the shallows.

Unusually, my drysuit was actually relatively dry for this dive.

I then drove home. Traffic, amazingly, was not too bad - it took about 5 hours, and I got home at about 11.30 p.m. There was then one last effort needed to move kit from car to my dining room (which serves as a kit store at the moment).

Boat launch!

Monday
Climbing, just under 2 hours, Craggy.

A mixed session. I session flashed two projects, but went backwards on the project I want to sent the most. After falling off it many, many times, I decided to relax with an "easy" climb.

As far as I can tell, it was mis-graded and was really hard. It starts off easily enough, with some slopers turning into mantles to get onto the penultimate sloper. This is at an angle, and is a poor hold, so the only way I could use was with my left leg on a nearby corner. This gets me in completely the wrong position to get the final hold (a sloper angled the other way). I grabbed it a few times, but fell to my doom each time.

Stats update:
Weight: 143 pound
Waist: 29 inches
BP: 101 over 59, so close to clinically low.
RHR: 48 (according to Fitbit).

Tuesday
I worked until 3.30 a.m. due to a slightly bonkers work deadline. I managed a 10 mile walk after dinner, so it wasn't a complete write off for exercise

Wednesday
I lifted over lunch, doing:
Overhead press, 35 kgs, 3 sets of 5
Bench, 2 sets of 5 and 1 of 10, 55 kgs

Thursday
My first work meeting was at 7.30 a.m.; I finished at around 8 p.m.. So I left it too late to go to a climbing gym. So I had a climb on my garden wall. It was my first time on it for ages. It was good fun, I managed an hour. (The woody is more intense than gyms, to long sessions are harder to achieve.) It took a while to get used to it, but once I was warmed up I was in OK form.

10 mile walk? Wat. Thats like 3 hours bro.

It was just under 3 hours, and around 20,000 steps. I estimated the distance, based on the step count - it was probably a bit less than 10 miles. (A friend asked if I fancied a walk at about 6. I agreed, and we got a bit carried away with the route.)

If I'd not done the walk, I would presumably have finished work at about midnight instead of at about 3. But I would have been going stir crazy, so it's swongs and roundabouts.

Saturday
I lifted, doing:
15 minutes jump rope a warm-up
Hangboarding
Squat, 3 sets of 5, 85 kgs
Deadlift, 2 sets of 7, 110 kgs.

2 hours climbing.
It was really good fun. I got quite a few hard routes.

There was one which may be intended to be a dyno, but I came up with a static route I was quite proud of. (You face outwards initially, kick a leg onto a corner, partially turn around, and this lets you get enough reach to do it statically.)

Thursday
A truly poor day for exercise. I worked until 3 p.m. (as I booked half the day off) then drove to Scotland. I arrived just before midnight, and almost immediately fell asleep.

This was for a scuba trip I was organising. 5 people dropped out at the last minute. This created a risk I would be out of pocket, but fortunately that risk did not matetialise.

Friday
There was a storm in the North Sea, which bought in tall waves so the diving looked ropey. This was fine for this day, as we were diving the Farnes, South of where we were staying, in England. This was sheltered.

One buddy pair had some seals on the first dive. I didn't see any, but got two lovely dives on reefs, about 20m deep. There were dead men's fingers, wrasse, blennies, crabs, a giant lobster and some nudibranch.

Saturday
The skipper in Scotland thought diving could be possible if we left early enough. It turned out not to be the case, so we went for a walk instead. I got 15 miles with a few hills in. Everyone joined me initially, but started to grumble after a few miles, and so all but one turned back.

Sunday
Diving.
We were blown out in Scotland, but managed to book the Farnes again. The dives were brilliant - I was assaulted by seals for most of both dives.

Monday
I drove home, which had good traffic so was only 7 hours.

I went for an evening climb. I was truly terrible, very out of form. 80 minutes.

Tuesday
Climbing, Craggy.

Another terrible session. I felt feverish when I got home, which could explain why I fell off the wall so much. I did a lateral flow test, which was negative, so it doesn't seem to be COVID.

I slept poorly, but feel a bit better now. So I will probably lift tonight, and maybe look at climbing again a bit later in the week.

My illness lasted a while. It had some Covid symptoms, but I was negative on a lateral flow test.

Yesterday was the nut low. I barely moved or ate anything. I didn't even drink any coffee, which is probably a first.

However, I felt fine this morning. I didn't want to overdo things risking the recovery, so I went for a short walk (around 7 miles).

Monday
I lifted. I started off trying to pistols. It's ages since I did any, and I have got worse - I didn't get proper depth.

I then did 3 sets of 10, pull-ups; 3 sets of 10 dips; and 3 sets of 10 hanging leg raises.

I then squatted, so 3 sets of 5 @ 80 kgs.

Finally, I deadlifted. I thought I did 1 set of 5@100kgs, but it actually turned out to be 120 kgs. No wonder it felt heavy.

Tuesday
I lifted, doing a 3 mile walk, some jump rope, and 3 sets of 5, dips as my slightly eccentric warm up.

I then over head pressed, doing 3 sets of 7 @ 30kgs.
I then benched, getting 3 sets of 5 @ 50 kgs.

If you’ll allow a small rant…

I can’t imagine doing the same number of sets and reps for pull ups, dips and leg raises is the most optimal. Surely those three exercises have different maximum reps for you and as such you’re likely not getting 1 or 2 of them anywhere near close enough to failure to make meaningful progress. It’s the issue with programs written this way. They miss out on a key function of strength or muscle growth, relative intensity.

But he can adjust the weight on any of those exercises so that he gets "close enough to failure" or to the correct RPE with 3x10.

For sure, that would be one of the simplest ways to get to an appropriate RPE.