I'm going to log my weight daily until I leave for my vacation on Saturday.

July 2nd:
bodyweight: 85,4kg

bike tour: 21km 1:16:03 16.6km/h
elevation gain: 40m
I thought I would do some extra acitivty on my rest day and as I had to buy some stuff at the bike shop I just thought I'd ride there and back again. So there is actually a 15 minute break in the middle. Especially the second half was just a very easy ride.
I'll try to do this once a week when I'm back from my holiday.

July 3rd:
bodyweight: 85,3kg

July 4th:
bodyweight: 86,3kg

As I had some personal issues yesterday, I didn't lift in the evening, but this morning.

OHP:
42,5kgx5
47,5kgx3
52,5kgx1
I didn't feel too well, but as it was my first set at 52,5kg I'm just happy I got it up at all.

squat:
100kgx5
112,5kgx3
125kgx1
Still felt pretty weak doing this, so I skipped any assistance workout. I'll see whether I'll go for a short run this evening.

short run: 6,5km 51:36 7:57min/km
avgHR: 144
This was in the evening after lifting in the morning, so my hips and already felt pretty tired right after starting. So I decided to cut this short.

July 5th:
bodyweight: 86,5kg

bench:
65kgx5
75kgx3
82,5kgx2
I had bad form and my butt didn't touch the bench, but considering this was my first attempt at this weight and that I only got two reps with 5kg less last week, I am happy with the result.

deadlift:
102,5kgx5
117,5kgx3
125kgx1
130kgx1
I forgot to put one of the 5kg plates on one side so deadlifted an unbalanced barbell. After that I immediately put the plate on and lifted the single @130. I guess if I hadn't messed up, I would have gotten a double or maybe a triple at this weight, but since this I've finally deadlifted >1,5 times my bodyweight, I am still happy about this.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll leave for a two week holiday in the Alps. I guess that means lots of hill runs and no lifting. When I come back I want to do 3xrunning, 3xlifting plan for a few weeks. Maybe I'll just go back to GSLP or try to use the vacation to read up on programming.

Congrats on the DL milestone!

Thank you! Setting PRs at the age of 41 really feels great.

July 6th:
bodyweight: 86,3kg

long run: 15km 2:02:00 8:08min/km
averageHR: 145 elevation gain: 45m
Had DOMS in my thighs from lifting before starting, so I did a slightly shorter long run.

July 8th:
hill run: 6km 48:41 8:07min/km
averageHR: 153 elevation gain: 95
I‘m on holiday in the Alps, so this is the flattest course I could find.
Since the hotel does not have a weight room, I‘ll do this before breakfast 4-5 times a week for the next two weeks. Maybe I‘ll do the middle loop, that contains most of the elevation, twice after a few times.

Forgot to log that I also did push-ups today:
20-20-15-15-16 =>86

July 10th:
push-ups: 20-20-16-16-19=>91

July 11th:
hill run: 6km 46:01 7:40min/km
avgHR:162
Was the same course like on the 8th (and 12th) but the watch said it was 95m of elevation one time - 107 and 101 for the others. So I‘ll just average this to around 100m. This time I ran the middle loop clockwise. Was counterclockwise on the 8th.

July 12th:
hill run: 6km 47:01 7:50min/km
avgHR:158 counterclockwise
This was after doing 10k+ steps around a medieval castle in the Alps. Forgot to do push-ups and have already had some wine and beer, so I‘ll do them tomorrow morning.

July 13th:
push-ups: 20-20-18-18-14=>90

July 14th:
hill run: 6km 46:31 7:45min/km
avgHR: 160 elevation gain: 100m (loop clockwise)

July 15th:
push-ups: 20-20-18-18-17=>93

July 16th:
hiked up a mountain today. Around 22km and 1100-1200m of elevation. I‘m pretty sure I won‘t go running tomorrow, but it was amazing. I hurt my hand a little, but I hope push-ups will be possible tomorrow.

View from the „Alpenhütte“

July 17th:
push-ups: 20-20-18-18-15=>91

July 18th:
hill run: 8km 1:04:56 8:07min/km
avgHR: 151 elevation gain: 107m
Added an easier part at the beginning.

July 19th:
push-ups: 20-20-18-18-21=>97

.

July 20th:
hill run: 8km 1: 05:34 8:12min/km
avgHR: 155 elevation gain: 123m

July 22nd:
back from my holiday and not happy with my first
bodyweight: 90,2kg (+3,9kg)
That's a little more than I had hoped for. I do realize a lot of it should be water, but still I will log my weight daily until the end of the month, to keep myself accoutable.

push-ups: 20,20,20,20,16=>96

long run: 90 minutes 11,16km 8:04min/km
avgHR: 148

It was just too hot to do more.


I've thought a lot about my weightlifting programming and did some research and reading. I have dedided to increase the volume and decrease intensity. The barbell medicine programs seem too complicated to me, even thought the advice they give seem to make a lot of sense.
So I found this program: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01G195QU2/...ng=UTF8&btkr=1
which is geared towards people who doe lots of aerobic workouts for their job and still want to increase their strenght by lifting. I do realize that I am nowhere near what a firefighter or SWAT-team member would do, but the principle seems to be the same. There program is also pretty flexible, offering 2/3 and 4-day-splits. I'll do one block of three-day split with squat/press/deadlift and keep the push-ups as a bench subsitute and see how that goes.


push-ups:

Reminds me to bring the scale when going on vacation in a couple of days.

I choose to try to control the weight even during vacation, wouldn't like to have big chunks to drop anymore. Have you (re)dropped 4 kilograms after a vacation earlier? Gl!

I'd rather not take the scale and enjoy the time on vacation. I've not regained and relost 4kg since January last year, but I don't think it will be that much of a problem. I guess my goal of 80kg by October is going to be a little difficult now, but if it's only 83kg or if I hit 80 by November I'll still be happy. And as you can see things are already looking a lot better today:

July 23rd:
bodyweight: 88,7kg (-1,5 since vacation)

Before I log the weightlifting I want to write a little more about the program. The "Operator" template of tactical barbell is a three day split with three exercises done every time. The original template contains weighted chin-ups which can be replaced by deadlifts once a week. As my elbow still hurts when doing chin-ups, I don't want to train them, so I'll just do one set of deadlifts every day.

The weight is based on % of 1RM. I took the 125kg and 130kg I did before my vacation as 1RM for squat/ deadlift. For the press I only did 52,5kg on5/3/1, but even though I couldn't get up a second rep, I had 6 reps @50kg two days before that, so I choose to base my calculations on 55kg. I'll do the program without tweaking it, but I'll log RPE to get used to that and maybe incorporate that into training management at a later point.

squat:
87,5kgx5x3 (@7,8,8)

press:
38,5kgx5x3 (@6,6,7)

deadlift:
92,5kgx5 @7 or 8

Are you able to do neutral grip pull-ups? In my experience, they are not nearly as irritating to my elbows as chin-ups.

I can do one or two. Chin-ups are the worst, pull-ups and neutral grips are okay for one or two and my elbow will only hurt a little. I'm just afraid that doing them as regular exercise will be too much. I've even asked my doctor about it and he said "Well if you only have problems doing pull-ups and nothing else, just don't do pull ups." Which kind of makes sense.
On vacation I went to a climbin/ tree-adventure park with my daughter and had to do some pull-up like movements which went surprisingly well. So maybe I'll try to do some more of them in a few weeks. Right now I'm ramping up my training in general after the vacation and don't think it's a good point for doing that. I'll most likely do frequency neutral-grip pull-ups as I have a pull-up bar in the hall next to my bedroom.

July 24th:
easy run: 7km 54:29 7:47min/km
avgHR: 152
This was supposed to be an easy run, but as the temperatures were already around 29C(84F) when I started (10am), I wasn't able to keep my heartrate down and also skipped the last kilometer.
I will set my alarm for the Thursday run, even though I am still on holiday.

push-ups:20-20-20-20-18=>98
When I reach 100 with five sets across, I'll do one workout where I'll just test my max for a single set and then try do get to 100 in four sets.

forgot to log:
bodyweight: 88,3kg (-1,9 since vacation)
So the waterweight seems to be off - now comes the real challenge.

July 25th:
bodyweight: 88,3kg (-1,9 since vacation)

squat:
87,5kgx5x3 (@7,7,maybe8)
On the descent I felt major DOMS-kind of pain on the insde of my thighs, but that mostly went away after the first rep. Wasn't sure about depth, but according to video it was fine.

press:
38,5kgx5x3 (@6,6,6)

deadlift:
92,5kgx5 @7

Because the inside of my thighs have a bad case of DOMS, which will most likely not get any better tomorrow, I definitely won't do the tempo run I had scheduled, but try an easy 8km run.

July 26th:
bodyweight: 88,4 (-1,8kg since vacation)

easy run: 8km 1:03:55 7:59min/km
avgHR: 146
even having started at 7:45am calling this an easy run is sort of a stretch.

push-ups: 20-20-20-20-18=>98

July 27th:
bodyweight: 87,9 (-2,3kg since vacation)
I spent the whole day travelling around and now that I am back it's too late to work out, so today is this week's rest day.