Seven days since the last entry? Already?
Well, that actually describes quite well the week I've had. Too many "yes" answers after the year-end at the office finally got a hold of me, and the work-calendar was topped up already on monday. Thus the amount of unopened e-mails grew steady even if I did my best to handle them swiftly. Mother- and father-in-law paid a week-long visit to us, which did not add the available free-time at home, and some endurance training was also scheduled. I can tell that altogether this was a pretty challenging and exhausting week :)
The positive point in having my wife's parents visit us meant that we didn't have to flip coin with my wife for which one of us got the odd hours and which the nice hours for training sessions. As long as we kept the fridge and kitchen cabinets uploaded, we could pretty much do what we wanted, as the grandparents were apparently much more enjoyable company to our little-one than mommy or daddy.
To get all the designated hours to happen, I had some experimental combinations with training sessions. The need for this was originally caused by a monday evening with too much of snow-plowing to have time for the evening run, so I had to squeeze it to the following days, and thus also change the original structure of the trainig week. So, on Tuesday I had my first ever blo... ...ck. Meaning an one-hour spinning session in the morning, a full day at work, and a 8 km run as soon as I got home from work. Ok, most of you probably think that's not a real block-exercise, and I admit that I'm stretching the term a bit, but that's why it's called blo... ...ck. And it was a first weekday ever that I've spinned and ran on the same day. Had no problems falling asleep that evening :D
Wednesday was normal with a morning swim and an evening 12 km run, but then I noticed that if I wanted to have an easier friday to give my body some time for recovery before the Saturdays longer session, I had to do anothe blo... ...ck on Thursday. And this would have to have a 12 km run as otherwise the hours would not be filled. Said and done, and probably as a consequence from this, Thursday evening saw me going to bed already on 9:20 pm. At this point my father-in-law decided to ask if I was punishing myself for something really serious or just simply insane. I remember being very tired and murmuring something about the next summer and the nationals... To which he said that I was too old anyway so why bother, after which I decided not to share my thoughts with him and left for upstairs to get some sleep in.
Friday had a normal morning-swim with no other training scheduled for the evening, so we could actually spend some time with the in-laws also. I think they thought that I had had second thoughts about the training and all after the last evening conversations, and changed my plans. How wrong they were ;)
On saturday, in-laws on their home-journey, I decided to do a real block-exercise. But as the temperature was about -3 celsius outside, I thought it would be insane to first spin for an hour, and then, all sweatty, go outdoors for a run. So I interchanged their places, and had the run first (12 km/ 56 minutes) and a transition at home, and a spin for an hour. So actually, I did a kcolb-exercise :D
As a summary of the training-week, the experiments with the block variations were interesting, and the results quite positive. I noticed I'm able to do two excercises per day (also other than swim & something), and that I can recover from them to be able to still train normally the rest of the week. Promising beginning, especially as the future weekly training-hours will require some artistic approach to get the fit the already tight schedule.
Train smart everyone, and also if the odds seem to be against you, be bold and creative, You'll make it happen somehow :)
Sunday 15 March 2009
Sunday 8 March 2009
Sunday evenings random babblings
What a wierd day. Got up at 4 am to go to work for 2 1/2 hours. Yes, sometimes these are the working-hours when your day-job involves big databases and IT in general. Got back home a little after 8 am with the Led Zeppelin -effect (dazed and confused), chased the whole family out for a bite of the fresh air and thought that I myself would get some sleep in. Somewhere in-between the door and the bed I got sidelined by a misplaced... ...well, can't even remember what it was now, and after 2 hours found myself having cleaned the house from top to bottom...
It's funny how getting up in the middle of the night misplaces you from the ordinary world. Even if I got some day-sleep with my daughter after the cleaning-episode, the whole day felt like living partially in a bubble and partially outside my own body. Gladly, it was the rest-day of this week, so I took it quite easy (the cleaning doesn't count as an exercise, does it?).
So, next week is going to be the beginning of base II -period. I've actually started to like very much the morning swims I was forced to start as I would not otherwise have been able to do adequate amount of the swim training. Get up at 5:25 am, do some sun-salutations to get warm and some long back-bends to wake me up for the swim, grab something to eat and go for the swim-session to the local swimming-centre. A bit early, I first thought, but when you get used to it, it's really one of the nicest ways to start a day.
On another note, I noticed today that the spring is really coming. The sun is starting to warm things up during the days, even so that the temperature gets well over 0 centigrades. That has also caused me to pay visits to my dear bike in the shed, and starting to get her ready for her first crispy rides when the roads melt enough. The first ride after the long winter is always special, somehow everything seems so refreshing out there after the months of spinning in front of the TV.
The Saturday's long run I mentioned earlier was quite an experience in more than one way(ok, I talked about test-run, but changed it to a 20 km run because... ...well BECAUSE!!! :D). The first kms were like flying, then I got some really serious stomach-troubles (no idea where that came from), and had to give an odd visit to a gas-station, continued to fly for about 6 or 7 kms and then my legs fell off. Ok, I did feel a bit wierd during the run because of the problems mentioned earlier, and thats why I took the gel waaaay too late, so I had some major power-problems in the final kms. But I did it anyway, and the final average min/km was not so bad (~4:50). The thing that made me proud afterwards was that I continued the run even if I had to visit the gas-station. And that it finally turned out to be a quite good session for endurance.
Ok, that's it, have to go to bed to get some sleep before the mentioned morning swim. See Ya!!
It's funny how getting up in the middle of the night misplaces you from the ordinary world. Even if I got some day-sleep with my daughter after the cleaning-episode, the whole day felt like living partially in a bubble and partially outside my own body. Gladly, it was the rest-day of this week, so I took it quite easy (the cleaning doesn't count as an exercise, does it?).
So, next week is going to be the beginning of base II -period. I've actually started to like very much the morning swims I was forced to start as I would not otherwise have been able to do adequate amount of the swim training. Get up at 5:25 am, do some sun-salutations to get warm and some long back-bends to wake me up for the swim, grab something to eat and go for the swim-session to the local swimming-centre. A bit early, I first thought, but when you get used to it, it's really one of the nicest ways to start a day.
On another note, I noticed today that the spring is really coming. The sun is starting to warm things up during the days, even so that the temperature gets well over 0 centigrades. That has also caused me to pay visits to my dear bike in the shed, and starting to get her ready for her first crispy rides when the roads melt enough. The first ride after the long winter is always special, somehow everything seems so refreshing out there after the months of spinning in front of the TV.
The Saturday's long run I mentioned earlier was quite an experience in more than one way(ok, I talked about test-run, but changed it to a 20 km run because... ...well BECAUSE!!! :D). The first kms were like flying, then I got some really serious stomach-troubles (no idea where that came from), and had to give an odd visit to a gas-station, continued to fly for about 6 or 7 kms and then my legs fell off. Ok, I did feel a bit wierd during the run because of the problems mentioned earlier, and thats why I took the gel waaaay too late, so I had some major power-problems in the final kms. But I did it anyway, and the final average min/km was not so bad (~4:50). The thing that made me proud afterwards was that I continued the run even if I had to visit the gas-station. And that it finally turned out to be a quite good session for endurance.
Ok, that's it, have to go to bed to get some sleep before the mentioned morning swim. See Ya!!
Friday 6 March 2009
On recovery and it's side-effects
Pheew, it's finally starting to be the end of this week, workwise and trainingwise. On the work issue I won't start talking here (you'd get dead bored in no-time), but on the training I might continue a bit.
As previously mentioned, this week has been the first systematic R & R week on my training schedule. On monday, continuing to wednesday morning, I had some quite extraordinary post-effects from the previous 3-weeks' rising training efforts. These included 1) fall-to-sleep difficulties (nothing serious, but real deviation from the normal lie-your-head-on-the-pillow-and-go behaviour); 2) REAL tiredness, I didn't remember how tiring it is to do absolutely nothing (trainingwise) for a day or two and 3) mental weariness, meaning being tired with the whole life as it was (work, family, hobbies etc.). For the 2 1/2 days this was really worrying (... to my wife, once again, as I myself didn't actually notice it until it started to wear off).
On wednesday evening things finally started to turn, and I could sleep the night ok. Thursday morning included a deep discussion with my better half about nearly everything in the world (we have these avery now and then :)) and suddenly the anarchy in my body and mind was over. Thursday's evening-run went ok, and last night I slept like a baby :) I actually woke up refreshed 15 minutes before the alarm (set up for 5:25 am) and had a really nice slow warmup before the morning swim (the swim-centre opens at 6:15 am). I guess my body finally got onto the super -part of the super-compensation ;)
An eye-opener, no doubt about that! And a note for the future training periods: Even if you think you don't need the recovery-week, suck it up, it'll do you good!
Ok, so that was that. I'll probably get back here in a few days as the test-run is due tomorrow or sunday the latest...
Train well in between :D
As previously mentioned, this week has been the first systematic R & R week on my training schedule. On monday, continuing to wednesday morning, I had some quite extraordinary post-effects from the previous 3-weeks' rising training efforts. These included 1) fall-to-sleep difficulties (nothing serious, but real deviation from the normal lie-your-head-on-the-pillow-and-go behaviour); 2) REAL tiredness, I didn't remember how tiring it is to do absolutely nothing (trainingwise) for a day or two and 3) mental weariness, meaning being tired with the whole life as it was (work, family, hobbies etc.). For the 2 1/2 days this was really worrying (... to my wife, once again, as I myself didn't actually notice it until it started to wear off).
On wednesday evening things finally started to turn, and I could sleep the night ok. Thursday morning included a deep discussion with my better half about nearly everything in the world (we have these avery now and then :)) and suddenly the anarchy in my body and mind was over. Thursday's evening-run went ok, and last night I slept like a baby :) I actually woke up refreshed 15 minutes before the alarm (set up for 5:25 am) and had a really nice slow warmup before the morning swim (the swim-centre opens at 6:15 am). I guess my body finally got onto the super -part of the super-compensation ;)
An eye-opener, no doubt about that! And a note for the future training periods: Even if you think you don't need the recovery-week, suck it up, it'll do you good!
Ok, so that was that. I'll probably get back here in a few days as the test-run is due tomorrow or sunday the latest...
Train well in between :D
Monday 2 March 2009
The first Rest & Recovery week
This is the first evening of the first official recovery-week I'm having this season. The Fall's not-so-structured training (did what I wanted when I wanted ;)) turned into something that might resemble preparing-phase, which at some point started to bugger me off enough to force me into finally setting up the yearly training-plan. This has always been the process with me, I do not know why the planning part seems to be so hard every time, but it does. Actually, when I was on it, I made also a plans to my wife and my father, but they asked for them ;)
As I said, the first R & R -week after the first base-period has officially started, and I thought I'd be glad to get some rest. But no. Even if I took an easy swim this morning (and enjoyed every bit of it), my body and head are already asking for more... This is normal, I know, and I've experienced it multiple times before, but every time it surprises me how tough it is to rest. Boy am I going to be glad on saturday with the test-workouts giving me something to fight against :)
Oh yes and another thing. Tomorrow I'll be going to my first personal "mileage-check". When you turn 35 in Finland, you need to see a doctor who'll measure up everything about you. It's paid by the employer and is mandatory to every employee here. Do not get me wrong, I'm not complaining about it, I think it's good that we have these checks, but for me it also kind of tells that... ...that I'm getting old... ...no, OLDER.
Well, one more reason to train, to keep up the physical and mental condition :) And its getting me cranky as I'm not suuposed to eat 12 hours before the meeting. And I'm hungry already!!
So, we shall see how the R & R goes. If I train, I'll promise to keep it light. Or at least moderate. Or if it axidentally turns into hard, it will not last long... :)
As I said, the first R & R -week after the first base-period has officially started, and I thought I'd be glad to get some rest. But no. Even if I took an easy swim this morning (and enjoyed every bit of it), my body and head are already asking for more... This is normal, I know, and I've experienced it multiple times before, but every time it surprises me how tough it is to rest. Boy am I going to be glad on saturday with the test-workouts giving me something to fight against :)
Oh yes and another thing. Tomorrow I'll be going to my first personal "mileage-check". When you turn 35 in Finland, you need to see a doctor who'll measure up everything about you. It's paid by the employer and is mandatory to every employee here. Do not get me wrong, I'm not complaining about it, I think it's good that we have these checks, but for me it also kind of tells that... ...that I'm getting old... ...no, OLDER.
Well, one more reason to train, to keep up the physical and mental condition :) And its getting me cranky as I'm not suuposed to eat 12 hours before the meeting. And I'm hungry already!!
So, we shall see how the R & R goes. If I train, I'll promise to keep it light. Or at least moderate. Or if it axidentally turns into hard, it will not last long... :)
Saturday 28 February 2009
Always listen to your... (...body? No...) ...spouse!
Going on back to thursday evening, I was feeling pretty bad, and was actually wondering if I should cancel that evening's 1h run. On the previous post I mentioned something about being quite tired, and this had started to accumulate to a state where I was actually quite unhappy on my personal behaviour. The thing is that, when I get tired enough I get pretty moody (I've heard this happens to other people as well :o), and now I was getting really moody to the people I love the most (my family). As I pondered on going for the run or not, my wife said "go on and have the run, who knows, maybe it even cheers you up a bit".
So running I went. 2 cms (a bit less than 1 inch) of fresh snow on the roads and walk-ways, temperature a little below 0˚ Celsius, so very slippery. An boy, did I suffer on the first kilometres. My whole body was putting up an opinion on whether I should continue or not, and I think the weight was on the latter option. I kept running however.
And after 6 kilometres everything changed. Somebody clicked the "on" button in me, and some odd power- and mental-reserves kicked in. And I'm not talking about runners high (yes I know how it feels), this was something else, almost like the desperate mindset of the previous days was melting to something unknown, but positive. The running suddenly felt better, I don't mean I flied or anything, but it went notably better. The important thing, however, was the basic-mindset. Minutes before I was actually deciding not to wake up next morning on 5:25 to get to the swimming-centre, and now I was playing with a thought of extending the session a few minutes to fit in some more drills.
And the peculiar thing about the mindset was, and is, that it kept going also after the run. Next morning I would get up and do the swim-session, continue to have a quite good day at the office, and finally spend the rest of the evening driving 400 kms to my parent's house on the west-coast of Finland. I was and am tired, no doubt about that, but somehow I have got over it mentally.
And today, as I'm writing this on my dad's PC, I'm planning on going to the final 2h run with my brother (he'll take the bike ;)). And actually positively waiting for it.
So what to say as a conclusion? Always listen to your... (...body? No...) ...spouse? I guess that's it :)
I realised that she's probably been wathcing my endeavours with the trainings etc. so long, she's developed a seventh sence on understanding me and my body better than I am (I was told women already have a sixth sence but was not told what it was).
Maybe I should also consult her on my training and racing planning too!!
So running I went. 2 cms (a bit less than 1 inch) of fresh snow on the roads and walk-ways, temperature a little below 0˚ Celsius, so very slippery. An boy, did I suffer on the first kilometres. My whole body was putting up an opinion on whether I should continue or not, and I think the weight was on the latter option. I kept running however.
And after 6 kilometres everything changed. Somebody clicked the "on" button in me, and some odd power- and mental-reserves kicked in. And I'm not talking about runners high (yes I know how it feels), this was something else, almost like the desperate mindset of the previous days was melting to something unknown, but positive. The running suddenly felt better, I don't mean I flied or anything, but it went notably better. The important thing, however, was the basic-mindset. Minutes before I was actually deciding not to wake up next morning on 5:25 to get to the swimming-centre, and now I was playing with a thought of extending the session a few minutes to fit in some more drills.
And the peculiar thing about the mindset was, and is, that it kept going also after the run. Next morning I would get up and do the swim-session, continue to have a quite good day at the office, and finally spend the rest of the evening driving 400 kms to my parent's house on the west-coast of Finland. I was and am tired, no doubt about that, but somehow I have got over it mentally.
And today, as I'm writing this on my dad's PC, I'm planning on going to the final 2h run with my brother (he'll take the bike ;)). And actually positively waiting for it.
So what to say as a conclusion? Always listen to your... (...body? No...) ...spouse? I guess that's it :)
I realised that she's probably been wathcing my endeavours with the trainings etc. so long, she's developed a seventh sence on understanding me and my body better than I am (I was told women already have a sixth sence but was not told what it was).
Maybe I should also consult her on my training and racing planning too!!
Thursday 26 February 2009
Training feels ok... ...I suppose?
After spending the day-light time at the office (no difference to the situation from the previous weeks/months... :( ) , this week has been spent mostly on gathering the 12 training hours assigned to it by some maniac. If I'd be any more tired, I'd be asleep, that's for sure.
A bit of a background, so I'm on my second base period, last week before the "testing and recovery" -week, trying to balance between the normal human life and triathlon training graziness. 12 hours might not sound much, I bet the real tough guys get twice or even triple that much on the heaviest weeks of their training, but for me, it's plenty. Here's this weeks agenda:
Monday: 0:30 swim, 1:30 spinning (snow here at the moment),0:30 flexibility & strength
Tuesday: 1:00 run, 0:30 min flexibility & strength
Wednesday: 1:30 spinning, 0:30 flex & str.
Thursday: 0:30 swim, 1:00 run, 0:30 flex & str.
Friday: 0:30 swim, 0:30 flex & str. (was also 1:30 spinning, but we'll have to drive some 400 km:s to my parents in the evening, so I have to forget it)
Saturday: 2:00 run, 0:30 flex & str.
Sunday: REST, I hope. ...and 0:30 flex & str.
Going on thursday, I didn't expect to be this tired. Well, maybe the previous 2 weeks with 10h and 11h have also something to do with it.
However, the training itself is going ok. Basic endurance is the main target here, and I think I'm actually getting somewhere (even if the runs include having a dog and a 3-year-old in a stroller with me in the snow-paved roads). The swim is slowly delveloping to something that may even keep me afloat come summer, spinning is, well, boring (I do it at home in front of the TV), but it's already affected the "total income", e.g. the long runs seem to be getting easier and my running-pace has leveled up a bit.
The one thing that I actually do not understand is that the tiredness, weather or anything else have had no effect on the motivation. For some reason it seems to survive all the beating it gets... Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it does, it just, well, intrigues me(?) why it acts this way.
I guess I'll keep doing these things to myself as long the big M stays with me. Hopefully the time is measured in years rather than months...
(...or days... ...no, I didn't hear that!!!).
A bit of a background, so I'm on my second base period, last week before the "testing and recovery" -week, trying to balance between the normal human life and triathlon training graziness. 12 hours might not sound much, I bet the real tough guys get twice or even triple that much on the heaviest weeks of their training, but for me, it's plenty. Here's this weeks agenda:
Monday: 0:30 swim, 1:30 spinning (snow here at the moment),0:30 flexibility & strength
Tuesday: 1:00 run, 0:30 min flexibility & strength
Wednesday: 1:30 spinning, 0:30 flex & str.
Thursday: 0:30 swim, 1:00 run, 0:30 flex & str.
Friday: 0:30 swim, 0:30 flex & str. (was also 1:30 spinning, but we'll have to drive some 400 km:s to my parents in the evening, so I have to forget it)
Saturday: 2:00 run, 0:30 flex & str.
Sunday: REST, I hope. ...and 0:30 flex & str.
Going on thursday, I didn't expect to be this tired. Well, maybe the previous 2 weeks with 10h and 11h have also something to do with it.
However, the training itself is going ok. Basic endurance is the main target here, and I think I'm actually getting somewhere (even if the runs include having a dog and a 3-year-old in a stroller with me in the snow-paved roads). The swim is slowly delveloping to something that may even keep me afloat come summer, spinning is, well, boring (I do it at home in front of the TV), but it's already affected the "total income", e.g. the long runs seem to be getting easier and my running-pace has leveled up a bit.
The one thing that I actually do not understand is that the tiredness, weather or anything else have had no effect on the motivation. For some reason it seems to survive all the beating it gets... Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it does, it just, well, intrigues me(?) why it acts this way.
I guess I'll keep doing these things to myself as long the big M stays with me. Hopefully the time is measured in years rather than months...
(...or days... ...no, I didn't hear that!!!).
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