Now that school has started, the pace of my life is picking up and it's getting harder and harder to make the time for training. The body is still feeling good, but we'll see how my mind goes. I've been thinking about the mental game more because of my tactic of all training and no racing. I shall let you into my pondering in this post.
Okay, so what happened to me this week:
8 weeks left
Monday: 15 minute TKD demo + TKD Practice (1:45 total)
Tuesday: 15 mile run (7:08 pace - 1:46) + 1:30 lifting + ring pull-ups
Wednesday: TKD Practice (1:30)
Thursday: 1:56:08 at 7:20ish pace
Friday: lazy day (really: conference day)
7 weeks left
Saturday: Biking (4:07)
Sunday: Core Crazines Type 2 x12 (10/50)
Weight: Min 164.2, median 165
What Happened? That's a little bit different.
If you looked at my schedule and had that response, then you're paying attention. Congratulations. You have earned a gold star! For the less astute of you, this is what changed and... of course... drum roll please... why!
First of all, I increasd the mileage by 2 miles from a half marathon to 15 miles and a 1:38 long run to a 1:56 long run. As advertised last week, it's not really useful for WTM to be able to run at a pace less than 7 min/mile. I'm not reaching that pace in a wetsuit and if I try to run that pace, I'm just burning energy and being less efficient. That means that now that I can run a half marathon at less than 7 min/mile pace, I increased the distance by 2 miles and slowed the pace back down. That also gives me the opportunity to increase the distance more. If you could read through the lines before, I have been questioning my tactic of high intensity and less time/distance. At this point, I'm too deep to climb out so what's happening is happening.
You may have also noticed that it's been a while since I took a full day off. The day off was mostly (entirely) because I was at an all-day conference and was too tired when I got home to work out. I was going to do some core, but I just wanted to go to bed. The powers of alcohol also zapped my motivation.
You also see that I didn't do the full biking that I had been planning. After 4 hours, my legs were burning. I felt like I might be able to push out another 21-22 minute lap, but I wasn't sure how much benefit that would give my body. It was already taxed quite hard and my muscles were screaming. I pushed through it mentally, then gave in and said that pushing that much harder had more potential to cause injury and not let me recover for my next workout, so I allowed myself to give in.
I've also fallen behind on my weight loss. That's due to a few factors. Firstly, I've actually been doing really well... then I got a lot of free food this week from school starting, having that all day conference, then going to a concert with free (read: part of the ticket price) dessert buffet and then Korean thanksgiving (For the record, I'm an inverse twinkie: white on the outside and yellow on the inside). I don't consider that joke racist because my asian friends are the ones that tell me that. My significant other actually says that I'm more Korean than her sometimes, mostly because I eat food that she hates but is traditional Korean. But... I digress. All of those factors lead to some pretty huge weight spikes. But fear not! I come from the future (aka Tuesday) and can tell you that I'm almost back on track.
Those of you wondering what my plans for weight after WTM are. They were mostly determined today: I'm gaining some of the weight back. For TKD, I'm planning on staying a welter weight, which means that I need to fall in the 164-176 lbs (<80 kg) weight range. My plan for making that happen: Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house.
Training vs Racing
One of the major differences between Pak-man's training strategy, some of the other people training for WTM and my regimen is the lack of races that I'm doing. Let's ignore Taekwondo competitions because those are akin to sprinting instead of the long endurance that's needed for WTM. I've discussed why I am not racing at all a little before, but it's time for more depth.
Races are big things. They tax your body and require recovery, planning, money and also changing your training regimen so that you're ready for race day. What you get for that is a shiney new time for a distance and also the experience of pushing your body farther than it could go before, both mentally and physically. There's nothing like the mental push of a race that'll make you go just a little bit faster or run just a little bit longer. However, that all comes at a price.
Training is all about routine and slow building. Your body is great at dealing with small changes over time. It's great at adapting to the challenges that you give it, as long as you give it time to adapt. That means that you're most efficient in training your body if you make sure to give yourself enough rest, but also make sure that you're not killing yourself in every hard workout. There's got to be a progression and you should, mostly, stay within or close to your upper limit. You shouldn't really push yourself farther than you thought you could go more than once a week because... well... that's hard. Your body needs to respond and grow from that experience and the usual easy day that comes after it might not be sufficient.
So, that comes to my logic that I'm not running races to train for WTM. I'm just training. It allows me to build up my schedule according to what my body tells me and also doesn't expend energy in planning for accessory events or feeling the pressure to perform at them (then needing to recover for longer afterwards). Besides helping my pocketbook, I feel like by consistently building through training alone, my body will be as ready as it can be for the actual event. I'm doing a lot of stepping up that's all culminating in the actual event, so I almost feel like I won't be ready for the full blown 24 hours part until... well... race day.
There are many fallicies in this logic, some of which I recognize. One of them is that WTM is a physical challenge, sure, but the primary difficulty isn't the physical; it's all mental. With all of this training, I should be able to push myself for the entire 24 hours, if I can make the mental committment to do so. If I'm not racing, I'm not practicing that mental toughness as much as I could be. More recently, I've been taking advantage of stop lights and little breaks more than I feel like I should... is that bad or is that listening to my body? The only thing that'll truly be able to say if my technique works is if I actually perform well at WTM.
Until then, I'll just keep on truckin' and let WTM be my one shot and done. Depending on how it feels and lots of other surrounding factors, I may try something entirely different for WTM2013, if I do it at all. I know that one of the first things I would do differently for WTM2013 would be to start hardcore training at least 6 months in advance... but hind-sight is always 20-20.
Okay, so what happened to me this week:
8 weeks left
Monday: 15 minute TKD demo + TKD Practice (1:45 total)
Tuesday: 15 mile run (7:08 pace - 1:46) + 1:30 lifting + ring pull-ups
Wednesday: TKD Practice (1:30)
Thursday: 1:56:08 at 7:20ish pace
Friday: lazy day (really: conference day)
7 weeks left
Saturday: Biking (4:07)
Sunday: Core Crazines Type 2 x12 (10/50)
Weight: Min 164.2, median 165
What Happened? That's a little bit different.
If you looked at my schedule and had that response, then you're paying attention. Congratulations. You have earned a gold star! For the less astute of you, this is what changed and... of course... drum roll please... why!
First of all, I increasd the mileage by 2 miles from a half marathon to 15 miles and a 1:38 long run to a 1:56 long run. As advertised last week, it's not really useful for WTM to be able to run at a pace less than 7 min/mile. I'm not reaching that pace in a wetsuit and if I try to run that pace, I'm just burning energy and being less efficient. That means that now that I can run a half marathon at less than 7 min/mile pace, I increased the distance by 2 miles and slowed the pace back down. That also gives me the opportunity to increase the distance more. If you could read through the lines before, I have been questioning my tactic of high intensity and less time/distance. At this point, I'm too deep to climb out so what's happening is happening.
You may have also noticed that it's been a while since I took a full day off. The day off was mostly (entirely) because I was at an all-day conference and was too tired when I got home to work out. I was going to do some core, but I just wanted to go to bed. The powers of alcohol also zapped my motivation.
You also see that I didn't do the full biking that I had been planning. After 4 hours, my legs were burning. I felt like I might be able to push out another 21-22 minute lap, but I wasn't sure how much benefit that would give my body. It was already taxed quite hard and my muscles were screaming. I pushed through it mentally, then gave in and said that pushing that much harder had more potential to cause injury and not let me recover for my next workout, so I allowed myself to give in.
I've also fallen behind on my weight loss. That's due to a few factors. Firstly, I've actually been doing really well... then I got a lot of free food this week from school starting, having that all day conference, then going to a concert with free (read: part of the ticket price) dessert buffet and then Korean thanksgiving (For the record, I'm an inverse twinkie: white on the outside and yellow on the inside). I don't consider that joke racist because my asian friends are the ones that tell me that. My significant other actually says that I'm more Korean than her sometimes, mostly because I eat food that she hates but is traditional Korean. But... I digress. All of those factors lead to some pretty huge weight spikes. But fear not! I come from the future (aka Tuesday) and can tell you that I'm almost back on track.
Those of you wondering what my plans for weight after WTM are. They were mostly determined today: I'm gaining some of the weight back. For TKD, I'm planning on staying a welter weight, which means that I need to fall in the 164-176 lbs (<80 kg) weight range. My plan for making that happen: Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house.
Training vs Racing
One of the major differences between Pak-man's training strategy, some of the other people training for WTM and my regimen is the lack of races that I'm doing. Let's ignore Taekwondo competitions because those are akin to sprinting instead of the long endurance that's needed for WTM. I've discussed why I am not racing at all a little before, but it's time for more depth.
Races are big things. They tax your body and require recovery, planning, money and also changing your training regimen so that you're ready for race day. What you get for that is a shiney new time for a distance and also the experience of pushing your body farther than it could go before, both mentally and physically. There's nothing like the mental push of a race that'll make you go just a little bit faster or run just a little bit longer. However, that all comes at a price.
Training is all about routine and slow building. Your body is great at dealing with small changes over time. It's great at adapting to the challenges that you give it, as long as you give it time to adapt. That means that you're most efficient in training your body if you make sure to give yourself enough rest, but also make sure that you're not killing yourself in every hard workout. There's got to be a progression and you should, mostly, stay within or close to your upper limit. You shouldn't really push yourself farther than you thought you could go more than once a week because... well... that's hard. Your body needs to respond and grow from that experience and the usual easy day that comes after it might not be sufficient.
So, that comes to my logic that I'm not running races to train for WTM. I'm just training. It allows me to build up my schedule according to what my body tells me and also doesn't expend energy in planning for accessory events or feeling the pressure to perform at them (then needing to recover for longer afterwards). Besides helping my pocketbook, I feel like by consistently building through training alone, my body will be as ready as it can be for the actual event. I'm doing a lot of stepping up that's all culminating in the actual event, so I almost feel like I won't be ready for the full blown 24 hours part until... well... race day.
There are many fallicies in this logic, some of which I recognize. One of them is that WTM is a physical challenge, sure, but the primary difficulty isn't the physical; it's all mental. With all of this training, I should be able to push myself for the entire 24 hours, if I can make the mental committment to do so. If I'm not racing, I'm not practicing that mental toughness as much as I could be. More recently, I've been taking advantage of stop lights and little breaks more than I feel like I should... is that bad or is that listening to my body? The only thing that'll truly be able to say if my technique works is if I actually perform well at WTM.
Until then, I'll just keep on truckin' and let WTM be my one shot and done. Depending on how it feels and lots of other surrounding factors, I may try something entirely different for WTM2013, if I do it at all. I know that one of the first things I would do differently for WTM2013 would be to start hardcore training at least 6 months in advance... but hind-sight is always 20-20.
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