October 6th 2016
The Day’s Game Plan:
Up at 4am.
Thursday is Long Swim Day. it starts with a 45 minute light run, after which I hustle home, grab my workout bag and head to the gym. The goal here was to log 2000 yards in the pool, and then hit the weights.
I’m guessing that I’m already going to be achy by the evening, but the goal one again is to amp up my metabolism by doing a workout at home that primarily focuses on core strength. Again, I’m hoping that by amping up my metabolism right before bed, my body will burn more calories that it normally does while I sleep. I’m scheduled to weigh myself on Sunday after my long workout, so we’ll see this this slight adjustment makes any dent in my number.
Nutrition-wise, I’ll once again bring lunch to the office. I’m going protein heavy in the morning with some hard boiled eggs and a shake, but this time I am lowering the calorie total a little. Let’s see how long I can hold out during the day before a crave a damn Three Musketeers bar.
The Outcome
Well the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Playoff baseball got the best of me – a great pitching duel and a 3 run homer in the 9th send the Giants into the division series and send the Mets to the golf course. As a result, I didn’t get enough sleep and woke up too late to swim. So I went to plan B: get home on time this evening and work out heavy to make up for the miss.
Started off the day solid nutrition-wise, having a protein shake and 3 hard boiled eggs for breakfast. It got me through most of the morning…until I cheated and had a small chocolate muffin for absolutely no good reason whatsoever. This is the kind od nonsense that has to stop, and I’ll need to experiment with methods of re-training myself to crave better snacks in the future.
I hit the gym by 6pm, and absolutely CRUSHED 2,000 yards in 45 minutes. I’m going to be sore tonight – swimming at a race pace (I need to be able to cover about 1,100 yards in 26-27 minutes or less by Ironman time) really works muscles that I didn’t know I even had.
I then made the judgement call of hitting the weights for about 30 minutes. Nothing heavy – just a basic full body workout with weight is was manageable (not trying to bench press a Buick). Since few people have asked about strength training, I added a page on this blog that outlines my usual strength training plan. It’s nothing fancy – just basic stuff.
I felt good, so I decided to punish myself a bit my forcing myself to hit the dreadmill for 30 minutes. I figured that I could use the time on the dreadmill to force myself to maintain a pace that sped up every minute I was on there. So I set the thing to start at an 11:30 pace, and then made myself run just a hair faster every 60 seconds. I was sprinting by the end, unable to control my breathing. My lungs got away from me, which almost resulted in me heaving all over my shoes. Five minutes later…I felt awesome.
Lessons Learned
- Sleep is key. Either stick to my sleep plan by hitting the sack by 9:30, or budget in an evening workout. Don’t wait until morning, when I find myself sleeping through my alarm.
- I didn’t take in enough calories yesterday. As a result, I didn’t sleep well and I woke up hungry. Although the protein filled me up before I left home, the calorie debt made that chocolate muffin extremely tempting.
Today’s Nugget(s)
On this day in 1783, Benjamin Hanks patents the self-winding clock.
On this day in 1882, the first World Series game was played. (Cincinnati beat Chicago, 4-0).
Sleep 😴 is favourite part of my training plan !
Seriously if I don’t get 8 hours sleep my training suffers
same here!