Monthly Recap: Training, Tips, Lessons & Stuff
I’m moving these monthly recaps back to the blog feed for now and have changed the content a bit from the e-mail only version. They will still get e-mailed out to subscribers as well. Enjoy and let me know if there is anything else you would like to see in them.
Monthly Training Summary
Cycling
Mileage – 361
Time – 22 hrs, 53 min
I got in a short period of what I would consider base training at the start of month, which you can find at the end of my last training report. I intended to go into another similiar base type of training block again, but switched gears and put a couple weeks of focus on my diet. More along the lines of cleaning it up I guess, but my cycling was fairly random during the last couple weeks. You can check out the nutrition section if your interested in my diet shennanigans.
Running
Mileage – 15.9 miles
Time – 2 hrs, 55 min
I’m still not running a lot of miles, relatively speaking for somebody who would like to run a half marathon this year. However, I did give a hard effort to a 5k one day and ran it under 21 minutes with a 6:44 pace, which is faster than I have run a 5k in over 20 years. So… I am making progress at least. More to come on this and maybe I will be able to get out on a trail during the month of April.
Strength
I mentioned in a previous recap (previous recaps were e-mail only), that I was doing most of my strength training randomly throughout the day vs in a dedicated session. I am again doing some of my workouts as stand alone workouts now between client appointments at the gym. Anyways, I am getting in 1 to 2 structured sessions per week and then some random work on another 1 or 2 days per week. I have some go-to exercises, but am always changing up the sequence and/or adding in some other excercises as I like to experiment.
One of my go-to superset exercises for the upper body is bench presses, immediately followed up with stabiliy ball push-ups (feet up on a stability ball). I find it to be a good combination of building some strength with endurance along with some upper body and core stability when done back to back. My upper body and core feels much more solid and stronger on the bike if I’ve been keeping up on these.
Nutrition
Disclaimer: I have no official training in nutrition, so take whatever I write about my nutrition as interesting stories or lessons learned. In no way shape or form is any of this meant to be advice for anybody. I like to experiement with many things and nutrition happens to be one of them.
I needed to clean up my diet and kind of reset and figured I better put some focus on it before all the cycling events kick off later this spring. I started off by going high fat and low carb. To the best of my knowledge, it was very ketogenic. At any rate, I went all in and then after about 1 week, I started pulling more carbs back into the diet in the form of complex carbs vs simple sugars. This no doubt effected being able to get in any type of high intensity workout. I actually tried, but felt like I was tearing myself down.
I’ve gone fairly long periods in the past on very low carb diets and can get extremely lean and feel pretty good. The downside has been that I always seem to crash hard about 2 hours into a race or ride that has any high intensity, even after dumping down gels or any type of sugar. It just always seemed like my body didn’t know what to do with them. I know there is a lot of fuss around ketogenic diets and endurance racing, but I’m yet to do any race, even the ones that last 12 hours that don’t require some high intensity sugar burning efforts throughout the race.
Anyways, my intention was not to go back to the fat burning thing, but rather use it as a reset to dumping all the crappy carbs out of my diet and easing back in with more healthy foods. In the end, I will still go back to somewhat of a low carb diet, but need to plan my carb intake better around my workouts and learn more about loading appropriately for races.
Upcoming Events
Apirl 1, 2017: Group Cycling Instructor Certification Class
I feel pretty confident in my ability to put together the actual workouts, but I am interested in learning more about putting together the overall class in general and think this might be helpful.
April 15, 2017: THK Road Race
Yes, I am going to try some road racing again. I got dropped hard on the climb at this race 2 years ago and got spit right out the back of the pack mid way through the race. Hopefully, I can redeem myself this year.
April 22, 2017: Ken Woods Memorial Road Race
This is another one that I did 2 years ago and hung in there with the lead pack until the final climb and then got dropped bad. Again, hopefully I can redeem or at least learn a little more about road racing.
May 6, 2017: Minnesota Mountain Bike Series St. Crois Woolly 4 Hour Race
I may actually race in quite a few of the series races this year. I think it will be great for improving my singletrack skills and trail endurance.
New Articles This Month
Lots of workout reports in here if you are looking for workout ideas.
New Services Added
I started accepting appointments at the St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin Snap Fitness.
Most Popular Article(s) This Month
Apparantly there is some interest in the Marji Gesick 100. I am obviously bias toward my own reports… but if you are interested in this race, then I highly recommend reading my report. I share a lot of details about the race if you take the time to read the entire report.
Fat Bike racing was wrapping up, so the Polar Roll report was still popular. It was a fairly fresh post as well.
On To Next Month…
I’m ready to get on some trails!