Tag: Cross Training

Monday: 40′ elliptical, a little strength training

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Back in the fitness center at the JW Marriott in Seoul.  I slept well, and a long time too, maybe 8 hours.  But I woke up sore and tired.  Looking back over the past week, I’m not too surprised.  My volume is a lot higher than normal.  I think it’s OK to push a bit past normal for these two weeks to try to get a little bit of supercompensation when I taper back for the HOCR.  I’ll be forced into a rest day when I travel back over Wednesday/Thursday.

Today, I thought it would be good to do a little strength work, especially for rowing related moves.  But I wanted to do a little aerobic work first.*  So, here is the plan

Plan:

  • 40′ elliptical (easy intervals)
  • Front Squats
  • seated rows

The work on the elliptical felt pretty damn hard, but my HR was pretty low.  I guess that is accumulated fatigue.

As for strength, I had no idea what to expect.  The fitness center was admirably equipped.  There was not one, but two, squat racks.  Not Smith machines, but actual squat racks.  So, I decided that doing some front squats would be a good idea.  Why Front Squats?  Well since I haven’t done any lifting for the longest time, I didn’t want to do back squats and be tempted to go too heavy and mess myself up.  By doing front squats, I was much more limited in what I could lift.

I warmed up with 12 reps of just the bar (20kg).  I was surprised that I was feeling it in my thighs just from the warm up set.  Then I loaded two 10kg plates and embarked on my first set.  I managed 8 reps with good form, but my thighs were complaining.  Wow!  I think I need to do some remedial strength work!  I did 2 more sets of 8 reps.

Then I went over to a cable pull station and got myself set up to be able to do seated rows.  I set it up so that I got tension with the bard over my toes, and I essentially did the body/arms part of the stroke with as much acceleration as I could.  I loaded the full stack (45kg) and managed 2 sets of 20 and 1 set of 15.

After that I thought about doing some more, but I was pretty torched, so I had a drik of water, and called it a day.

Tomorrow:  The fitness center triathlon (again).

Sunday: Intervals, they’re good for the Seoul

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Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.

Check out what I saw in the hotel fitness center.  Yes, indeed, that is a mechanical horse.  In fact, I saw someone riding it.  This was not a wild bucking ride like the mechanical bulls in a bar, more like the little horsies you see in small arcades.  Imagine, they had two of these things, about 40 treadmills, 20 ellipitcals, countless stair steppers, free weights, weight machines…BUT NOT A SINGLE ROWER!  Arghhhhhh!  What the hell is wrong with these people!

Sorry, back to the workout.

Plan:

  • 5 minute warmup
  • On the treadmill
  • 14 x 500m at 5:30/km and 2.5% grade
  • 1′ rest at 8’/km and 2.5% grade

At first I thought I might have made things too easy.  By the end I was pretty sure I hadn’t.  It was a struggle to get through the last few reps.  The HR monitor was problematic today.  It kept sliding down and was getting some bad readings at the beginning, and dropouts at other times.

Tomorrow:  40′ endurance plus strength.  I have all these weights here, I might as well use them.

 

Saturday: Fitness Center Drudgery

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Well, it’s Saturday morning now.  I’ve been on the road for 5 full days and I am getting tired of it.  Yesterday was another day of customer and internal meetings and I finished off with a dinner with the guy who is responsible for sales in this region.  After that, it was back to my hotel to join a couple of conference calls.  This lasted until after 2AM.

I slept from around 3 to around 7, and then headed down the the gym.  On tap for today, another fitness center triathlon.  Today, I was determined to keep it nice and easy so that I would have no excuses in another threshold session tomorrow.

Plan:

  • 30 minutes inclined march (15% grade, 3mph)
  • 30 minutes bike (“foothills” program, level 14)
  • 30 minutes elliptical (“around the world” program, level 17)

I was working out a bit later and its pretty obvious that they turn off the AC at night because it was much cooler and dryer in the fitness center at 8am than it is at 5am.  This was reflected in much lower HR and RPE for all three chunks of the workout.

For example, both yesterday and today started with a 30′ inclined march at 15% grade and 3mph.  Yesterday, my HR at 30 minutes was 151bpm.  Today, 143 bpm.

This afternoon, I am heading to the airport for a shortish flight to Korea.  I hang out there on Sunday, and then have 3 days of internal and customer meetings before I fly out on Wednesday afternoon.  It can’t come soon enough.

Tomorrow:  I think a 20 x 2 minutes on/1 minute off interval session on the treadmill.

 

Friday: 3 x 30’Sweatfest

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I remain in Taiwan.  I’m in the city of Hsinchu, which was a pretty grimy place, but is rapidly changing into a pretty cosmopolitan, energtic place.  There is ton of public art in Taiwan, and many public buildings have sculptures outside.  The featured image is probably my favorite.  It’s a sculpture outside the Hsinchu cultural center.  To give you an idea of scale, the magnifying glass is probably about 6 feet in diameter.  You can walk right through it.

Plan:

  • 30′ Inclined march on the treadmill (15% grade, 3mph)
  • 30′ run (1% grade, 5.7mph)
  • 30′ Elliptical (“Cascades”, level 14)

That wasn’t too bad.  The time seemed to pass a bit faster today.  During the first 30 minutes I listened to the NPR Politics Podcast.  They were talking about the Vice Presidential Debate.  After that I listened to the Original Cast Album of the musical Hamilton, which was great.

My biggest issue was that my shorts got so heavy with sweat that they started falling down during my run.  I needed to hoist them up every minute or so to keep from losing the around my ankles.

My HR monitor seemed to be acting up.  Popping up to higher heart rates and then dropping back down.  In general, my HR seemed to be running a bit hot today, but in terms of RPE, the workout was solidly aerobic.  I think I will change the battery in the strap just in case that’s the problem.

Here’s a measure of the humidity.

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That’s the elliptical machine after finished using it.  And, yep, that is a genuine puddle in front of the pedal.  That is sweat that ran down my leg, through my sneaker and collected there in last 30 minutes of my workout.  I think that rates an “ewww!”

 

Thursday: 30′ Threshold Run

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Yesterday I went up to Taipei for a meeting.  One of the best developments in Taiwan was the construction of a High Speed Rail line from the north end of the island to the south along the west coast.  Most of the population of Taiwan is along the western coast, the east coast is rural and wild.  It used to be miserable to get from one city to another on the clogged highways, now it is a modern marvel.  We hopped on a train in Hsinchu and we were in Taipei in less than 30 minutes.  Fantastic!

I had a couple of other meetings in the afternoon, and then I begged off of dinner with the local team.  Since I had woken up before 4AM, I was tired, and frankly, I was also weary of being with people.  I needed a little time by myself to think and recharge.

I guess I was pretty tired because I fell asleep before 8 and woke up around 4AM.  I had time for a hella long workout if I wanted, but I decided to stick to my plan for a hard threshold session.

Plan:

  • 10′ warmup on the treadmill.  Gradually speeding up.  Last 2 minutes faster than target pace.
  • 30′ Threshold run on the treadmill.  2% incline, 10km/h
  • Adjust speed as necessary to push HR well into TR through second half of the run.
  • cool down

I actually kind of enjoyed that.  I cranked up my sprinting playlist on Spotify, and generally ran to the beat.  I held 10km/hr until I had 5 minutes left.  Then I sped up just a little bit, about 0.2km/h and held that until I had 2 minutes left.  OK, 500m left, time for a last push.  I pushed the speed up another 0.4km/h and finished strong.

Not to make excuses for myself, but just an acknowledgement of reality.  I know that my running speed is slow (damn slow).  I will never win a road race, nor do I aspire to.  I enjoy a run ever now and then, and it is a hell of good way to exercise.

Today, I have a full day of internal and customer meetings, and a big team dinner.  Tomorrow morning, I’m planning another fitness center triathlon.

3×30′ HR cap at 150.

 

Wednesday: 3 x 30′ Fitness Center Triathlon

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Still in Hsinchu.  Woke up at 4am (jetlag).  Gave up trying to sleep at 5am and headed to the gym.  (pictured above)

Plan:

  • 30′ ellipitcal (“around the world” hill profile, level 17…too easy)
  • 30′ stationary bike (“classic hill profile”, basically 1′ intervals, level 18)
  • 30′ treadmill (inclined walk, 3mph, incline 11 to 12%, keeping HR just below 150)

Well, that was pretty boring.

Tomorrow:  Threshold session on treadmill.  Probably interval format.

Tuesday: 40′ Inclined March in Hsinchu

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After flying from Boston to Tokyo, waiting around for a couple hours, then flying on to Taipei and taking a car from there to Hsinchu, I arrived at my hotel around 10pm.  Roughly 21 hours of travel time.  I slept about an hour on the first flight and maybe 2 hours on the second one.  I knew I needed a full nights sleep and I didn’t trust my body’s internal clock to let that happen, so I took an ambien and was out cold for 6 hours.

I set the alarm for 4:45 so that I could get a quick workout in before I needed to head to the office at 6:30.  I was in the hotel gym at 5am, and I figure I had time for a 40 minute workout.

I decided to keep it pretty tame, so I headed to a treadmill and set the incline to 15% and the pace to 3mph, basically a fast walk.  When I’ve done this workout in the past, I end up with a HR that rises steadily through the session, today was no exception.  I slowed to 2.8mph with 5 minutes to go, and then back up to 3.2 for the last 2 minutes.

It was humid in the gym and I was very sweaty when I finished.

Tomorrow:  I have more time tomorrow morning, so I think I will do a fitness center triathlon 3 x 30′ on different machines.

Friday: 100′ bike ride

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A nice ride along the ocean side of Cape Cod, plus and excursion around the kettle ponds in Wellfleet.  My phone died about halfway through.  It was probably about 80′ of low intensity and 20′ of high intensity dealing with the hills.

The featured image is a picture of the oysters and champagne we had after we got back from the adventure.

 

Monday: 40km Bike Ride

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Monday morning the tide was too low to launch.  I would have had to carry my boat across 500 meters of sand to get it in the water.  It was also windy (15-20mph with gusts t0 30 from the SW).  So I needed another plan.  I decided to give biking a try.

I have my old mountain bike down on the Cape.  I decided that navigating the sand and gravel roads on the island on a road bike with skinny tires and clip-in pedals was a bit much.  I might give it a try sometime, but for now, the old mountain bike is the pick.

This bike handled the sand and gravel without any trouble.  It’s 3.6km from my house to the major road.  1.3km is sand road.  The other 2.6 is paved.  The transition from sand to paved is right at the boundary between the island and a long causeway across the salt marsh.  There is a little bridge across a tidal channel, right where between the “e” and the “u” are in the word Lieutenant on the map below.  The approaches to this bridge actually are covered by the highest of high tides and cut off the island for a couple of hours.  When I went out biking it was much closed to low tide.

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Right across Route six is the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  A lovely, straight, flat bike trail along the path of railroad right of way.  It stretches for about 23 miles.  I got on at about mile 22, and I rode south 15 km.  I decided to just ride out 50 minutes and then turn around to go home for a total workout length of 100 minutes.

When I turned around, I realized that I had a work phone call to do at 11am, so I pushed the pace and cut off a few minutes.  It also actually got my heart rate up into some reasonable zone for training.

Very nice.  I think biking is a great alternative if the tides of wind are not favorable.