Citius, Altius, Fortius

hunnymonster

So hear goes, the diary of an endurance athlete. Hopefully this will help me stick with the changes I've been making rather than fall back into bad habits when life gets busy.

First of all a big huge massive (you get the picture) to everyone on here who has offered advice so far. In particular g'em who is the first boardsie I've met and who has just spent over an hour in the gym with me showing me the basics. Besides being grateful that anyone would give up their time. She was amazing to watch. I've seen people do exercises before but when g'em said "this exercise works muscles x,y and z" I could actually see the muscles mentioned move/engage rather than just the piece of equipment.


So the aims are to drop a lot of fat and build endurance strength. I have until November to do it. The other thing I need to do is improve my swimming. Strengthening up should start this automatically and help me keep proper technique for longer.

In the shorter term the connemara ultra marathon on 1st april is the next race. I've been struggling with a hip problem for the last month or so. It's limiting my range of motion in my left leg. I think it is just soft tissue damage but getting an mri next week before I make a final decision on if I should race or just enjoy connemara.

hunnymonster

This morning was another 20 km run. I'm not timing runs at the moment as time on my feet is probably the most important right now. The 10-15 mile runs are the back bone of my training at the moment with 2 long runs added every week. All aerobic zone HR this morning and hip felt fine. I took an anti-inflamm before and iced it after which has really helped. Had porridge with milk as soon as I had finished ay 9:15

home-made seed bread with chicken fillet for lunch at 12:30. I miss ketchup so I've been making my own varient from passatta and adding salt and basil and stuff. It's not quite the same but takes away the blandness of a dry sandwich. I must find out how long a home made mayo would last. I remember making it as a kid and it was just oil and egg.

2pm and a very nervous hunnymonster met g'em in the tcd gym. As I said above she was really great and I'm happy enough to go try the squats and lunges now that I know what I should be doing and not just what I see random people do. The pull-ups and dips were really hard but somehow there is more satisfaction in doing something hard than the ones that come easy.

I might run hom this evening (it's a 10 mile trip) depending on how late I work. <EDIT: Finished work already so run it is>


Now... food....

Dragan

Fair play and welcome to the journals!!!

BTW , running as much as you do in one day, for fun is.....well, scary!:D

g'em

It was my absolute pleasure to help!! And believe me, hearing about some of your acheivements was humbling and awe inspiring. I'm hugely excited to see how your training comes along over the coming months.

boardsies, when this woman says she's an endurance athlete you don't know the half of it!! This girl has some major chutzpah I'll get that PM to you asap with a list of all the exercises we did and some links to provide you with plenty of reading material over the long weekend!

Odysseus

Nice one hunnymonster, its good to have another ultra runner keeping a log here, though you will proably put me to shame. Good luck with the mri, hopefully you will be able to run connemara.

hunnymonster

Thanks. I don't think I'll put anyone to shame. I can be very lax about structured training sometimes.

As for Connemara. I have no doubt I'll be able to get around. I'm in two minds as to if I should race it for a good time and risk longer term damage or just pace myself moderately. I have a friend who has run it in 5:32. Another guy* did it in 5:58 and I should certainly be able to beat 5:58 if not 5:32 but a comfortable race will take me 6:30 I imagine with the hill at the end. I'll do 20 miles at some stage this weekend and a marathon mid week but then take it right down on the running front to make sure everything is rested. I must have a look back to see what the women's results are like for the last couple of years.







*I think this is why g'em said I have chatzpah. The same guy gave me a wetsuit about 18 months ago. I couldn't swim but he threw me into Lough Neagh and said he would see me 1500m later. I think he may still have a small scar. never underestimate the damage a woman's nails can do

hunnymonster

12 miles this morning. I could feel something that I did with g'em yesterday in my legs. I think it could have been the walking lunges. I'm taking it easy for the rest of the day with the intention of 20 miles tomorrow.

g'em

sorry, I should have warned you about lune DOMS!! You'll probably feel it deep in your glutes, and if it feels sore to get up from the seated position that's entirely normal. Plenty of stretching should help to ease it out and the run this morning will have increased blood flow to the site aiding recovery.

Make sure you get those carbs + protein in soon after your strength workouts to make recovery as quick and painless as possible.

hunnymonster

23 miles yesterday. I did it on a treadmill as I didn't fancy getting caught in a snow-shower early on and running wet for a couple of hours. I'm much too much a softie for that. It was a bad day food-wise. I met friends and was lead astray by lunch including chocolate cake. I actually beat myself up about it for a couple of hours and then gave myself a good talking to, deciding there was nothing I can do about it at this stage and onwards and upwards kind of thing.


Today was a scheduled rest day. It was actually the first day since the onset of the g'em effect (DOMS to the rest of the world) that legs felt completely normal. I did an hour on the turbo just to stay loose but nothing else.

g'em

hunnymonster wrote:

23 miles yesterday.

:eek:

hunnymonster wrote:

It was a bad day food-wise. I met friends and was lead astray by lunch including chocolate cake. I actually beat myself up about it for a couple of hours and then gave myself a good talking to, deciding there was nothing I can do about it at this stage and onwards and upwards kind of thing.

this happens to the best of us, trust me. Don't forget though that there's plenty of room for treat foods in even the strictest of diets, you just eat them at the right time. It all comes down to the 90% rule - eat well 9 times out of ten and that other time you can knock yourself out with chocolate cake or pizza or anything else your tastebuds crave. It'll give both your brain and your metabolism a break and you'll be more likely to stick to your clean foods at other times.

Seriously, unless I'm on a super-strict diet I find it hard to eat well all the time too, but I've just got into the habit of making the slip ups less of an impact. When I crave sweetstuff I eat fruit, if I *have* to eat chocoalte cake with friends I try to split it etc. etc.

Besides, with all the cardio you do the extra calories will become negligible. Right now you need to start thinking about food not just as stuff that tastes good, but as stuff that will act as a performance aid. Remember I said that it was important to think about all the weights you were doing as being 'functional', that is do exercises that will be of benefit to you. Well, maybe thinking about food in the same way can help? Think about what you're eating - will it be of benefit to your training? If so, eat and enjoy. If not, meh, is it worth it?

hunnymonster

Have you ever seen a really cocky toddler, who runs away from his parents & pretends he is ultra-confident. Then realises he has lost sight of mum and dad and completely falls apart... That was a bit like me in the gym this morning. My first day of weights work and no g'em to tell me I was doing it right. I think I did ok but have a load of questions.

- When giving weights, do I add the weight of the bar or just the disks on the end. Also do I give both ends or just the total.

- Should I continue when muscles are burning if I can. For the squats and lunges today, my quads were on fire but I was well able to do the movement with proper form.

- I need an alternative to the pull-ups and maybe the dips as westwood doesn't have the nice (pansy) machine that TCD has

-whoo-hoo - I can actually do a couple of press-ups.... but only a couple, should I continue to build the real press-ups although I've only small amounts now or am I better doing more reps of the half-press version?

-Does order matter?

Right what I actually did (and how it felt)
squats: bar + 5kgs on each end 12 reps x 3 sets - fine except the burning, could easily manage more weight
press-ups 4 + 3 + 2 - very hard work, very tempting to arch my back to get more out.
lunges (8kgs in each hand) 12 steps x 3 - again, easy except the burn
seated military press (10 kgs in each hand) 12 reps x 3 sets. I think the weight was about right. Felt tired at the end.
dips - 2 reps x 3 sets. This was very hard. I didn't get down as far as I would have liked.
pull-ups - couldn't manage these at all.
calf raises - bar with 10kgs on each end. 3 sets of 12. again these were easy
latt pull-down 36 kgs and 3 sets of 10. This was about right. was struggling to not let momentum take over towards the end.


4 mile run at the end just to loosen the legs out. Whole thing took 1 hr 45 min incl run of half an hour. Some of this was writing everything down and general flaffing about.

g'em

hunnymonster wrote:

- When giving weights, do I add the weight of the bar or just the disks on the end. Also do I give both ends or just the total.

Add the end weights together and add 20kg if it's a standard bar being used. So for example today you did 30kg squats.

hunnymonster wrote:

- Should I continue when muscles are burning if I can. For the squats and lunges today, my quads were on fire but I was well able to do the movement with proper form.

Keep going. All that's happening is that your muscles are being pushed to fatigue and the lactic acid is building up. As long as you're keeping good form, suck up the pain

hunnymonster wrote:

- I need an alternative to the pull-ups and maybe the dips as westwood doesn't have the nice (pansy) machine that TCD has

the rack chins as shown by jsb are good, or you can do half-dips off a bench (this example is weighted but bw will suffice for you).

hunnymonster wrote:

-whoo-hoo - I can actually do a couple of press-ups.... but only a couple, should I continue to build the real press-ups although I've only small amounts now or am I better doing more reps of the half-press version?

Good woman yourself!! I'd say start the set with full ones and when you can't do any more finish the set of 12 with knee push-ups.

hunnymonster wrote:

-Does order matter?

Yes. You want to do compound movements first while your body is fresh and then finish up with the isolation work. The order you've done them is fine, but bring the pull-ups and pull-downs (both of which are compound back movements) earlier up the program.

Well done on doing the workout!!! Honestly, with a bit of time you won't need to do nearly as much faffing and you'll be able to swiftly move from one exercise to the next. Give it a few weeks and I'll be dying to hear about the cross-over to your swimming/ cycle.

hunnymonster

Thanks a million g'em.

I had a quick swim last night. 1.5 km of drills. The pool was too full but it was nice to unwind. My pull on 50 m sprints is finally starting to work.

28 miles running this morning. I'm glad I did manage to get over marathon distance in my 6 week ultra training plan for confidence if nothing else! Not ideal but I'll worry about that the 1st April. Legs felt fine but biceps were a bit tired. Luckily I use mostly my legs to run :-)

Odysseus

Good stuff, your certainly getting the miles in. I know what you mean about confidence. The Sahara knocked the sh*te out me and I'm well use to that distance, so I was feeling a tad insecure about the ultra,but the long run last Saturday build me up a bit. Are you on a wind down now or will you do another one or two long runs?

hunnymonster

I'll probably leave it at that with just 15 and a 10 miler next week to keep everything loose. This weekend I'm off to the lake district cycling and swimming and I'll do a couple of long cycles next week.

hunnymonster

54 km cycle for me this morning. I'm working late tonight so that will probably be all today.

hunnymonster

Friday AM: I had very limted time this morning so 4 km run followed by
sqauats: 40 kgs x 12 reps x 3 sets
deadlifts 50 kgs x 5 reps x 3 sets
lattt pull down 36 kgs x 10 reps x 3 sets
seated milatary press 10+10 kgs x 12 reps x 2 sets
calf raises 50 kgs x 12 reps x 3 sets

friday PM (in the lake district) went out with some speedy friends for a 30 min run before dinner. They nearly killed me. We ran up and down a mountain with snow on the top, ran over streams, jumped walls and gates and my lungs wanted to explode from my chest but it was one of the most amazing runs of my life. In the end we covered 5 miles in 40 min but the pace was a killer on the terrain.

Saturday am: 14 mile road race in the lake district. nipped in just under 2 hours keeping a nice steady pace despite the killer hills on the course. Felt good despite delaying the connemara taper by another day

Saturday pm: Swim session with pro triathlon coach. I'm finally starting to get places with my swimming. I can't wait to start racing this year to see how much I've improved.

Sunday am: They said we were only going out for a 30 mile bike ride. What they forgot to tell me was we would inevidably get lost (we did several times) and that the lake district is very hilly. We did 45 miles in the end and over 2 1/2 miles of climbing. It was hard work after a couple of weeks of almost exclusively running and on a borrowed bike not set up for my dimensions, my quads really felt the burn. Again though the views were amazing.

Sunday pm: another swim session

Monday am: just a bit of hillw alking this morning. Only and hour and very gentle pace. The taper has really begun now.

hunnymonster

Taper madness has set in. For anyone who hasn't experienced that particular pleasure, when you quickly reduce your training hours in the lead up to a race you become a coiled spring and I usually end up practically bouncing off the walls.

Tuesday
I didn't have much time so just did the bits of my training that I like. Bold I know but....
I'm developing a nice set of blisters/callouses under my ring and middle fingers on both hands and in the dead lift the limiting factor is my grip on the bar. Is there anything I can do about it?

squats 45kg x 12 x 3
press-up body weight x 10 then 8 then 6 Major Whoo Hoo on this one!
military press 10.5x+10.5x8 then 7 then 5. My left arm actually "collapsed" on the last set. bizzare feeling!
dead-lift 55kg x5 then 3 then 2 - just can't get a good grip
dips - rater than fail after 2 on the high bars, someone told me to do them on the side of a bench with my feet on the ground. did 8 x 3. Feels a bit too easy so will look for another modification of this one.
latt pull down 38kg x 3 x 3. I forgot about this until the end so was already tired. I'll move it higher up the list next time.


Wednesday.
Just an hour swimming this morning. I had inteneded it as a time trial but I lost count. Probably only covered about 2 km.

Thursday
Lat Pull down 45 kg 6x3 - added another plate and did this first.
squats 50kg x 10 x 3 - I really like the squats.
press-ups bodyweight x10 x 3
lunges 8+8kg x 12 steps x 3
seated military press 10.5+10.5 kg x 8 x 3
dips - 8x3 - on the side of a bench as on tuesday but raised my legs a bit using a step and this made it feel a bit more like hard work
seated pull-up 4 then 3 then 3 - even with my legs supported this feels like hard work.
calf raises 60 kg x 12 x 3


My hip now appears to be behaving itself which is great.

aoa321

Hi hunnymonster,

I follow some of the logs here on and off. I run a bit myself so I like to take a look at your log. In your last entry you were talking about tapering, by complete coincidence I was reading an article yesterday about tapering, I think you might be interested in it, I certainly found it was food for thought ...

http://rachelcosgrove.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-on-tapering.html

It sounds like you had a lovely time in the lake district, I'd love to try fell running in England or mountain running here in Ireland sometime, it must be exhilarating to run in that landscape.

Good luck in Connemara,
aoa

Beelzebub

hunnymonster wrote:

Taper madness has set in. For anyone who hasn't experienced that particular pleasure, when you quickly reduce your training hours in the lead up to a race you become a coiled spring and I usually end up practically bouncing off the walls.

Tuesday
I didn't have much time so just did the bits of my training that I like. Bold I know but....
I'm developing a nice set of blisters/callouses under my ring and middle fingers on both hands and in the dead lift the limiting factor is my grip on the bar. Is there anything I can do about it?

squats 45kg x 12 x 3
press-up body weight x 10 then 8 then 6 Major Whoo Hoo on this one!
military press 10.5x+10.5x8 then 7 then 5. My left arm actually "collapsed" on the last set. bizzare feeling!
dead-lift 55kg x5 then 3 then 2 - just can't get a good grip
dips - rater than fail after 2 on the high bars, someone told me to do them on the side of a bench with my feet on the ground. did 8 x 3. Feels a bit too easy so will look for another modification of this one.
latt pull down 38kg x 3 x 3. I forgot about this until the end so was already tired. I'll move it higher up the list next time.


Wednesday.
Just an hour swimming this morning. I had inteneded it as a time trial but I lost count. Probably only covered about 2 km.

Thursday
Lat Pull down 45 kg 6x3 - added another plate and did this first.
squats 50kg x 10 x 3 - I really like the squats.
press-ups bodyweight x10 x 3
lunges 8+8kg x 12 steps x 3
seated military press 10.5+10.5 kg x 8 x 3
dips - 8x3 - on the side of a bench as on tuesday but raised my legs a bit using a step and this made it feel a bit more like hard work
seated pull-up 4 then 3 then 3 - even with my legs supported this feels like hard work.
calf raises 60 kg x 12 x 3


My hip now appears to be behaving itself which is great.

Lifting Straps for the deadlift(any pulling movement really including all kinds of rows, chins and shrugs too): these are brilliant for repping:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/pwrstrap.html

Ask someone in the gym if you can try theirs - someone is bound to have a pair with them and maybe show you how to use them as well.

To actually strengthen you grip, throw in some wrist curls as well - If you don't already do them.
http://exrx.net/WeightExercises/WristFlexors/BBWristCurl.html
http://exrx.net/WeightExercises/WristExtensors/BBReverseWristCurl.html

hunnymonster

Thanks aoa, I've actually read Rachel Cosgroves blog before though not the tapering entry. I think there are a lot of factors that influence a taper. For myself, I really need to have fresh legs for a long run. I prefer to run even paced or even a negative split though I don't think hte connemara course lends itself to this! Ideally I would have done my taper gradually over 2-3 weeks but my late entry into connemara, my hip problems and the social weekend away conspired to have me go from 100_ miles a week out to 4 miles in race week!

g'em

Best of luck in the race this weekend hm!! Needless to say I have every confidence you'll do brilliantly and I'm sure you'll have an absolute ball!

As for the blisters/ callouses, they happen, but they'll harden up over timea nd actually help you grip the bars properly! If you want to you can buy straps (I must lend you mind sometime if you want to try them actually) or you can buy lifting gloves that will protect your palms.

Best of luck- I'll be dying to hear how you get on!

brianthebard

Actually a friend and I have found that alternating a supinated grip on the deadlift, (left hand for one set, right for one) seems to have strengthened our grip on the bar. I was pulling 85kg yesterday and the grip felt good (and yes I'm mainly saying this cause I'm proud of the weight). Good luck in the race!

hunnymonster

g'em wrote:

Best of luck in the race this weekend hm!! Needless to say I have every confidence you'll do brilliantly and I'm sure you'll have an absolute ball!

As for the blisters/ callouses, they happen, but they'll harden up over timea nd actually help you grip the bars properly! If you want to you can buy straps (I must lend you mind sometime if you want to try them actually) or you can buy lifting gloves that will protect your palms.

Best of luck- I'll be dying to hear how you get on!

Thanks babe, Your competition is this weekend too isnt' it? That's far more important than connemarathon which just happens to be my first race since I started posting here but is not significant in the grand scheme of things. I would love to beat my mates time but if I fell my hip is getting injured I'll ease off.

On the subject of callouses, why oh why do they occur in different spots on my hands for cycling, paddling and lifting? My poor mum who spent a small fortune on piano lesons to try and turn me into a refined young lady would be horrified!

Odysseus

I'll be offline until after Connemara, so I just wanted to wish you good luck on Sunday, enjoy it and have fun.

hunnymonster

I had a quick swim on friday and spent most of saturday on travel stuff.

Sunday was the connemarathon. Wow what a race. Since I started running in October 2004 I've wanted to do connemara but in 2005 and 2006 something else had come up at that time of year. This year I was due to do Lanzarote Ironman but I need some surgery that is going to keep me out of the water for a while so Lanza was off the cards. My Mate managed to get me into Connemara after the entries were closed so it seemed as good an April race as any.

The last time I was in connemara was for a triathlon last summer. Then, the sea-area forecast was warning boats not to go out because of rough sea's, so what did the organisers do? They sent us out to swim in it. The bike was nothing more than 40 kms of aquagliding and the run an exercise in blister production! Amazingly yesterday the sun shone. There was also a great atmosphere amongst people in Connemara. It was a virgin race for so many people and their enthusism and excitement was infectious.

The course is beautiful. I was quite concerned that I would be bored as I didn't have anyone running with me but the solitude was actually welcome. I hadn't done a lot of training for this race and I'm carrying quite a serious hip problem so the intention was to keep it steady and smooth. I finished 3rd in a time of 5:34. Helena Crossan won and broke the record. Even without the hip problem I couldn't have matched her with only 6 weeks training but given my complete lack of DOMS or any kind of muscle fatigue today I now think I should have pushed it a bit and gone after last years winner (aisling Coppinger) for second.

I managed to miss both the energy stations on the course and at 35 miles there is a 2 mile climb. Nothing serious but I was afraid of bonking* having not had enough nutrition en route so I was still being conservative. I let rip alittle in the last two miles. I've never bonked in a race so if the hill didn't do it, I thought I was safe enough then.

All in all it was a great day, the organisation was amazing and the new runners were inspirational. If anyone finds the toe-nail I appear to have lost could you please return it. One of my goals for this year is to have all 10 at one time:)











* bonking for the uninitiated = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRB1p89k7_I

g'em

Congrats hm!!!! I was thinking of you on Sunday and wondering how you were getting on. That's a fantastic time too, you must be happy with progress. Roll on the ironman eh??

Odysseus

Congrats, that's a amazing time, your right about the course and the people. I found it a great enviroment to run in, congrats again on the result.

Dragan

Well done, remarkable stuff altogether!

t-ha

Great job, & with a hip problem?! I feel like a lazy bag of bonk now.

hunnymonster

aw shucks guys

My A race this year is ironman florida the first weekend in November. It's a fast IM course because the bike section is flat. The swim is quite a rough one complete with sharks! The marathon is like any other ironman marathon. flat but tough at the end of a long cycle.

In the meantime I've a couple of B and C races.
Cork marathon June
Bike leg of Roth triathlon as part of a relay in June also
ITU olympic distance triatlon world championships, Hmaburg in September (assuming I qualify)

I'll also do a few irish triathlons during the summer. Kilkee certainly as it's the qualifier for the itu worlds. Kenmare half ironman as a warm up for florida and probably a couple of the less popular races.

My priority for the next few weeks is to get a serious amount of time on my bike. I've neglected it over the winter. I need to find a permanent home for my turbo trainer too. Florida looks like a course where I could stay on the aerobars for the whole race and there just isn't anywhere in Ireland to train for that kind of cycling.