Weekly Training Blog 8

Heading into week 8, the main goal was to build on the momentum of the 33k towards the 4x4x48 Challenge

Monday, Feb 21st

The morning started with a trip to the swimming pool. The lessons may be over, but I still have a bit of time to achieve the one length goal before my 34th birthday. So that was my sole focus. Unfortunately. Because if I had been thinking a little more clearly, I would have realised why there was a break in the swimming lessons (and why a few of my teacher friends were off skiing!)… mid-term break! The leisure area of the pool was packed with kids. And I’m not good enough to jump into the actual swimming lanes. So after 15 minutes of messing around and trying to build on my swimming, I gave up. It was off to the sauna for a gruelling 25 mins to make the most of the session.

But Monday was definitely not a waste of a training day. After getting an upper-body session in, feeling more comfortable with 8-10 reps of chin-ups and able to push heavier and harder on the drop sets of benching, it was off to get a 16k cycle in (with A LOT of HILLS!) and follow it up with a 7k run. The run felt tough after the cycle and transition. But the goal is to get the runs in on tired legs to prepare me for the second half of the 4x4x48 Challenge coming up!

Tuesday, Feb 22nd

An early morning start in the gym, when I wasn’t needed meant a 6:15 am start for my morning run in Clane. The midterm strikes again! But at least I would get my run done early. The only problem was out of the entire morning, there was only a 20-minute window where the heavens opened. Of course, I was right in the middle of that window. And my trusted torch that was wrapped around me conveniently died in the middle of the country roads. Through the puddles and heavy rain in my cotton hoodie, I ran. There’s only one (in)sane approach to this to get yourself through it… laugh. And laugh at my luck I did. Besides, it was character building. For all I know, one of my 4 am runs could be lashing rain and I can not put it off if I want to do the challenge right. So at least I will be able to look back on runs like this morning and know that I can get out there and get it done. Because of this, I made sure to stay out for much longer than 4 miles

After drying off, I was back in that afternoon for a lower body workout. Adding a bit of core into it, I finished with drop sets of Goblet Squats. Started with the 30kg DB x 10 reps, then straight to 27.5kg x10, 25, 22.5 and finished with 20kg. My squats are not great at all but felt good to get these 50 reps in to finish the session that was mainly spent on posterior exercises such as RDLs and mini band work.

Wednesday, Feb 23rd

A bit of time was spent on stretching and recovery exercises for the lower body before pushing through with an upper-body session. Because I am not as worried about fatigue for my upper body, I feel like I can go a little harder at the moment in these sessions. Incline DB benches with a slow 5-6 second lower started this workout (after an upper-body warm-up of course). More chin-ups followed in the session before finishing with a superset of inverted row holds, barbell curls and double-banded overhead extensions into pushdowns to failure.

After work that night, it was back out for another 10 plus km run. The legs were really feeling it in the last 2km, particularly my hip so Thursday was pretty much a day off.

Thursday, Feb 24th

Pretty much a day off but, in between split shifts, I did manage another 20 minutes on stretching and recovery exercises for the lower body as well as dedicating some time to my push-ups as well. To balance the push-ups, the short session finished with 4 sets of ring row hold x30 seconds and 10-15 reps.

Friday, Feb 25th

Another brick session today, increasing the distance on both the cycle and the run, while also throwing in an extra cycle on the hill. If I can slowly increase these distances over the next few weeks and stay healthy, with the routes I’m doing, I should be ok for Quest Glendalough!

Also, If I ever do get contacts, this training session will be a primary reason why. a few km into my cycle, as I was approaching my first hill, I saw two cars in the middle of the road ahead. I assumed the drivers were having a chat. They better move quickly I thought as I tried to build a bit of momentum to tackle the hill that was approaching. As I got a lot closer, the two cars somehow turned into 3 people on horseback across the road, heading up the same hill. I was pretty close to them before they realised and slowly moved to one side. Short term problem, momentum for the hill was dead. Slightly more serious, my eyesight is absolutely shocking!

Saturday, Feb 26th

Taking the full morning shifts at work, I decided to switch up my AirDyne routine after it. I went for a 10-minute warm-up and attempt two blocks of 20 secs work, 10 rest x8 (Tabata) with a 5-minute recovery cycle in between each block. And man did I struggle. Rounds 6-8 felt useless as I struggled to keep a good pace. Working at that high-level intensity is definitely a struggle for me right now and something I really want to work on.

Sunday, February 27th

The training week finished with a 21km run at a steady pace. The goal was to add more miles to the legs for the 4x4x48 Challenge starting this Friday! And that was mainly what was on my mind during the two-hour run. 60k of mileage this week and feeling good heading into the Challenge.