I spent the Christmas break doing typical family things and consuming too many unhealthy foods. But moderation in all things, including moderation. Hormetic stress is good, and this includes the stress of eating garbage food a few times per year. One never wants to be too optimized. The family and I also traveled to New Orleans and returned on New Year’s Eve. If you have a particular way of eating, and you travel, you know how difficult it can be to be consistent. And besides, New Orleans has a lot of food to sample, and I intended to enjoy the trip fully, which I did. I’m now up several pounds, mostly in water weight due to being knocked out of ketosis, which is normal for me every time this year. I’m back into a low-carb way of eating (WOE) at this point on January 4th, but it will take several days for my hormones to settle down, which needs to happen before I can assess the damage. That being said, I’d guess I put on 10 lbs. No worries though, this is normal yearly. It will be gone by March.
The general theme for January will be getting rid of those holiday pounds, base building, and getting into a routine that won’t lead me to overdo it. In recent years, I have discovered that my will exceeds my physical ability to keep up. This is age-related in a few respects. I can be quite disciplined and regimented when I decide to be, much more so than when I was younger. And my willingness to push it needs to be a bit constrained, as my 49-year-old musculoskeletal system has limits it did not have 15 years ago. Also, I should mention that I got a sinus infection while on the trip, which quickly subsided, but then it went into a lot of chest congestion. So, yeah. I’m pretty much at rock bottom right now. But to climb this hill, I will have to start to climb. Staring somewhere. So here is that somewhere.
Below is the weekly workout plan for the month of January. There’s a multi-faceted approach to strength and power (the weights), flexibility and mobility (the stretching/yoga), and cardio (cycling and running). That is how I will start in January, and I will continue with this shotgun approach for the duration of the lead-up to the bike race. Below represents a good, safe, sustainable base for me to begin. At the end of each month, I plan to evaluate where I am with things, and then increase the workload. I plan to be at a training peak going in July, extending into the early weeks of August. At that point, we’ll go on vacation to Chincoteague, where my week will involve the beach, fishing, and probably multiple days of long-distance runs. I wouldn’t mind running three half-marathon distances that week, at which point I will declare myself “ready” and begin my taper into mid-September. That is the plan. For now.
Monday
- Run 3.5 to 5.5 miles (tempo pace)
- Yoga/stretching (back focus)
Tuesday
- Yoga/stretching (core focus)
Wednesday
- Run 20 minutes at a maximum sustainable pace (treadmill)
- Dead hang for 40 seconds at end of the run
Thursday
- 40-45 minutes on the Peloton (base-building/endurance heart race pace)
- Yoga/stretching (back focus)
Friday
- Run 6-8 miles (zone 2 heart rate, with a half-marathon race pace for the last mile)
Saturday
- Yoga/stretching (glute/lower back focus)
Saturday or Sunday
- 40 minutes at the gym
