I’m pleased with how this week has gone. Five weeks after starting my health improvement and weight loss focus I’ve lost 4.4kg of fat. I’m feeling a whole lot better and am really into the routine of training regularly.
I’ve really had some great training sessions this week and I’m looking forward to some benchmark testing next week to see how everything has come along. In terms of weekly benchmarks after a few beers and takeaways on Friday night, I felt a little nervous weighing myself on Saturday morning. That is why I chose Saturday morning for my weekly weigh in, as Friday night could be against the flow and I’d record myself at my worst.
Five weeks ago I weighed 89.8kg with 19.6% body fat (which represents 17.6kg of fat). I’m now down to 84.9kg with 15.5% (or 13.2kg) of body fat. This is the first time I’ve dipped under 85kg since July 2015. As you can see it hasn’t been a straight line to success but with a bit of focus I’ve continued to trend things downwards. I’m heading overseas shortly, so it’ll be interesting to see how I am able to continue to maintain this progress. I’ve got a few strategies in mind to enable me to focus on maintaining this progress.
I’m also working on an idea to share this process with my clients and athletes. If this is something that would interest you, drop me an email coachray@coachray.nz and let me know that you will be interested in the pilot or Beta programme which I’ll look to launch in a few weeks time.
My training has continued to ramp up this week with my Critical Training Load (CTL) or blue fitness line continuing to climb and it is now double what it was when I started a couple of weeks ago. I’m finding that I can comfortably maintain a level with the pink fatigue line or Acute Training Load (ATL) sitting in the seventies and the yellow form line or Training Stress Balance (TSB) sitting around -20. I can also handle some peaks above and below these levels respectively if I allow myself some recovery afterwards to allow it to return back to these levels. You will note that my fatigue spiked on Sunday, that is due to participating in the Wily Weka MtB and Foot Rogaine.
Monday
With a busy day at work I didn’t have time to do much training but snuck in a 30 minute run at lunch time.
It might not have been much, but it allowed me to burn nearly 1,800kJ and as I was focused with my nutrition I ended up consuming 2,100kJ less than I expended that day.
Tuesday
Today I did a bit of a test set swimming that will enable me to set some training intensities for my swim training. I’ve written an article about this workout previous and it can be found here:
I did my 400m TT in 6:33 and my 200m in 3:07 which I was pretty happy with.
I expended an extra 1,800kJ with this workout and took the opportunity to have some chocolate self saucing pudding with some ice cream with my dinner so went over my daily energy allowance by 250kJ.
Wednesday
As I was at the pool again for work I took the opportunity to get my swim workout done. This time the session was based around drills and Individual Medley. I’ve written about this workout previously here:
When I got home I went for a run with my partner to help guide her through Mono Fartlek. Although I wasn’t working at my Level V, it was certainly a lift in my intensity and a great run in support of her.
Throughout the day I consumed nearly 8,900kJ of energy but with my swim and run my daily allowance was 11,500kJ so I was 2,600kJ under my limit.
Thursday
After I got home I jumped on the wind trainer and cranked out the Quad Crusher IV workout that will be posted tomorrow, but it involves two reps 20 minutes long where every two minutes you accelerate hard, as if you are launching an attack for 12-15 pedal strokes.
Nutrition wise I consumed over 10,500kJ. As I had burnt an extra 3,200kJ I was still nearly 300kJ under my daily limit.
Friday
Because I had put Rachel through Mona Fartlek earlier in the week, it was only fair that I put myself through it as well, so I did it today during my lunch time. It’s a great session because it crams 10 minutes of Level V running into a 40 minute workout. Ouch!!!
The Mona Fartlek allowed me to burn an extra 2,500kJ, but as I got home Rach and I got invited around to a friends place for a couple of beers and dinner. I grabbed some snacks from the supermarket along with something to drink. Rach offered to drive so I could have a few more beers and I had a tough session planned the following day for her. I consumed 17,600kJ that day thanks to the beers, snacks and takeaways. Unfortunately 7,500kJ over my daily limit.
Saturday
I weighed in this morning and then went for a run to support Rach whilst she did a 5km Time Trial. I did my warm up with her and did a set of four 1,250m reps, then joined her for a Cool Down.
Through the run I expended 2,600kJ but consumed 11,300kJ which put me 1,000kJ over my daily limit. I wasn’t too worried about being over because I knew I had a massive event the following day with the Wily Weka.
Sunday
Wily Weka day. This is a 6 hour Rogaine event on both foot and a MtB. For those not familiar with a rogaine it’s a navigational team event where there are a large number of controls on the course that need to be found through the assistance of the map. Each control is worth points and it is up to you (and your team) to determine how many and which controls you will attempt to locate within the time limit. If you are back late you start accumulating time penalties.
Rach and I plotted our course to involve collecting 70% of the 100 point markers (if we could get around them all). We headed up the Grampions from the start point collecting some points along the way. Over the top we took the wrong path (only one was marked on the map although two were actually there, however we only saw the one path) as we headed down the hill. Part way down we came to an intersection and realised that it didn’t quite match up with the map, but we were able to shoot back up on the correct path whilst everyone else who made the same mistake did the same or deliberated about whether they bothered to go back up.
Descending down into the Brooke, we then climbed up over the Tantragee saddle to the Maitai collecting more points along the way. I made another nav mistake here missing the junction and also missing the points on offer from the control we should have travelled to. We then shot down on the left of the river collecting points before getting to our MtBs and heading up into Sharland’s Forrest to chase some big points up the top. We collected a few points along the way with some of the controls down on What the DOC Ordered – hard to get to from the road, but we got most of them. We climbed up the top with the aim of collecting everything along the ridge-line, but we had taken a bit longer to get through the Grampions and over Tantragee than I anticipated.
Along the top we got to the summit of a hill with a control marked on top of it on the map. We had been tracking with another team for a while. They had been searching for the control as well and were about to move on, but had another look when I said it should be on a fence post directly east of the trig. Well we couldn’t find a trig on the summit (but the trigs weren’t marked on our map either). We could find the fence as it was marked over the summit and the control was marked about 100m east of the summit. Even shooting a bearing from the corner of the fence didn’t help us find where it should have been.
Having wasted too much time and Rach’s instinct telling her it was on the next summit, we made our way over there and there was the trig with the control on the wrong summit (this was later confirmed with the event organiser)!
We were running out of time and made a decision to grab one more control on the summit and get back down, dropping off our bikes and grabbing a couple of 100 point controls on the way back to the finish line. Having grabbed the second 100 pointer, we had enough time to go and get one more control before making it back to the finish line on time.
Overall the Wily Weka allowed me to expend 12,000kJ and I only consumed nearly 12,500kJ of energy with my normal daily allowance (without accounting for any exercise) being 7,615kJ meant that I nearly had a deficit of 7,200kJ despite having a couple of beers after the event.
Weekly Summary
Over the week I averaged 11,100kJ of food, and nearly 4,000kJ of exercise each day. This equates to a TSS average of 96 per day. Overall this is a deficit of nearly 500kJ per day.
Here is a summary of my daily and weekly training since commencing this journey.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aMDHbOCtpD4jUQHb5rCkaK2P_WXgowN2uEohFnLTKWM/edit?usp=sharing
PREVIOUS WEEKS TRAINING
Here is a link to last weeks Coach Ray’s Suffering:
Previous weeks of Coach Ray’s Suffering can be found here.
https://www.coachray.nz/category/adventures/coach-rays-sufferings/