This weeks progress update is focusing upon the slow process of building the foundations one step at a time. It requires patience.... lots and lots of f*cking patience.
The last few weeks there has been progress, but it has been incredibly slow. The last two months has been mentally challenging as I've mentioned before, but also has been boring AF.
but....
Things ARE moving!
I started Shockwave last week. And after the first session there has been a significant difference. It allowed me to train on the bike pain free! That is a very big step as I put in a heavy VO2 Max session of 2 minute Zone 5 sprints (90%+ of Max Heart Rate), with NO adverse reaction the day after. That is a great first win! What it means is that now, my training really begins!
I'm still in my Phase 1 of my original training plan which is all about the rehab. While I have not been able to run for fear of relapse, and pissing off the head of Physio for the GB Olympic Team, I have diligently worked on identifying root causes and strengthening them for the last 2 months. That was shown in my first session of VO2 Max Intervals on the bike last week....
As you can see from the pic of my training stats for that session. I spent 14 minutes training directly in my Zone 5! That's my heart working really hard on out-of-my-seat 2 mins hard hill climbs on the bike.
I explain this method of training here and it is immensely effective in rapidly building lactate threshold, fatigue resistance, Mitochondria function, power production and oxygen efficiency in the body... i.e. pure aerobic fitness. Done correctly it is utterly brutal. By interval three your legs should feel like jelly and by interval 4 you start losing the ability to focus, speak and even see (things can go a bit dark in rounds 4 and 5 where you start to lose your vision). Given my Max HR is 220-Age my intervals go to my Max Heart Rate at 172 bpm. Savage...
...though not as savage as my buddy Graham, who on his first VO2 Max Interval session took his heart rate to 180 (he's a year older than me)! I was half thinking I'd need to perform CPR after his 4th and 5th Interval!
There is a good reason I'm training like this on the bike and it's to do with risk... When you push so hard there are moments when your legs simply go, your vision goes and you don't know whether up is up. This can be a disaster when running (especially if you have injuries) so the bike allows you to collapse into a seat or simply slow down quickly when you hit the wall. It's safer.
After the above session, I repeated Saturday's training last night and here are the stats (I started to record the session after 5 mins in on my warm up hence why it's 5 mins shorter than the Saturday stats above.
Notice anything different between these two?
I did. The peaks are narrower, and the heart rate drops quicker than it did the other day. This is an indicator that my heart rate is is recovering faster already. That is a common indicator of getting fitter.
The premise is simple. The fitter you are, the faster your heart rate recovers the fitter you are.
This is VERY encouraging after such a short space of time. This is why I value this type of training having increased fitness rapidly in just a few weeks earlier in the summer (before I had my existential crisis about injury and the 300k)
I've only just noticed this and it bodes well for the net positive effects of this training. Also the PTE (Post Training Effect) scores are really high. The scale is:
0.0 – 0.9 = no effect
1.0 – 1.9 = minor effect (recovery training)
2.0 – 2.9 = maintaining effect
3.0 – 3.9 = improving effect
4.0 – 4.9 = highly improving effect
5.0 = temporarily overreaching effect This is the impact the session had on my fitness. 5/5 is the maximum. so both sessions being around 4.3-4.5 back up the positive effect of the sessions. All the while I'm coming back to running in this phase, I will put in at least two of these sessions a week. At least the engine will be in good shape for when I hit the trails once again in Phase two come Christmas and New Year.
...and about that....
Two days ago saw me finally return to running!!!
You will laugh when you hear that it was a 20 minute treadmill run of 30 seconds running and 30 seconds walking intervals. By running I mean slooooow jog. But.. it's... f*cking... running!!
Right now I am so pleased to be able to run any steps at all. I've missed it. A lot! I admit I was very tentative, and will be for the next few weeks as I slowly add running time and distance inch by inch each week. To jog without pain felt magnificent.
I had a bout of soreness in the achilles for a few hours after, but the following day it felt back to normal and is improving each week.
This is reason for celebrating.
I just need to be very careful I don't push too quickly. Stick to the Physio plan, keep doing the strengthening and rehab work and I will get there. I have a rest day, and aim to repeat the run/walk treadmill session tomorrow and will update on progress next week. It's not the distance I scoped out in my original plan, but I don't care. I care that the problem is slowly being fixed and know that I can build the fitness in the background now, while I slowly add the miles through the next 6 weeks before I aim to hit phase 2 of the plan. Thanks for reading....
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