The first two weeks are typically what it takes to get into the swing of training again.
I've been pretty busy back at work, with kids back at school, and playing catch-up with loads of stuff, generally. I've also been back at training after a rubbish December where I was just about able to hang a weekly long run together because of an issue in my glute, hip and piriformis.
To give you my current stats:
Weight as of Christmas - 105.9kg
Weight today - 103.5Kg
Target weight - 85kg
Distance to target - 18.5kg
Weight lost in 2022 - 2.4kg (5Ibs)
As you can see from the picture, I managed to shift a lot of weight in a fairly short space of time ahead of last year's challenge. I fell short of my target by 6kg, but it made a huge difference. If I can reach 90kg by may, with the remaining 5kg gone by September I will be a very happy camper!
Distance targets have been pretty much met the last couple of weeks and by all accounts I am back on track for my training plan
Given the issue with my glute/hip that is presently ongoing, I'm pretty pleased. It felt painful throughout, but what I'm especially pleased about is that I'm hitting my distance numbers in biblical muddy conditions on my Saturday long run at the moment.
It has been insanely difficult running trails in the mud the last 3 weekends. To be honest with you, it has been a little soul destroying at times. I keep telling myself this is where the resilience gets built. Shitty mile after shitty mile. Twice I've taken a nosedive in the mud, and it's not much fun in 0C temperatures to spend 10 minutes with the hosepipe on you, before stripping down outside because your wife will murder you if you 'bring that shit into my kitchen'. You can see what I mean here:
The stats from my trusty Suunto look good though. For those of you with an analytical mind you might appreciate the following charts:
As you can see, the black line shows my rise in overall fitness since last month. Currently at a score of 30, and well up from a low of 15 at Christmas. This makes sense as I was very limited in my running through December due to the injury.
The red line is my fatigue level. The higher that line goes the more tired I am and the harder I am working. The note about - Form TSB at -20 is my Training Stress Balance. This means I am stressing myself in training more than I am recovering, which is what you need to do to improve fitness.
That brings me onto the next chart:
This great little chart tells me where I need to keep myself in terms of training, to keep being productive. Above 15 and I am losing fitness. Above -10 and I'm keeping fit. Above -30 and I am working hard to build my fitness. -30 or lower and I am in the red zone and will risk injury.
Last weekend (the mud run you see in the video) took me to the red zone.
It's essential I get that balance right by training hard enough, but also giving myself a chance to recover and heal. This training programme will take time, and there is still a vast amount of work to do in terms of miles on the trails, and rehab/prehab work that I'm still doing each evening. Overall though, training is slowly stepping back up. I have some issues I'm still working through, which make it suck just that much more than it would normally; however, in the circumstances I can't ask for any more than that weights starts to drop and fitness continues to rise. Jan and Feb are the months that the shitty work needs to be done, and I'm out there doing it. What doesn't go unnoticed is that on my muddy long runs, I am the only runner I have seen out there doing it, around where I live.
That either means I am more committed than others... or more stupid. I'll let you decide.... Thanks for reading.
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