80/20, week 2

Today was day 1 of my second week of 80/20 training.

Last week went reasonably well. I did most of the runs in my local park, but the Saturday run was done as a commute in to work, and was the only run that week with a backpack. It was deeply satisfying. I also stopped drinking coffee and started drinking green tea instead, despite being only somewhat convinced of the relevant health benefits. I started eating mostly "core foods", largely things like chopped salads, but I need to put a fair bit more effort into my diet if I want to pursue the model in the book I've been reading. In particular, I need to incorporate more lean dairy and protein into my diet.

Today felt productive, despite really just consisting of basic chores. My strength training has consisted of 110 reps of everything, with the situps and squats weighted by 10 pounds, for quite some time now. I did laundry, a 40-minute training run, filled a dozen water jugs, went grocery shopping, cleaned the litterbox, emptied the composting toilet, washed the dishes, poached some eggs and made roasted bell pepper sauce, and generally tidied things up.

I keep thinking about living in a really small van. Or on a small sailboat in the middle of the ocean.

80/20 running zones

Since I accomplished my goal of doing a trail-only marathon, and took a week off to recover, I've been thinking about a new goal. Last week, I did a number of longer runs to and from work, mostly 15Km runs, totally a little over 90Km. I've decided that it's time to try to improve my speed; my distance has received enough attention for a while.

So today, I did another threshold running test for 80/20 training. It turns out my threshold heart rate is 181, and my threshold pace is 4:38/km. The heart rate is well above the previous heart rate threshold I determined, but the speed is 22 seconds per kilometer faster. I need to decide whether I want to just do run training, or go back to triathlon training.

I should also get some proper nutrition going. A plan for how best to eat for both strength training and endurance training, and meal prep to support it.

Plenty of decisions to be made.

New goals

On April 29th, I went a full marathon distance 100% on trails.

I ran the first 2/3rds, then walked so I could eat and drink. The last 1/3 was a mix of walking and running, and my time was nothing to brag about, but I finished it; that's what I wanted. I also did it in my 5mm drop shoes, because I forgot (of all things) my regular running shoes.

After that, I ate an entire family sized bag of tortilla chips, with salsa, and generally did nothing of consequence the rest of the day. The next day, I went to Vermont for a short vacation. I spent a few days going to interesting shops, hiking, kayaking, and went on a tour of the Alchemist brewery (two cases of Heady Topper returned with me; only four cans have succumbed to my thirst thus far).

Today was the first day I ran since that marathon. My legs hurt for a couple days afterwards, but I had enough pain in my right knee towards the end of the run that I wanted to give things plenty of time. I ran to and from work, with full pack, in my 5mm drop shoes. It felt totally fine; whether a transition from 10 to 5 is minimal, or my previous working up to 40% of every run being done forefoot first was effective, I felt totally fine. I think I'll try to run 100km this week and next week, just to get back into running.

But now that I've done my trail marathon, I should work towards something new. I'm running a half marathon with a friend in a while, but that's more of a social event; I doubt it will be very strenuous. I should work on getting faster. I should also get back into the water.