My Training Plan

A very tiring day yesterday, but quite good on the nutrition front. Close to my ideal nutrient balance and enough fruits, vegetables and fibre. I am hoping to get back down around 1800 calories per day but as I did weight training and went for a swim yesterday, I think I can afford some antioxidant rich dark chocolate and a drop of port.

In order to reach my fitness goals I follow a periodization running program, which is a fancy way of saying I train hard for three weeks then take it easier for one week. This allows my body enough recovery time to actually heal the damage I’m doing to it and get stronger. Ironically enough, you do not get fitter during exercise. It is only when your body repairs the damage caused by exercise and tries to guard against such damage happening again (by building up your muscles) that you get fitter and stronger. This is why sleep and rest periods are so import in serious training. I also change the focus of my training as the year progresses. So far I have just been focusing on my endurance by doing long slow runs and adding a couple of minutes to each run each week. This week I start the second phase of my training plan, where the focus shifts a little more towards endurance at speed. In this part of my training I will be adding hill runs and tempo runs (a shorter run at a faster speed, working up to race pace) to my program, so I only have one long slow run per week.

I will still be doing strength training three days per week and at least 30 minutes of cross training. The strength training is more for general health and weight loss but it will also improve my running technique. For example, a strong core prevents the hips and torso from rolling around or moving from side to side when you run, making you a more efficient runner (all energy powers the legs) and less likely to get injured. The cross training is also to prevent injury, by giving me some cardiovascular training that does not involve running, which can be really hard on the joints.

All good reasons to do it, but man it’s tiring, especially after all that time off at Christmas!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
1945.47	107.92g	220.80g	60.35g	8.26g	24.90g
	23%	46%	28%	3%
Calories burned through exercise:		535

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:45	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites	3 eggs
	Heinz Beanz, reduced sugar and salt	185g
	Mushrooms	100g
	in butter	5g
	Raw tomato	89g
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
09:00	Black Tea	500mL
10:00	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
10:45	Brazil nuts	6g
	Cashews	17g
	Seedless green Grapes	100g
11:30	Green Tea	250mL
13:30	Turkey and butternut squash risotto	300g
	Irish Yoghurts Diet Pear and Mango	125g
14:00	Sainsbury's Ready to Eat Prunes	53g
	Green Tea	250mL
15:30	Resistance training + 30 min swim
	TriBerry Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
17:15	Sponser Chocolate Recovery Shake	30g
	in Skim milk	225mL
19:45	Homemade Turkey meat loaf	200g
	Frozen peas	64g
	Ocean Spray Smooth cranberry sauce	26g
20:15	Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate	40g
21:00	Cockburn's Special Reserve Port	52g

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.