Recovery Week

The (lower) legs were pretty sore from the mountain marathon / Bergmarathon on July 5, and that for quite a while. Still, time to continue training - and blogging it.

• July 8: on the bike - 00:53:34 - 13.82 km - avg. HR 106 - TE 1.5
  Cross-training like that was very nice, I'm doing something this way, getting a low training effect for once, and still not abusing my legs.


• 7/11: running again - 00:50:30 - 8.44 km - avg. HR 138 - TE 2.5
  Running early in the morning to stay out of the heat (and to get in training before almost everything else), and it seems to have been very nice and easy. The legs are still a little heavy, but almost back to normal; I do wonder, though, if the heart rate is low because I'm doing better or because of some effect of overtraining...


• 7/12: biking - 01:09:05 - 20.78 km - avg. HR 109 - TE 1.4another nice and easy ride, not least, to keep doing something
  7/13: and back to running yet again - 01:22:57 - 13.89 km - avg. HR 148 - TE 3.3Looking, and feeling, good.

I am starting to think I really ought to find another event to train towards, and soon ;-)

Training Update

In two weeks, the Riga Marathon is on...

4/29: On sick leave from school because of my sore throat, just went out for a walk to take some pictures and get some fresh air while not having to talk... and to record it so I could have it in the training analysis and see what it does:
Well, I suppose it was some 8 km (didn't measure the indoors parts), two hours, an average HR 0f 98, and a training effect of 1.3.
(I think I recently measured my HR while working on the PC and lying in bed and it got a similar training effect ;-)

5/1/2008: Parkour Jam session
I did not do too much - or so it seemed in comparison - but some muscles were pretty sore the next day(s). Parkour does that to you... it's much less like running, more like strength training, plus climbing, crawling, jumping.
Time recorded: 2:24.37,9 - then the memory was full because I had not deleted recent data.
HR avg: 122 - values between 44 (that's because the belt often lost signal) and 204 (that's when I was really doing something).
Training Effect: 2.3 - "maintaining"

5/2/2008: 01:01.02,5 - 9.62 km - 6'21 min/km - HR avg. 153 - TE 3.2

5/4/2008: 01:55.15,9 - 18.81 km - 6'08 min/km - HR avg. 162 - TE 4.1

Training Recap, and Thoughts on Training Tech

Haven't been keeping this up-to-date, so here comes a list:

• 3/05/08 - 00:41.29,9 - 6.63 km - 6'16 min/km - 159 avg. HR - TE 3.8
  (fartlek - speed interval training)
• 3/07/08 - 00:44.41,4 - 6.77 km - 6'36 min/km - 156 avg. HR - TE 3.9
• 3/08/08 - 01:33.57,0 - 110 avg. HR - TE 2.4 (Parkour)
• 3/09/08 - 01:36.57,9 - 14.38 km - 6'45 min/km - 150 avg. HR - TE 3.6
• 3/11/08 - 00:55.54,0 - 8.57 km - 6'31 min/km - 153 avg. HR - TE 3.7
• 3/13/08 - 00:54.31,9 - 8.55 km - 6'23 min/km - 151 avg. HR - TE 3.7
• 3/14/08 - 00:56.26,0 - 8.64 km - 6'32 min/km - 151 avg. HR - TE 3.4

I set my max. HR lower than it had been before, consequently the training effect the software calculates is higher than it would have been... I'm still only using it as guideline, and happy as long as it stays below 4 ("highly improving"), let alone 5 ("overreaching"), at which point more recovery would be essential.

Read up on stretching (there was an article in the New York Times):
It's probably no good for avoiding injuries, which it's usually said to be good for.
Being stiffer, a runner is more efficient.

Two points:
So, I guess there is good reason for running tights (I've been using CW-X ones for a long time now). They provide the stiffness.
Physically, however, I'll rather be flexible and nimble. Even in running, if you misstep, it helps; for parkour, martial arts and the like it's a precondition.

Where my older/current shoes' boa lacing is concerned, I got lucky:
My order for replacement parts didn't get through, so I contacted them by e-mail...
The result: the company got some feedback, I'm getting replacement parts for free.
Very sweet.

Suunto - their t6 is the training analysis system I've been using, where the TE (training effect) numbers come from... - is still up to the game, after all:

We have known for a while now that an updated model (t6c) will be coming out this spring. (In the current lineup, the t6 is still presented as the top model, but it does not include the real-time calculation of training effect that the supposed next-best, the t4, can do.)
So far, it sounded as if you would have to get the new model if you wanted the new, real top model.

Now, however, Suunto Helpdesk came through and said that there will also be a firmware update for the old model t6, to effectively turn it into a t6c.

So, there's just the Wearlink-like HR belt to buy, if wanted (and that truly is a replacement part). I wonder how they'll implement the new functions, which they are not saying yet, but it sounds good....

Yeah, sports technology is a strange thing:

On the one hand, I don't like being quite such a geek, especially when it comes to outdoor sports I do (and promote) in part as being active instead of consumptive lifestyles, where you do something for yourself, get to know your immediate environment better, and at the same time reduce your impact on the world.

On the other hand, collecting a decent range of data on what you are doing and how you are doing is motivational and helpful for getting the most out of the training without overdoing it.

In fact, I think that the "internal" data - heart rate, especially - and the possible "external" data - especially geographical, with GPS and the like - can be very supportive of our understanding of where we live, how we are a part of our environment...

Ready. Set. 2nd Semester

Pictures from the Rundale Excursion, last weekend:
http://picasaweb.google.at/lh/searchbrowse?q=Rundale+Excursion

Last Friday, went for a chat with Prof. Bluma, resident coordinator for the Campus Europae program…
She is all right with me organizing just about everything myself by now, just eager to help if there should be any problems. The main problems I had been having were at her faculty, but rather due to the usual bad or mis-communication.

The (last) week in training:
01/28: 01:00.53,8 - 9.42 km - 6'28 min/km - HR avg. 149 - TE 3.6
01/31: 02:00.30,7 - 18.68 km - 6'27 min/km - HR avg. 153 - TE 4.3
02/02: 01:02.03,9 - 9.95 km - 6'14 min/km - HR avg. 150 - TE 4.3
I updated the map of my running routes, by the way:

View Larger Map

I'm in the process of registering to "compete" in the Bergmarathon (70 km around the Traunsee in Austria, with 4300 meters of difference in altitude) in July.
I love that event especially because there is no official time-taking, it's officially all about simply making it.

Academic Issues

Today, planning for this semester went on, and it's still difficult.

Sometimes I (almost) ask myself what I'm doing here; it's no surprise it can be pretty hard for others to understand my career path. Yet, I see that there would be some nice things to work on in Austria, but also great opportunities abroad and through going abroad… I'll certainly be trying my luck at those. And if they don't work out, there's still good work to be done.

Now, the question with the planning for the semester is how I can manage to do enough for my necessary credits, and little enough to still have enough time for training and my work. Getting that all coordinated is quite difficult already, but should be working out.
What really get's to me is that I'll probably be just about finished with some subject areas for teacher training in English (literature), whereas in others I'll be back to the beginning (like linguistics). Yet, the courses I could take here would probably not be accepted as equivalent with the ones to take in Austria…
Moreover, I don't want to overdo it again, as usually, and in the end fail to finish some of the things I promised myself I would manage to get done while I'm here. - And amongst those, there is Russian language learning, and there is some research and publications to get done... if I fail to publish much longer, I would have to forget about a scientific career, and even while I am now working on teacher training, I will not give that up.

I'll just have to try and see.

In between...

... 2008 promises to be an interesting year, when I'll hopefully get quite a few interesting things done. To get there, some things need to get done right now, however, and much more as the year progresses. Both work-wise, and where applications are concerned. I only want to mention it right now, however, and not to go into any detail.

Right now, time-wise, the first semester in Latvia should be over where tests and the like are concerned. However, for me, it isn't quite so. And the second semester hasn't yet started. I already know the lectures which will be over (by and large), but I only know the times for a few of them.

Somehow, I have the feeling that I will feel I'm using my time better only when university courses start again, and I have seriously too much to do, not just rather too much.

Training so far this week:
1/21 - 00:33.43,0 - 5.44 km - 6'12 min/km - HR avg. 156 - TE 3.8
1/22 - 00:33.30,0 - 5.51 km - 6'05 min/km - HR avg. 153 - TE 3.6
1/25 - 01:18.00,0 - 11.9 km - 6'33 min/km - HR avg. 154 - TE 4.3

Thursday was too much to do and rain in the evening, so I decided to stay in.

Guess what? Friday I went out running and the rainy weather was just the same as Thursday evening, but I enjoyed it... and I ran a route leading over two bridges, running along the Daugava on two sides of the river. - Seeing it this way, the city sure has started to feel smaller and smaller ;-)

And, a note on training analysis... having the HRmax. be updated automatically (with the high heart rate I get during parkour training), the training effect values would be a level lower...

Week to 1/20

I hardly even noticed, but the cold pretty much disappeared.
I also hardly noticed how time was passing...

Some more exams at LU.
Or really, one presentation of a portfolio. In a course I considered not finishing because I was very conflicted about it, but in the end I finished, got a good grade, and got some good ideas out of it, to boot.
And, one case where the decision was that I still have to hand in one more essay (which I knew) and then would have my grade. No need for a final exam/essay... Sweet.

With the cold and all that, I did less training. I did get some books I'd been waiting for, and some in addition. And in the last few days of this last week, I therefore read three novels, something approaching a thousand pages... No wonder I didn't blog. (I was also teaching, writing on another work...)

Training:
01/16, running, 00:33.55, 5.29 km, 6'25 min/km, HR avg. 154, TE 3.5
01/19, parkour. 01:35.25, 165 HR avg., 4.3 TE
Parkour, even if compared to running, continues to strike me as being much closer to martial arts than to endurance training, it's rather anaerobic training. With the additional strength training, in particular. It's still great as cross-training; I certainly needed it...

Training 01/14/2008

Something like a cold is still around; today (01/15), I rather rested. I can't believe I'm, in parts (triceps, mainly) still sore from parkour training.

Yesterday, I did go out for a little run:
00:34.03,7 - 5.28 km

First time (ever? in a long time?) my Suunto t6 training watch went crazy on me:
I continued to see the heart rate and everything, but the HR was not recorded after the 18th. minute of the run. Very strange...

For one: Training 01/13 - Parkour

The cold isn't winning, but strongly bio-rhythmic again: in the morning, it seems pretty bad, during the day it's all but gone, only to return towards bedtime.

So, I took a time-out again on 01/12, and finally went to "Parkour Academy" again for some cross-training yesterday. - And I should go there more often, since my work (writing) on parkour is coming along - but slowly - and this training is also anthropological field work.



Gosh, I hate it ;-)
I've been doing well with running, but nearly forgotten all about upper-body strength. For parkour, and doing parkour, you need quite a bit of that. So, I'm always pretty sore after such training. Still, it is running-related, and I think it may be one of the best forms of cross-training, and indeed of allround training (core strength, balance, flexibility - some of which usually get forgotten), one can get.
I'm thinking about writing a little piece on that, but it's not as if I didn't have enough to do, anyways...

It definitely is anaerobic, highly variant, training:
HR was between 80 and 190, average at 138, training effect 3.1.
And I forgot to turn on the HR recording, so the strength training in the first half is missing from these notes and calculations.