Workout Log: 12 January 2017
A couple weeks back, I had a squat workout which included 8 sets of 3 at 315lbs. It was going fine until set 6, during which I felt some pain in my right knee. I probably should've just bagged it right there, but instead I put on some knee sleeves and finished the last two sets. My knee hasn't felt 100% since then, so I've been trying to rest it as much as possible while still getting my workouts in. I also don't think it's helped that during the last week and a half or so has been cold and rainy in the SF area; I've noticed that if I sit in one position for too long, my knee has been stiffening up and just generally sore. Today marked something of a break in the rain, and after a couple of days off my knee does seem like it's starting to feel a bit better, but this morning I realized that I'm just not training anywhere near enough. I need to be running a lot more than I am now, but my concern is that if I increase my training volume too much, too quickly, that I'm going to end up with an injury that's going to cost me a couple of weeks' recovery. A couple of weeks doesn't sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but when you consider that I've only got 8.5 months left to work with, every week matters.
If it sounds like there are some doubts starting to creep into my head, well, that's because there are. It's not that I don't think I'm capable of completing 155 miles in 7 days - it's that I worry that I just don't have enough time to prepare for it given where I'm at now, how much time I have, and how much I'm training during any given week. Realistically, I think I need to have run at least 1000 miles between now and October 1st, and I'm just not making progress. Sure, I'm going to the gym and working out N days per week, but that's not going to be enough. I'm either going to need to extend my workouts or train multiple times per day - or both - and I need to do this in such a way that I can recover from previous workouts and not get injured and all fucked up. I'm thinking that my upcoming trip to Telluride is going to be something of an active recovery week; yeah, I'll get plenty of skiing in, but I also plan to spend a lot of time in the hot tub and a lot of time doing non-impact cardio. Telluride's elevation is even higher than most of the Atacama course, so we'll see how well I fare if I try to go running while I'm up there.
Workout type: cardio
Rowing machine: 30 minutes, 403 calories burned
In other thoughts, I think I also need to give some thought to adjusting my diet to drop some weight. All the squats in the world are great, but every pound I can shed off my ass is a pound I don't have to schlep through the desert, and I'm sure my knees will thank me in the long run. Of course, there are a couple of obstacles here. Number one, I like food. Number two, I still have to eat enough for recovery purposes. Number three, cooking takes time, and I can be a lazy shit when I get home from work. But, I have a simple plan that might help me kill multiple birds (not blackbirds, of course) with one stone: on training days, I can eat 3000 calories. On non-training days, I can eat 1500 calories. Given that I like food, this provides incentive to train more frequently; maintenance for me is about 2700 calories, and I easily burn more than 300 calories in a given workout. So, whether I train a lot or I train a little, I should theoretically still drop weight gradually over time. I'm at 233 right now; I'd like to be closer to 215.