To Infinity and Beyond - Becoming a Better DopeyBadger (Comments Welcome)

1) You are a MONSTER getting all those workouts in on vacation. I am ashamed now that I had you make my vacation days as days off on my current plan :oops:
2) Those princess face characters better watch out because G is going to take their jobs! She has the curtsy down pat. Just needs to grow a few more inches.
3) HOW have you never been on Space Mountain before?
Edited to add 4) Happy Birthday G! She is becoming a real kid and not a baby anymore.
 


1) You are a MONSTER getting all those workouts in on vacation. I am ashamed now that I had you make my vacation days as days off on my current plan :oops:

It was really only two workouts on vacation. And one super early morning prior to the flight and then a workout on the day coming home on 3.5 hours sleep. Not too crazy. The week lined up well for a vacation since it was a recovery week (intensity wise) for biking.

2) Those princess face characters better watch out because G is going to take their jobs! She has the curtsy down pat. Just needs to grow a few more inches.

::yes:: princess:

3) HOW have you never been on Space Mountain before?

I do my best to avoid certain rides during race vacations. I get motion sickness and it can bother me for some time if it occurs. So I'm picky on those vacations and thus haven't done it. But I guess on the other vacations it just never lined up timing wise.

Edited to add 4) Happy Birthday G! She is becoming a real kid and not a baby anymore.

Most definitely.
 
I love all the Disney pictures! Looks/sounds like a great trip!
Also ... I kinda can't believe it was your first time on Space Mountain, but I can also understand wanting to avoid it in certain situations. I rode it after the marathon and that was probably not my best idea. But it's one of my favorite rides, so I'm glad you finally got a chance to ride it!

Good luck on your run on Tuesday. I'm excited to hear how it goes - I hope all goes well!
 
I love all the Disney pictures! Looks/sounds like a great trip!

Thanks, it was!

Also ... I kinda can't believe it was your first time on Space Mountain, but I can also understand wanting to avoid it in certain situations. I rode it after the marathon and that was probably not my best idea. But it's one of my favorite rides, so I'm glad you finally got a chance to ride it!

It was kind of shocking how you sit in the seat like a luge. Definitely not expecting that.

Good luck on your run on Tuesday. I'm excited to hear how it goes - I hope all goes well!

Thanks! Fingers crossed!
 


G is so stinking cute, and major kudos on getting those workouts in and that adorable unicorn cake! I hope she had a wonderful birthday!
 
Happy Birthday to darling G! What a great whirlwind Disney trip and you got some great pictures.

Hooray on running again and marathon weekend. :tiptoe:
 
Happy birthday to G, and glad you all had a good trip!

I laughed when you mentioned the $1 per book deal and G ended up with $85! I would have totally done the same thing as a kid. :) Probably worth every dollar in the end.
 
Happy Birthday to darling G! What a great whirlwind Disney trip and you got some great pictures.

Hooray on running again and marathon weekend. :tiptoe:

Thanks all around. I'm ready to see what happens now.

Happy birthday to G, and glad you all had a good trip!

Thanks! We did!

I laughed when you mentioned the $1 per book deal and G ended up with $85! I would have totally done the same thing as a kid. :) Probably worth every dollar in the end.

A good lesson for her that she has to earn the money to spend it. As well that when you're there, you have limited funds to spend and can't get everything you want. So once you spend everything, it's tough luck if you find something else you now wanted more.

What do you mean it didn’t come? Bounce backs are typically on a piece of paper inside the room. Then you call the number listed before you leave WDW to book it. It has to be booked while you are at WDW.

Poor word choice on my part. That's what I meant, as we were hoping that the bounce back offer would come in the room and it did not. We've had it a few times prior, but not this time.
 
Winter/Spring 2019 Training: Part 2

So a few weeks ago I presented my training schedule from January through April (here). So since then, I've been running training load calculations to try and forecast where I'll be in certain weeks (here). I then took all the information I've gathered over the last few weeks and instead of forecasting by weeks I was able to come up with a rough idea of a daily forecasting. The goal was to create a training plan that was balanced using proper run fundamentals and mesh it with the training load calculations from biking and 80DO. The hope was to create a training plan where I'd be in the "optimal" training zone for about 60-70% of the time between now and the May 25th Brat Fest 5k (and June 15th Hot2Trot HM). The plan from April 15th through June 15th is written, but since I don't know where my fitness is the timing of it won't make sense yet. I've got to find out my fitness relative pacing over the next few months, and then I can update that portion of the plan that actually has real workouts in it.

So let's start with what I've done to this point to get where I am:

10/7/18 - Chicago Marathon (last run)
10/10/18 through 11/24/18 - Indoor Biking on simple bike trainer
11/17/18 - Start 21 Day Fix
11/25/18 - Indoor Biking on Wahoo Kickr Core and began structured cycling workouts/training plan
12/18/18 - Start 80 Day Obsession

So that has yielded this training load graph.

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.55.43 AM.png

The TrainerRoad workouts in combination with 80DO have meshed well using training load calculations. The 5 weeks of building/peaking in TrainerRoad is almost always in "optimal" and then the recovery week + 1st week of next cycle pushes me down into "neutral". I spent about 73% of the time from 11/25/18 through 2/17/19 (the TrainerRoad timeframe) in "optimal" training. So the goal of developing the next step of training was to emulate that while sticking to my running fundamentals.

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.55.16 AM.png

Here's the big picture from the last two years. As you can see, I'm on the precipice of moving into a new training load area. But since cycling is far less demanding/damaging then running, and since cycling training loads can be much higher, than this kind of makes sense. High level cyclists are in the CTL (Fitness) range of 105-120. Even a moderate cyclist is in the 85-90 CTL area. Whereas, the marathon training plan for a sub-3 written in CTL seemed to suggest the peak was closer to 70-75 for that plan. This jives as well with the Selier paper I read from a while back which I believe stated elite runners do about 15 hours of running per week in training, whereas elite cyclists do 25-30 hours of cycling per week.

For the first 8 weeks of running, I'm only doing easy running with some strides mixed in. Since I've got little idea where my fitness is, then I'm going to maintain focus on effort, but more so my HR. I've scoured over my HR data since I got a HRM in Fall 2015. I've settled on the idea that my maxHR is somewhere around 172-177. But when I look at the ranges, the effort lines up better with 172, than it does 177. Thus, my goal is to keep my HR under 130 bpm for all easy runs (excluding when the strides occur).

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 12.10.38 PM.png

Here are the last three weeks of training.

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.52.57 AM.png

Just around 11-11.5 hours of training. The TSS has averaged 81.1, 84.7, and 63.1 in the last three weeks. I've been tracking my daily forecast and the actual data, and they're close. Not perfect, but very close. But there's going to be small differences based on the 80DO workouts and whether I nailed the bike 100%. Moving forward the run TSS will be another moving target of it's own.

Here are the next three weeks of training. Steph is gone on another work trip later this week so I had to play with the schedule a bit. Unfortunately we're scheduled for another 2-5 inches of snow on Wednesday, so that run may become an equal bike day. That remains to be seen. These three weeks will be 12.75-13.5 hours of training. But the intensity is being kept relatively low at the outset. The cycling starts the Build Phase of training. Everything since November has been in the Base Phase. It's modeled after the "Short Power - Mid Level" plan with the idea that it should improve my cycling VO2max prior to entering April's run VO2max training. Two plans to hopefully achieve a similar goal.

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.53.12 AM.png

The three weeks after that have a recovery week, a rebuild week, and then start to get back into peak work.

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.53.26 AM.png

Originally, I planned to take a week off of 80DO between each time I restarted it. But after running the numbers, the removal of it didn't make sense from a timing perspective anymore. So instead, we'll do a "Little Obsessed" which is a slightly lesser load for a week, and then jump back in from the beginning. The plan is since Phase 1 is simpler than Phase 2/3, that I'll likely move up in weights. But we'll see what happens when the time comes. Steph's cousin is visiting in mid-March, but I don't anticipate any needs for changes.

Lastly, the plan wraps up in April.

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.53.38 AM.png

Peaking at just around 14 hours for the last three weeks of training with the extra 3 hours from what I'm doing now coming from running (as the biking and 80DO are roughly the same as before). Then starting April 15th is the real run workouts.

Here's the data in stress score form (date, day, daily stress, CTL, ATL, Form, date, form):

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.54.01 AM.png

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 11.54.22 AM.png

The last 85 days have had a ramp rate (amount of increase of training load from one week to the next) around 3-4 (seen in red numbers). On the recovery weeks, it tends to hold steady or even go slightly negative. So the goal was to emulate that same ramp rate which seemed to be tolerable thus far. Additionally, the total time spent in optimal (-10) was at 63% and 71% of the time was spent at -9 or lower (going through May 25th). So there are quite a few fringe days, but I'd rather err just on the side of training slightly too low than end up on the other end of the spectrum with too much.

And here it is graphically:

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 12.30.04 PM.png

So that's the plan at the moment. Tomorrow's run will mark 135 days since I last ran (or about 19 weeks). Now starts the process of hopefully rebuilding old fitness, and possibly pushing forward with new gains.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!










Top