Month: July 2014

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2014 Training Week 12 (21/07/2014 to 27/07/2014)

Activity Details in Google Sheets

Activity Schedule in Google Docs

08

Summary of this week’s activities

First, let’s review my activities during this week. I had two run and one paddle boarding activities this week. On Wednesday (23/07) I had a 10.16K run with the following averages: (10.16 K, 5:00 min/km, 165 bpm, 17m elevation gain). I actually started this run as an individual run, then I saw the Running Room group in the middle of my run and joined them. It was a coincident that we had our runs at the same time.  On Friday (25/07) I had a paddle boarding trip to see the first night of Vancouver 2014 Fireworks live. It was very rewarding. Finally on Sunday (27/07) I had a strength 10K run with the following averages: (10.01 K, 4:58 min/km, 176 bpm, 126m elevation gain).

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayTotal
212210K run24Fireworks 2014 day one26Strength 10K run20.1 km Run One Paddle Boarding

VO2Max and weekly mileage

My VO2Max this week in my (Wednesday, Sunday) activities were (48, 48) ml/kg/min respectively. Also my weekly mileage this week was 20.1 km run and one paddle boarding trip.

 

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2014 Training Week 11 (14/07/2014 to 20/07/2014)

Activity Details in Google Sheets

Activity Schedule in Google Docs

08

Summary of this week’s activities

First, let’s review my activities during this week. I had one run and three paddle boarding activities this week. On Tuesday (15/07) I had a paddle boarding in Vancouver English Bay. On Wednesday (16/07) I had a paddle boarding starting from English Bay, paddling all around stanley park passing Lions Gate Bridge and ending up there. On Friday (18/07) I had a paddle boarding in Vancouver Jericho Beach. On Sunday (20/07) I had a 21.13K run (half marathon) with the following averages: (21.13 K, 4:58 min/km, 176 bpm, 65m elevation gain).

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayTotal
14Paddle Boarding English BayPaddle Boarding English Bay17Paddle Boarding Jericho Beach19Half Marathon21.1 km Run Three Paddle Boarding

VO2Max and weekly mileage

My VO2Max this week in my Sunday run was 48 ml/kg/min. Also my weekly mileage this week was 21.1 km run and three paddle boarding trips.

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2014 Training Week 10 (07/07/2014 to 13/07/2014)

Activity Details in Google Sheets

Activity Schedule in Google Docs

08

Summary of this week’s activities

First, let’s review my activities during this week. I had 3 run and 3 swim activities in this week. On Monday (07/07) I had a 10K race with the following averages: (10.01K , 4:45 min/km, 180 bpm). On Tuesday (08/07) I had a 1.5 km swimming with average pace 1:45 min/100m. On Wednesday (09/07) I had a Running Room 10.56K run with the following averages: (10.56 K, 4:53 min/km, 172 bpm, 99 m elevation gain). On Friday (11/07) I had a 1.5 km swimming with average pace 1:42 min/100m. On Saturday (12/07) I had a 1.5 km lap swimming with average pace 2:19 min/km. Finally on Sunday (13/07) I had a Running Room 18.67 K run with the following averages: (18.67 K, 5:26 min/km, 157 bpm, 136 m elevation gain).

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayTotal
10K Race1.5K Lap Swimming11K run101.5K Lap Swimming1.5K Lap SwimmingLong 19K run39.2 km Run 4.50 km Swim

VO2Max and weekly mileage

My VO2Max this week in my (Monday, Wednesday, Sunday) activities were (50, 50, 50) ml/kg/min respectively. Also my weekly mileage this week was 39.2 km run and 4.5 km swim.

Comparing activities to see my improvement

In order to see my improvement this week, I want to compare two activities, one on 09/07 with the following averages: (10.56 K, 4:53 min/km, 172 bpm, 99m elevation gain) and the other on 22/06 with the following averages: (13.01 K, 4:57 min/km, 174 bpm, 97m elevation gain). I assume the harder effort (174 bpm vs 172 bpm) and easier elevation gain (97m vs 99m) of the second run would balance it’s longer distance (13.01K vs 10.56K) when comparing those two runs with each other.

Therefore in order to see my improvement, I can just compare the average pace in one run with the average pace in the other. That means I had 00:04 min/km i.e. 1.34% improvement in 17 days. Therefore not a significant improvement in past two weeks. As we all know, running improvement comes in sudden, therefore we might not observe a significant change in our pace for a certain period of time, but all of a sudden we’ll observe a jump in our speed which shows our hard effort during that period of time.

New 10K record on Monday (07/07)

The Ave. pace was supposed to be 4:50 but it ended up to 4:45. It was almost a flat race , but it still had a few hills.

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2014 Training Week 9 (30/06/2014 to 06/07/2014)

Activity Details in Google Sheets

Activity Schedule in Google Docs

They keep each other moving

Summary of this week’s activities

First, let’s review my activities during this week. I had 2 run and 2 swim activities in this week. On Monday (30/06) I had an easy 3K run with the following averages: (2.80 K, 5:14 min/km, 157 bpm), On Wednesday (02/07) I had a Running Room 10K run with the following averages: (10.00 K, 4:59 min/km, 168 bpm), On Wednesday (02/07) I had a 1.5 km lap swimming with average pace 2:18 min/100m (my watch says it’s a 3:43 am Wednesday swim but that’s not possible so there might be a one day inaccuracy in the time of the activity), On Friday (04/07) I had a 1.5 km lap swimming with average pace 2:11 min/100m.

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayTotal
Easy 3K run11.5K Lap Swimming  10K run 31.5K Lap Swimming5612.8 km Run 3.0 km Swim

My weekly mileage

Again based on this article, my two lap swimmings are equal with a 12K moderate run. Therefore my total weekly activities are equal with 24.80 K weekly mileage run. Comparing it to the 33.21 K weekly mileage of last week, we observe a 25.32% decrease in weekly mileage this week. That means I have to be more active in future as such a huge decrease in weekly mileage in week 9 doesn’t make sense at all.

In fact the way that I am training right now is not very appropriate as I have less activities in certain weeks and too much activities in the others. I have to train slow and steady in a safe manner to avoid getting injured and achieve the best results.

Comparing activities to see my improvement

Again if I compare my run activity on 18/06 with the following averages: (10.01 K, 5:04 min/km, 169 bpm, 182 m elevation gain) to my other run activity on 02/07 with the following averages: (10.00 K, 4:59 min/km, 168 bpm, 75m elevation gain) , we see everything is the same in those two activities but average pace and elevation gain. My this week’s pace was 0:05 min/km slower and at the same time it’s elevation gain was 107m harder. I guess the elevation gain and the pace would balance each other and that means we cannot observe a significant improvement in my activities during past 2 weeks.

Buying a new Garmin Fenix 2 watch

Due to the fact that I was swimming a lot in my trainings, I decided to buy a Garmin Fenix 2 watch which was more appropriate for my training compared to Garmin FR 610. The complete description of Fenix 2 in the Garmin website is available here and a comparison between Fenix 2 and Forerunner 610 is available here and here and here.

But in short, the advantages of Fenix 2 compared to Forerunner 610 for me are as followings:

  • Fenix 2 records swimming activities
  • Fenix 2 and it’s heart rate monitor measures running dynamics (included cadence) and also VO2Max which are very important features for runners (I don’t know if it’s about Fenix 2 or it’s heart rate monitor but in any case I have these extra features in Fenix 2 where I didn’t have them in Forerunner 610)
  • Fenix 2 is more appropriate for hiking
  • The battery of Fenix 2 lasts longers