2020 Training Week 1 (11/05/2020 to 17/05/2020)

May 17, 2020

My weekly totals

First, let’s review summary of this week’s training: weekly mileage 30.37 km, weekly steps 103223 (14746 steps daily average), total weight loss so far 1.2 kg and this week’s weight loss 1.2 kg.

Summary of this week’s activities

First, let’s review my activities during this week. I had 6 run activities in this week. On Monday (11/05) I had a 5K run with the following averages: (5.32 K, 8:17 min/km, 147 bpm, 83m elevation gain). On Tuesday (12/05) I had a 5K run with the following averages: (5.01 K, 6:24 min/km, 159 bpm, 20m elevation gain). On Wednesday (13/05) I had a 5K run with the following averages: (5.01 K, 6:13 min/km, 165 bpm, 18m elevation gain). On Friday (15/05) I had a 5K run with the following averages: (5.01 K, 6:19 min/km, 154 bpm, 22m elevation gain). On Saturday (16/05) I had a 5K run with the following averages: (5.01 K, 5:44 min/km, 170 bpm, 15m elevation gain). On Sunday (17/05) I had a 5K run with the following averages: (5.01 K , 6:15 min/km, 166 bpm, 17m elevation gain).

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
5K Run	5K Run	5K Run	14	5K Run	5K Run	5K Run	30.3 km
11,457	13,857	14,897	15,758	16,331	15,460	15,463	103,223
87.5 kg	88.1 kg	87.6 kg	87.6 kg	86.9 kg	87.1 kg	86.3 kg

About my running and weight loss goals this summer

This summer, I set up a goal of losing 1 kg/week of my body weight through running activities and I made it in the first week. The difference between my losing weight this year and last year is in my exercises i.e. running vs walking.

2019 weight loss project: weight loss through walking

Last summer, I planned to get back to running but in the first step, I decided to lose weight because I was overweight and I didn’t know if it’s possible to start training while you are overweight. Also based on what I had read before, I thought it’s hard to lose weight through running activities.

I googled “running and lose weight” right now and at least two of the first few articles (this and this) are clearly indicating that running alone is not the best option for losing weight. Also I can remember from 2016 when I was close to my prime, that I took a break during my trainings to lose weight through dieting and walking a lot for better performance.

Why walking and not running

About the question of why walking and not running: the short answer for me was when you are running, you would burn calories faster and you would get hungry faster too and it works less effective for losing weight to run compared to walking.

Although my answer was not very scientific, anyways I had that impression in my mind, that walking works better for losing weight compared to running and therefore I decided to work with “diet and walking” rather than “diet and running”.

Therefore in a very difficult diet (it was my fist diet ever) during 18 weeks, I lost 12.5 kg (27.5 lb). After that difficult first step, my motivation for running decreased a lot. I tried to run a few times but I didn’t see a huge difference in my performance before and after losing weight. I also got busy with my job so I totally forgot about running.

While preparing for running was my main reason for losing weight, I didn’t take care of my weight after I stopped thinking about running and in my mind, I didn’t believe I was going to gain a lot of weight if I stopped caring about my weight and my diet. What happened in practice was totally different.

After I stopped my diet on 09/09/2019 until I again decided to get back to training and diet this week, I gained all what I lost in summer 2019, and even 4.2 kg more. In fact, on 07/05/2019 (beginning of my 2019 diet) I was 83.3 kg and on 10/05/2020 (beginning of my 2020 diet) I was 87.5 kg.

My 2020 goal: running and weight loss

This year, the story is totally different. My absolute first priority is getting back to my physical fitness and I know it takes a long time to gain back the physical fitness I lost during the past three years. I still don’t know how much it would work to lose weight with diet and running, but even if it’s not the most effective way for losing weight, I chose this over diet and walking because this time, running is the main factor for me not losing weight.

Getting advice of a qualified exercise professional

Having all of that in my mind, I gave a call to 811 to talk to a qualified exercise professional to advise me about a training plan. I have read a lot of books about different training plans but none of them is applicable for me because I am very slow right now. In terms of numbers, my last four 10K run times were 70, 69, 67, 68 minutes.

After talking to a qualified exercise professional, he told me that I am overthinking about this matter. He said it’s better just to start training and I also have to be careful about not getting injured by overtraining because I have been away from running for a long time. Due to my long distance walks of last year, I knew my body is OK with having 100’000 weekly steps. Therefore I set that as a constraint in my trainings, for beginning no more than 100’000 weekly steps.

building my training plan with 5K runs

I started my trainings with 5K runs and had it for four consecutive days. On the fifth day I felt that I needed one day rest and therefore I built my training plan this way: four day 5K runs and one day rest. I would continue with this training plan until I see I need to change it.