Week 5+6+7+8+9 (27 Jan - 2 Mar)

It has been a while since I updated the blog so I will try to catch up and cover the last 5 weeks in one post :) So I will warn you from the start - this will be a long post.

Week 5 (27 Jan - 2 Feb)

Swim: 0:00 (0 m)

Bike: 3:32 (1:36 as part of a brick session)

Run: 2:35 (1:38 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:30 (and two days of skiing! :))

Total: 6:57

TSS (bike/run):465

Monday

Started out with a health check (mandatory once a year in Japan) which meant 12 hours of faste. It was actually not bad and the lunch I got when I got home after 15 hours of nothing but water tasted great. Besides lunch, I had two bananas and waited a couple of hours before heading out on what was suppose to be a standard interval session. But man, was I surprised. My body felt heavy and during the cool down it felt like I had run 30km. I hurried home and had some more food. Did 30 min strength and core in the evening.

The health check was a funny experience and as in any other case in Japan it was thoroughly done. They took blood and urin samples, x-rays, electrocardiogram (ECG) etc. Overall I "passed" and in general my values are within the normal range. There were a few outliers:

My heart rate from the ECG was 41 which is below the normal range (45-100) which is most likely related to my level of physical activity, so no worries here.

My level of CPK (Creatine Phospho Kinase) enzymes is 377 IU/l which is above the normal range (57-267). This is used as an indicator for heart attacks and strokes. However, since the number reflects muscle damage it will also be elevated during periods with high training load. So no worries here either.

Besides the above, my level of LDL-Cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol) is 89.2 mg/dl which is below the normal rance of 100-130 mg/dl, my level of triglycerides is 34 mg/dl which is below the normal range (50-150) and my level of globulin is 2.3 g/dl which is below the normal range (2.5-3). I have not looked further into the details of these, but left it up to doctor Seez to conclude on the figures and according to him I have excellent health status :)

You get a very detailed report from the health check

For what it is worth my hematocrit value was 43.5 which could indicate two things:
1) Clean athlete - no EPO here!
2) I have huge potential to gain from using EPO without going above the 50 which I believe used to be the indicator when testing in the tour

See mom - my liver is "normal" and was not harmed during high school :)

Tuesday

On Tuesday I did 1:15 on the turbo and unfortunately had to skip the club swim in the evening due to work.

Wednesday + Thursday

Both days I did a morning brick. Wednesday focusing on the bike and Thursday focusing on the run. I felt good despite several days of biking and running.

Friday

Friday I was leaving for Zürich and managed to get in a 1 hour turbo session on the balcony at 6AM.

Balcony workouts can be boring, but if it includes some intervals it is usually ok. Otherwise you can always enjoy the sunrise next to Tokyo Tower:

Knowing that I needed to sit on a SAS flight where you are served crappy food for 11 hours and had to travel directly from Copenhagen to Zürich I tried to bring as much healthy stuff as possible.

Ready to go

When I checked in at the  airport I tried to see if I could get a fruit meal on the flight instead of the normal meal, but apparently you have to notify them several days up front. Instead I went to the lounge and went all-in on their fruit bar.

The most healthy meal you can get in the lounge at Narita :)

In Copenhagen airport I met with my colleague Steffen who had kindly offered me to stay with him and his family in Zürich during the weekend so we could go skiing Saturday and Sunday.
I also managed to get by the lounge in Kastrup to get some "dinner".

No more healthy - these I see too rarely to pass!

Saturday 

We were  up early and I was able to get another kind of food I haven't had for a while.

Yummy!

We dropped Steffen's boys off a the ski school and met with a third colleague and spent rest of the day skiing in the sun - wonderful!

Sunday

On Sunday it was snowing and some places it was really cloudy. Hence we took a few more stops and enjoyed some of the lovely "Wiener schnitzel und pommes".

Less yummy if you ask me, but Steffen seemed to enjoy

I had a strength and conditioning workout planned in the evening, but I was too beat up. I think my legs had enough strength training from the heavy snow.

Week 6 (3 Feb - 9 Feb)

Swim: 0:00 (0 m)

Bike: 1:28

Run: 3:35

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 5:33

TSS (bike/run): 406

This week I didn't do much training. I had a planned run on Monday but my legs were still a bit heavy, so I decided to postpone to Tuesday where I got up very early and managed to get in a 1 hour interval session on the treadmill at the hotel. I have always hated treadmills, but for an interval session it was actually quite good.

Rest of the time in Zürich was work and the next workout was on a treadmill at Scandic Hotel in Copenhagen on Thursday.

Saturday morning I was picked up by Jeppe and went for a swim. We did however use most of the time relaxing and catching up. After the swim I visited Klaus and Malene and I even got to meet the little wonder Malou.

She already has more hair than I do!

Klaus had made a great and very very overwhelming brunch and fortunately Mikkel and I had a 1:30 hour long run planned later that day, so we went all in. During the run I was reminded how much I should appreciate all the time I can actually workout while the sun is up and the sky is blue. Denmark was dark and cold!

On Sunday Mikkel and I met up with Klaus to try out Simbikes in Grøndalcenteret. We decided to do Mont Ventoux, so instead of the planned workout of 3 hours easy I got in a 1:20 almost all-out. The fact that I am a few kg lighter than the two other guys got me up faster and I could enjoy watching Mikkel going all-out at the end and squeeze out everything he had :)

There is a reason why Pantini was not build like this :)

Full speed :)

And he is almost there...

After almost 1:30 in pain I headed towards the airport. Unfortunately my flight was canceled due to snow and I had to travel across Paris (apparently ANA could fly to Tokyo, but not SAS) so I got home 7 hours later than planned, but good to be back.

Week 7 (10 Feb - 16 Feb)

Swim: 0 (0m)

Bike: 7:57 (0:47 as part of a brick session)

Run: 1:42 (0:28 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 9:39

TSS (bike/run): 648

Monday

I came home around 6PM and was simply to tired to do anything.

Tuesday

National holiday in Japan and I had a 3 hour endurance bike ride planned. Since snow was still lying around I decided to do it indoor on the trainer while watching Breaking Bad. I got of the trainer after 2 hours and had a 5 min break and the 3 hours was not that bad at all.

Wednesday

When I woke up Wednesday my legs were still heavy from the workouts on Sunday and Tuesday and as I felt a bit jet-lagged I decided to skip the planned interval run session.

Thursday

Did the run session I skipped Wednesday which was 4x 6min efforts with 2min jog followed by 4x 1min hard efforts with 2min recovery. A good session and I did not notice any calf issues which I sometimes do after hard efforts.

Friday

Friday i did 1:10 intervals on the turbo. I tried to follow HR zones instead of power which resulted in slightly higher power output.

Saturday

Saturday I did a brick session of 47min on the turbo (incl. 3x 10min tempo intervals) followed by 30min tempo run. Due to snow the run was a bit troublesome as you do not remove snow the same way we are used to in Denmark. Some leave it and some remove it with e.g. hot water.

Sunday

Sunday I had another3 hour endurance ride and decided to do it on the turbo again. Weather still not too good and I had plenty of Breaking Bad to watch :) Tried to follow HR instead of power which made the workout a bit harder. Again, I took 5 minutes break after 2 hours and got back on for the last hour.

Week 8 (17 Feb - 23 Feb)

Swim: 2:00 (4.400m)

Bike: 5:30 (1:15 as part of a brick session)

Run: 3:55 (0:48 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 11:26

TSS (bike/run): 713

Monday

Did a 1 hour interval session and still felt a bit tired. My right knee cap was a slightly sore and I wonder whether it could be from the treadmill sessions in Europe where I might not

Tuesday

Tuesday morning I did 1 hour of intervals on the turbo. I had to go by feel instead of numbers which was a funny experience. It is obvious that I have become way to used to just looking at HR, pace or watt and it was nice to go by feel instead. But also a bit difficult :)

In the evening I joined the triathlon club for a swim and got in 2.000m.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning I did 1 hour of intervals (10x 800m with 30 sec recoveries). Went well and managed to keep pace around 4:07min/km during the efforts.

Thursday

Together with a colleague I have been investigating how much it takes to get in to the state where your body mainly burns fat (by measuring the level of ketose). You can do this by fasting (which I can understand is quite popular in Denmark for the time being) or by mainly eating fat. As I do a lot of exercise I chose to go with the mainly eating fat approach as I am not sure how my body would react working out after faste (or actually, I know from the health check and that did not went well). I found a Danish website called 'Madbanditten.dk' where there is a lot of useful information about LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) diets.

To track when my body goes into ketose I have been measuring my level of ketose with a blood sample a few times a day the last couple of days. The level you want to be at is according to the information I have been able to find 1.5-3.0 mmol/L and I succeeded a few times.

My new standard breakfast - lots of healthy fat!

LCHF lunch at work :)

The strips are pretty expensive, app. 13 DKK per measurement, so I plan to continue to focus on eating as much LCHF as possible and then do a few days of tracking later on

The idea around all this is, besides shedding some fat, is to enable my body to use fat as an energy source more efficiently during exercise, i.e. avoid hitting the wall during longer distances. In general I think my body does that pretty well and I also managed to get into ketose a lot faster than my colleague who has been taking the fasting approach.

Friday

Friday morning I had a long tempo brick session planned. After 15 minutes warm-up on the bike I had to do a 1 hour tempo ride followed by a 45 minutes tempo run. I was a bit concerned about how my body would tackle this as I had only gotten 68g of carbohydrate the day before and the last couple of days 60-70% of my energy intake had been from fat. I usually do my morning workouts without eating anything upfront which works well and it reduces the risk of stomach issues. I chose to do the same thing in this case and it actually went pretty good. I did feel a bit tired on the last 15 minutes of the run, but nothing too bad. I was positively surprised about how well my body accepted to do tempo-efforts mainly on fat. Especially since the workout was pretty hard. During the tempo run I managed to do 10km on 42min which I was happy about since it was on a hilly course (around Akasaka Palace).

Saturday

Saturday I had another 3 hour endurance ride and this time I decided to go outside and went to Arakawa river. I had breakfast before I left, but brought no nutrition. Was a bit tired the last hour. On my way home I went by farmers markets to stock up on sun dried dates. Good natural fuel and excellent for homemade energy bars.

Arakawa river - my go-to place for Saturday rides (if the weather allows)

Farmers market in Aoyama

I was the only one bringing a TT-bike :)

Sunday

On Sunday I headed out early to do a 1 hour run incl. tempo min tempo before I joined the triathlon club for a swim at 10AM in Odaiba. 

In the afternoon I finally managed to get my bike washed which was needed after almost 2 months without it. 

It needed that!

 

Week 9 (24 Feb - 2 Mar)

Swim:  (5.000m)

Bike: 5:49 (0:56 as part of a brick session)

Run:  3:09 (0:30 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 10:58

TSS (bike/run): 731

Monday

Did a 1 hour interval session on the turbo and still felt a bit tired from the last three days workouts. My right knee cap was slightly sore - and it had actually been that way during bike workouts for a few weeks, and I wonder whether it could be from the treadmill sessions in Europe where I might have been heel striking a bit more than usual.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning I did a one hour interval run session with short recoveries:

15min warm-up (incl. strides)

2x 3min efforts with 30sec recovery

4x 90sec efforts with 15sec recovery

2x 3min efforts with 30sec recovery

4x 90sec efforts with 15sec recovery

2x 3min effforts with 30sec recovery

15 min cool down

I don't like the short recoveries, but the workout went well. The intention was that pace should be kept consistent throughout the efforts and I managed to keep it around 3:50-4:00min/km. No knee cap issues.

Work kept me late, so I had to skip the planned swim in the evening.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning I got in another turbo interval session. I can definitely feel I am getting stronger on the bike and I am looking forward to the next test!

Thursday

Club swim was cancelled and I decided to do the session I skipped on Tuesday instead. I took the afternoon of and it was great to go to the pool when it was not too crowded. At some point I was the only one in the lane - something you would never experience in the evening where you usually share a lane with 5-10 others.

Friday

Friday night I had a party with colleagues so I needed to get my workout done in the morning. I took AM off and did a brick session which had my jump on and off the bike several times. Basically it was:

15min warm-up on turbo and then into

3x [7min - 10min - 5min] as:

7min tempo bike 

10min run as 5min at 5k pace into 5min at half marathon pace

5min spin on turbo

Ending up with 5min cool down on turbo.

The workout went well although it is kind a logistic nightmare. Fortunately the guy in the reception was not around so I did not had to explain why I kept running in and out :)

In the evening we went to a place where we met 'Namahage'. Namahage is a kind of Japanese boogie man that apparently go after the naughty and lazy kids. And in this place, you had to drink sake with Namahage if you were point out by your friends to be that kind of person. I didn't understand all the details, but I was happy to drink with Namahage :)

The food is prepared with great precision and tasted great

No party without Karaoke!

Saturday

Saturday Maria had planned to skiing with a few other Danish ladies. One of them is the wife of Jacob - a colleague of mine (the ketose-experimenting-colleague) - so Jacob and I decided to go to Costco and stock up on healthy food. I was a bit tired after spending Friday night out, but still woke up pretty early. I got up around 8 and Jacob picked me up around 10. Costco is a great place where you can get all sorts of stuff - in big bulks! I guess it is similar to METRO in Denmark.

Back on the carb-wagon!

When I got home I ate a lot of fruit and got on the turbo and did a 3 hour endurance ride while finishing 'Breaking Bad'. A must see for those of you who have not already seen it! I was quite happy with getting in a 3 hours ride the day after the party.

Sunday

My old kinvara 3 shoes has reached 700km and I have decided to start implementing a new pair. Same model, different colour. These were up for testing today. At the same time I bought a new pair of racing flats; Saucony A5.

New gear - love it!

When I got back from Denmark I realised that I had missed the sign-up for Cairns 70.3 and it had quickly sold out. Hence the plans needed to change and I have instead signed up for Japan Ironman 70.3 on June 1st and for another race in Hiroshima called 'Woodman' on June 29th. The race distance for Woodman is similar to 70.3, however the swim is a bit longer (2.5 km instead of 1.9 km), the bike leg a bit shorter (55 km instead of 90 km) and the run about the same distance (20 km instead of 21 km). At first, I did not found it that interesting, mainly because swim is my weakest discipline, but Mark (the guy that beat me in Taiwan) convinced me that the route looks like something we have to try. It starts at sea level and rest of the race is more or less uphill.  

I am already looking forward to passing the 15km mark on the run

Unfortunately it is a very small race so there is a lottery to get in and I will not know whether I got in before mid-May. However, the more I study this race the more I really want to get it. So cross your fingers folk!

Thanks for reading - on Saturday I am off to Denmark again, but I hope it will not take me 5 weeks until the next post.