I currently have several posts in the works about specific aspects of my training — my macro counting, my latest runs, my weights progress — but I don’t quite have enough time or energy to give each their due, and so have fixed that by writing nothing. D’oh. To prevent an extended writers block I’ve decided to just dump a quick overview on where I’m at and what I’m doing without going into too much detail about any one thing. So, here goes…
Nutrition
After a long period of very relaxed maintenance, I started macro counting again a few weeks ago. After having had a lot of success losing weight on a Renaissance Periodization plan last year, I decided to trial their new app. I would like to cut a few more lbs of fat but to be honest, my main aim is to maintain strength without adding any more [fat].
I decided to pause all tracking during a recent bad cold and just eat what I fancied (bodies need calories to recover!) but this hasn’t had any major impact upon my weight and I’m back on it as of this week.
Weights
After I finished my marathon in May I decided I wanted to focus on my lifting before doing any more big running challenges. Having eyed up some beginners powerlifting competitions, I’ve decided that it’s feasible to get in shape and get my lifts back up this year with a view to entering one either late this year or early next.
To this aim, I’m currently trialling the Hybrid Performance Method, on their Hybrid Powerlifting plan. I’ve only been following this for a few days (having, like my macro counting stopped to accommodate my cold) but so far so good. There’s a lot more high rep work in the plan than I’m used to, and less pushing for a constant new 1RM, which is probably best as I wasn’t giving myself time to recover before. I look forward to seeing where I’m at with this in 2-3 months.
Running
Although I’m not planning on doing any super long or competitive runs over the next 6 months or so, I’m still trying to get out and run a couple of times a week so as not to lose too much marathon fitness. I am tentatively considering attempting another marathon in 2020, but haven’t decided for definite yet (or, indeed, which one if I do).
Other sports
I have a taekwon-do grading coming up in September, which if I manage to complete successfully will take me up to red belt. Things are getting much harder, much faster, so I anticipate the next grading being a bit of an arse kicking.
I’ve not had chance to get to a pole lesson in months and my netball at the local school is on hold over the summer. What with that and not doing the school runs giving an overall lower activity level, I’m going to have to be careful not to over-eat. I always tell myself I will do a voluntary walk each day over the school summer holidays to replace the 4-6 miles of school run but it literally never happens.
Lead photo by Luis Reyes