Welterweight

It's the lean wolf that leads the pack - Once a Runner

Yesterday I weighed myself for the first time in months and was shocked to see that I had dropped down to 148lbs. I've always thought that I was between 152-155lbs, and that's pretty low already considering that since college I've always been north of 155, peaking out at 165lbs.

I have somewhat of a mixed reaction about this. The good thing is that the wattage that I've been outputting on the bike hasn't changed, if anything it's gone up. That's great news as I work towards my goal watts/kg.

I'm sure this isn't a bad thing for my running either. Being lighter puts less stress on my joints with each step I take. Unfortunately, there is a component of vanity in all this competitive drivel. Personally, I think that anything under 150lbs for a 5'10-'11 guy is way too skinny. So here I am, faced with a slight conundrum. Should I stuff myself and try to work back up a few pounds, or should I keep going at this pace and hope that my weight stabilises soon? I'm leaning towards the former to be honest.

Now, the question is after two years of training and of maintaining about a super welterweight to middleweight class (155lbs - 160lbs) how did I drop 5 plus pounds so quickly?

Looking at my logs, there is absolutely no question as to what was responsible. I'm spending significantly more time training this year. The jump in volume from year 2 to year 3 (this year) is monumental compared to the jump from the year 1 to year 2. And I owe it all to my lacklustre marathon performance last October. After the mediocre race, I pledged to work on my weakness (endurance) over the winter and that has resulted in a physiological transformation that has allowed my body to absorb a tremendous amount of work. (Obviously 'tremendous' is relative, but I'm comparing this to myself a year ago).

Who says marathons aren't good for triathletes?

Tireless State. 無

It's been a month since my last post, and in the meantime I've had my first run race of the season - an 8k. The great thing about this race is that I've done it now 5 years in a row, and each year, I've set a new PR. I don't know how long this streak will last, obviously it will end at some point since I can't keep getting better ad infinitum. However my hope is that it will keep improving at least for the next 2-3 years. The current PR lies at a high 32 min. Hopefully I will eventually get it down to sub 27:30, which will qualify me for the elite corral. That's a lot of wishful thinking in my opinion, but it never hurts to dream big.

In addition to that I've broken a few other personal records as well. I've had my biggest volume weeks (by a aerobic's point metric which I found online), two weeks in a row! Another personal record I've broken is the amount of hours worked out per week. I guess there is a correlation between aerobic points and hours, but I'll consider them two separate records, thank you very much.

I feel that all this is possible due to the fitness focus I had over the winter. In a way, it was "just" a run focus, but according to Lydiard, running is second to only cross country skiing in its ability to strengthen your cardiovascular system. I have very little doubts that it did indeed contribute to what I'm capable of doing right now.

The most stunning effect, in my mind, is that the time to fatigue for me has increased dramatically. My speed probably has not changed much, but that isn't too concerning since I believe my main limiter is endurance. I vividly remember a moment last week as I was hammering on the bike and realized that I wasn't getting drained as fast as I used to. Lydiard's words echoed in my head "aerobic conditioning is nearly limitless, some athletes have worked themselves up to a tireless state". That has since become my mantra. The word I repeat in my head is the chinese character for 'nothing' - 無