Adarq.org

side note: i will destroy microsoft. piece of shit company making piece of shit products that rob me of hard work. death to microsoft.

okay then.

happy new year everyone! 2019 was a good year goal-wise, in that i met my main athletic goal of running a sub-20 minute 5k. did it two weeks in a row, in fact. go me. in 2020, my athletic goals will be the following:

1. increase maximum strength. i haven't lifted for more than two years and i'm down about 10 pounds from my average weight while training to dunk (and all the other tangents i went on). the heaviest i ever saw on the scale was 183, iirc, but that was a long time ago. ~175 was my weightlifting set weight. i'm now ~165. always been lean, so the weight loss is substantially muscular and i'm definitely weaker than i was a few years ago. so goal number one will involve a few months reversing that process. not sure about exact targets yet, but it'll probably be something simple like a squat target, a bench target, and an upper pulling target. a trip to the gym will let me know what my baseline is and what i should be shooting for.

2. run 5k under 19:00. this might be a bit of a reach, given that my newbie gains only got me from 20:53 to 19:42. but i hit that goal while almost never touching the 30 mile-per-week volume that's generally cited as a minimum for a sub-20 time. so if i can push the volume a bit this year, just by adding a couple of km per run and staying consistent -- plus getting some more practice racing now that i live near a literal weekly race -- perhaps the gains will continue to come fast.

3. do a clean handstand and a barefoot pistol on both legs. these are a lower priority, i'm adding them mainly to give myself an excuse to work more on mobility and joint health (lifting will also help with that in the form of warming up, which i do not do for running). handstands i've done before but had to stop when my right wrist started acting up too much. the ultimate bw strength goal for me is still a flag. OAC would also be cool but it's distant: my shoulders can barely tolerate single-arm holds. it'd be rad to get a kip-up as well. and a backflip. would need a gymnastics gym to learn that, i think.

there's a time sequence to these, because working on strength for a couple of months will mean cutting back on running volume and probably intensity. i can consistently work out five days per week, so a three days lifting/two days running schedule seems feasible. once i've hit whatever strength goal i come up with, i'll dial back the lifting and focus again on running. the bw stuff can be thrown in around the edges, i'm not too fussed about it.

- run 8.58 km in 41:51

- stretch

been averaging ~10-12km walking each day with the fam. they went off and did their own thing today so i went for a quick run in the afternoon. good to just keep things lubricated.

"slack muscle"? what's that? olympic weight lifters have huge traps because they have to pick very large amounts of weight off the ground very fast. it's critical to them doing what they want to be good at. you can have the wrong physique for the thing you're trying to do -- those giant traps wouldn't help so much in a marathon. but there's no such thing as slack muscle.

don't worry about preventing muscle gain, man. gaining muscle is hard, although i know you said it's easy for you it's not that easy without steroids. keep getting stronger in exercises that are appropriate for your goals and keep losing fat. your muscles will grow to fit.

Around 2 - 3 seconds between reps

i think he's asking how quickly you lifted the weight, not how long you rested for. regardless, more than 2x bw for reps is good work. although from your description it sounds like form was a bit all over the place and, as adarq said, be careful with that.

- run 10.05 km in 49:34
legs started to feel heavy after ~5.5-6km and really dead around 8km. still came in at 5:08, which is my supposed target pace for medium-length runs, and hit 4:56 average. knees aching slightly immediately post run but not too bad, it'll go away. first time that's happened in a while though.

- stretch

ETA: also, seem to have strained something in my ribs during or after the race. right side, underneath the lower part of my lat. been bugging a little since yesterday. nothing to worry about but it's there.

yesterday definitely won't be my last race. it was easier than the first one, in a way. i still think it's probably a good idea to take a bit of time this winter to back off from running and work more on strength for a couple of months. not to stop running, just change the stimulus up a bit. but i'm also thinking about joining the local running club.

turned out to be nothing.



- 5k race in 19:41 (watch), 19:56 (official) 
course was a little long, i guess. still got under 20:00 chip time, goal well and truly met.

lost a little time on each split (3:47, 3:55, 3:58, 4:00, 4:01), but final km was faster than last weekend's so that's good. lungs felt a bit congested after the race. it was pretty chilly. still, super pleased.