Monte's Log, Featuring a Debate About Dotard Genetic Potential with an Ant
Brief Background
Long time lurker who recently registered. I'm 31 years old, 6'4", and 220 pounds. When I graduated college 10 years ago, I was the same height, but weighed 165 pounds. After college, I found the gym and packed on a lot of muscle over the subsequent 2 year period of working out, but did the typical broish bench/curl-centric exercise routine while rarely squatting or deadlifting (i.e. I maxed out at 330 benching and 235 squatting). Since then, I've periodically gotten back in the gym for six months or a year at a time, but never consistently.
Recent Workouts
Recently I've been doing 3 sets of 40 pushups and a total of ~25 pullups 4-5 times a week, and also playing squash a few times a week. Since beginning squash (which is very high impact), I've been having periodic weakness/pain in my right knee, but other than that no issues except chronically tight hamstrings.
My Plan
This is yet another starting SS log; I'll be doing the version with pullups/chinups and without PCs (at least to start), but I will be deadlifting for the first two weeks or so until my gains start to level off. I've read the book and the wiki, and I'll be starting on Monday. I've purchased the appropriate lifting shoes and chalk, and I'll be doing foam rolling on my problem areas post-workout. I also plan to purchase Assess and Correct or something similar shortly in order to work on my flexibility issues.
My diet is pretty decent, with a lot of skim milk/oatmeal/protein bars/lean meats/veggies on my good days (at work), with the occasional pizza and beer meal thrown in (usually weekend). I haven't been doing daily tracking, but I plugged in an average day and I'm around 2800-3000 calories with around 150 grams of protein a day.
My Goals
This log is mostly for motivation. I'm not entirely sure but I would guess my body fat percentage is somewhere between 20 and 25%, so I guess I'm shooting for recomposition. I don't have many specific goals in mind. My main goal is to get stronger, especially in my lower body (maybe get my combined deadlift+squat+bench to 1000 lbs). I'd also like to tighten up my midsection and lose the 15 or so pounds of extra weight I'd guess I'm carrying around my gut.
Questions
-I'm assuming I should up my protein intake? I'm not really sure what my LBM is exactly, but if I use the 1.5 g/lb LBM I should up the protein to between 225 and 250 g/day, correct? I can throw a scoop or two of protein powder into my morning and evening skim milk if necessary.
-I'll be lifting at lunch with a coworker; this is the first time I haven't worked out in late afternoon. I am used to having a post workout recovery shake (e.g. Endurox) and then eating my largest meal of the day 1-1.5 hours post-workout. Should that still be the case if I'm working out at lunch -- that is, should my lunch be dinner sized, and should my dinner portion be smaller?
-Any tips or suggestions from other tall guys, or people who've trained with tall guys, about pitfalls or things to avoid involving squatting would be welcome. I suspect the answer is "shut up and lift weight" but just thought I'd ask.
Thanks in advance!
1/1: Marathon W16D2
A
NG Pullups: +25 x7, x6, x5
RFESS: +40 x8x3
B
Farmer's Carries (85 lb DBs): x~35 sec, x~30 sec, x~25 sec
C
Bench: wu, 165x10x2, x9
Facepulls: 4x15
Seated Calf: 3x15
D
Incline Bench: 55s x12, x10, x8
DB Pullovers: 70 x10, x9, x8
E
Overhead Rope Tri: x18, x13, x11
DB Hammer: 30s x10x3
F
Leg Extensions: x18, x13
Leg Curl: x18, x13
Leg Adductor: 2x15
Leg Abductor: 2x15
Snuck this in this morning before the prep for the New Year's Day smoked meat extravaganza; going to try to lift twice a week at least until the marathon happens, after which I may reevaluate.
1/3: Marathon W16D4
Track Threshold + Intervals
Warmup: 2.0 mi @8:40-9:44
~1.8 mi - 16:41.6/~9:00 pace/145 HR/156 MHR
Threshold: 2x (2.0 mi @7:20-7:40/2:00 rest)
2.0 mi_1 - 14:57.4/7:29 pace/155 HR/170 MHR
2.0 mi_2 - 14:57.9/7:29 pace/159 HR/177 MHR
"Hard" Intervals: 3x (3:00 @6:45-7:00/2:00 easy)
3:00_1: 690m/7:00 pace/166 HR/176 MHR
3:00_2: 710m/6:48 pace/173 HR/181 MHR
3:00_3: 710m/6:48 pace/174 HR/180 MHR
Repeats: 6x (200m @6:08-6:28/200 m easy)
200m_1: 0:45.3/6:04 pace/168 HR/175 MHR
200m_2: 0:48.7/6:32 pace/170 HR/176 MHR
200m_3: 0:44.7/5:59 pace/173 HR/179 MHR
200m_4: 0:44.2/5:56 pace/172 HR/179 MHR
200m_5: 0:45.4/6:06 pace/174 HR/179 MHR
200m_6: 0:44.4/5:58 pace/174 HR/180 MHR
Cooldown: 1.0 mi @8:40-9:44
1.0 mi - 9:08.2/155 HR/161 MHR
With the recovery jogging, this ended up being 10.7 miles in total; oddly enough my watch chopped a few hundred meters off of the warmup for some reason, hence the imprecision. HR wasn't showing up correctly on my watch screen while I was running, but seems like it loaded to the app correctly - very weird. Outside of my HR getting a bit high during the second threshold session, no real issues to speak of - happy with how this turned out.
1/4: Marathon W16D5
A
NG Pullups: x12 x9, x7
HLRs: 3x10
B
Walking DB Lunges: 35s x8x3
Seated Calf: 3x12
C
Facepulls: 4x15
Pallofs: 3x10
D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 65s x9x2, x8
E
Leg Extension: x18, x12
Leg Curl: x18, x14
F
Adductor Machine: 2x15
Abductor Machine: 2x15
F
DB LTEs: 35s x10, x9, x7
DB Seated Incline Curl: 20s x12x2, x10
1/5: Marathon W16D6
Recovery Run
40:00 - 4.10 mi/9:46 pace/133 HR/149 MHR
1/6: Marathon W16D7
Marathon Pace
30:00 - 3.40 mi/8:49 pace/148 HR/160 MHR
12.0 mi - 1:35:31.9/7:58 pace/166 HR/180 MHR
Managed to squeeze in a lift after work on Thursday and a recovery run on Friday; nothing to write home about from either other than checking boxes. Pushed forward my Sunday long run to Saturday so I can (hopefully) get another quality session in on Tuesday before I leave to ski on Wednesday morning.
I wasn't overwhelmingly confident about today's run, but my buddy wanted to go run at Fort Ben so off we went. The trail from the parking lot to the ~2.25 mile loop was unplowed and slushy, so I was ready to kill him in my mind, but the loop was plowed, so I only fantasized about his death every time I had to deal with the elevation gain at the beginning of the loop (around 1000 total feet of gain over six loops).
Pretty proud that I was able to get through this; leg fatigue was more of an issue than cardio, but it was pretty tough considering it was 35 degrees and lightly raining and I had to deal with significant hills every other mile. He bitched out after about 75 minutes, so luckily I brought my earbud so I had something to listen to for the rest of it.
1/9: Marathon W17D3
Progression Run
3.0 mi - 26:36.9/8:52 pace/143 HR/154 MHR
6.0 mi - 47:36.5/7:56 pace/166 HR/174 MHR
1.0 mi - 8:47.3/8:47 pace/162 HR/174 MHR
4.0 mi - 31:47.5/7:57 pace/171 HR/177 MHR
1.0 mi - 9:09.1/9:08 pace/162 HR/170 MHR
It rained pretty much the whole run, but it was reasonably warm (37 degrees), so not terrible. This was mainly a mental battle to get through, but I'm glad I got this last one in before I leave tomorrow. I'm going to be at altitude for the next week, but I may try and find a gym so I can get a quasi-quality session in one day while I'm there and just call the rest of the skiing cross-training.
Wait are you marathon training? Which?
Likely Chattanooga in early March (though I'd have preferred to do Carmel in April, which is a fair bit flatter). I'm training with a buddy that also wants to run one but isn't available for Carmel, so here we are.
1/18: Marathon W17D5
Rush Threshold + Intervals
Warmup: 2.0 mi @8:40-9:44
2.0 mi - 17:41.7/8:51 pace/143 HR/151 MHR
Threshold: 4x (1.0 mi @7:20-7:40/1:00 rest)
1.0 mi_1 - 7:30.7/161 HR/166 MHR
1.0 mi_2 - 7:22.4/165 HR/177 MHR
1.0 mi_3 - 7:28.0/172 HR/180 MHR
1.0 mi_4 - 7:26.9/172 HR/180 MHR
Repeats: 8x (200m @6:08-6:28/200 m easy)
200m_1: 0:44.5/5:58 pace/158 HR/163 MHR
200m_2: 0:46.2/6:12 pace/161 HR/167 MHR
200m_3: 0:44.9/6:02 pace/168 HR/173 MHR
200m_4: 0:47.4/6:21 pace/177 HR/182 MHR
200m_5: 0:48.1/6:27 pace/168 HR/172 MHR
200m_6: 0:48.0/6:26 pace/169 HR/172 MHR
200m_7: 0:48.9/6:33 pace/160 HR/168 MHR
200m_8: 0:47.4/6:22 pace/157 HR/160 MHR
Cooldown: 2.0 mi @8:40-9:44
2.0 mi - 18:27.9/9:18 pace/157 HR/168 MHR
Kind of a weird day, as all the following were true: off of running for a week skiing and living at high altitude, ran in the morning instead of the evening, couldn't find my chest strap, didn't have a gel during a run longer than 75 minutes, ran this session on a road instead of the track. Regardless, happy to have gotten it in even if it felt a bit harder than the last one of these; I had to walk half of the last four 200 m recoveries, which I haven't had to do for a while. Next week is all easy running so hopefully that gets me back into the swing of things.
Isn't that a goodly ways to travel for some jogging?
There's a Buc-ee's between Nashville and Chattanooga.
As you astutely sussed out, it was not a serious suggestion. On the other hand, if for some incomprehensible reason you wanted to do it, I have little doubt that you could.
Still can't believe loco more or less did that (might have been a little farther apart than that). Say what you will about loco, but the bro lives up to his name.
As you astutely sussed out, it was not a serious suggestion. On the other hand, if for some incomprehensible reason you wanted to do it, I have little doubt that you could.
Still can't believe loco more or less did that (might have been a little farther apart than that). Say what you will about loco, but the bro lives up to his name.
the further you disappear down the distance running hole, the more you can find sickos whose weekly/monthly schedule is mind boggling. I knew a guy who ran 25 marathons a year.
And that’s before you get into the ultra communities - my brother has run and finished the Leadville 100 several times (100 miles through hills and mountain terrain at Colorado altitude) and he has often said things like ‘at least once in my life I’d like to take on something really hard’
the further you disappear down the distance running hole, the more you can find sickos whose weekly/monthly schedule is mind boggling. I knew a guy who ran 25 marathons a year.
And that’s before you get into the ultra communities - my brother has run and finished the Leadville 100 several times (100 miles through hills and mountain terrain at Colorado altitude) and he has often said things like ‘at least once in my life I’d like to take on something really hard’
Apparently you can do like 2 of these a year. Which is why you see top tier competitors who take a wrong turn and can't win just drop out frequently, gotta save it for next month.
Marathons, if you're gonna jog the whole thing, pretty much whenever. 1x a week? loco actually hates running so his training load is way too low to ever get to doing a marathon as his easy weekly.
Apparently you can do like 2 of these a year. Which is why you see top tier competitors who take a wrong turn and can't win just drop out frequently, gotta save it for next month.
Marathons, if you're gonna jog the whole thing, pretty much whenever. 1x a week? loco actually hates running so his training load is way too low to ever get to doing a marathon as his easy weekly.
You need to be single/childless and a mountain goat too to keep up that volume. My brother is about 150lbs, which clearly helps.
Monte, what are you weighing in at these days?
Yeah, it def isn't achievable for anyone. But it is like any serious endurance training. Gonna need to get in the miles. Need the time.
Yeah, it def isn't achievable for anyone. But it is like any serious endurance training. Gonna need to get in the miles. Need the time.
My brother has attempted Leadville 4 times but finished twice. All kinds of other Ultras and dozens of marathons.
Definitely cost him his first marriage and his second wife thinks he’s a selfish **** for all the running he does - still 40-50 miles a week. (I say he’s always been a selfish ****). His body is falling apart now at age 55 and he had to DNS Leadville last year with Achilles issues but he is running Comrades again in 2024, which is apparently about the most ‘fun’ Ultra and ‘only 90km’
You need to be single/childless and a mountain goat too to keep up that volume. My brother is about 150lbs, which clearly helps.
Monte, what are you weighing in at these days?
I'm around 192, though there's been a fair bit going on lately so I haven't been regularly weighing in. I'll be back from Santa Barbara next Friday, but then I'm going skiing with family the following weekend. The plan is to go booze free after I get back and track calories for the last four weeks and hopefully hit the start line at 188 or so.
Wat.
I ran santa rosa marathon three weeks out from Berlin marathon. But it was at easy pace, which back then 8 minute miles. So basically it was an easy 26 mile long run.
Berlin I did race to potential. It was painful. I remember at dinner the previous night we had a discussion. And I was asked why was i feeling anxiety the day before. I answered because I know tomorrow is gonna be the most painful day in my life. And it was. But I hit my target, unfortunately it wasn't enough to get to Boston.
I personally wouldn't call it jogging. I would call it easy running, something around 75% max of heart rate. An easy marathon can be done multiple times a year. Its probably fairly healthy, zone2 running is enjoyable.
Now racing a marathon to fitness potential? Once a year tops for me. And that hurts. Blood markers show damage for a month. And everything below the waist is wrecked, possibly for weeks.
If I was the montecore, I would run Chattanooga at 8:45 pace. Well unless sub3:20 is alive, then I would definitely race. Because now there is something on the line, like facking Chicago qualification.
I am not motivated to damage my body unless there is something on the line. Anything here for the montecore is a PB.
Also I enjoy running, especially after I learned how to do it correctly. I truly believe all humans enjoy running, they just have to do it correctly. And that mostly involves choosing the correct paces for your fitness. Unfortunately, newbs facking butcher it. And they butcher it bad.
I see some small mistakes by the montecore here, but I mostly have already mentioned it. And he usually states that it was a probably a mistake. So carry on.
Wat.
I ran santa rosa marathon three weeks out from Berlin marathon. But it was at easy pace, which back then 8 minute miles. So basically it was an easy 26 mile long run.
Berlin I did race to potential. It was painful. I remember at dinner the previous night we had a discussion. And I was asked why was i feeling anxiety the day before. I answered because I know tomorrow is gonna be the most painful day in my life. And it was. But I hit my target, unfortunately it wasn't enoug
Garmin has me estimated at sub 3:30 for Chattanooga (which is my goal), but I have to say it still seems daunting; I did do my half marathon in September at around a 7:50 pace and it was reasonably easy, but who knows if I can extend that out. Qualifying for Chicago seems impossible; a 7:38 pace is just a bit faster than my threshold pace at the moment.
I've tossed around just running an 8:30 pace and banking a sub-3:45 first marathon and not killing myself, but running my first marathon at a faster pace than my first 10k less than a year prior is kind of intriguing in a mildly autistic if pointlessly stupid way.
One thing I think I've improved recently is differentiating between easy runs and recovery runs, but I'm still figuring out when to dial back some of my training paces a bit when my HR is spiking. A work in progress.
Garmin has me estimated at sub 3:30 for Chattanooga (which is my goal), but I have to say it still seems daunting; I did do my half marathon in September at around a 7:50 pace and it was reasonably easy, but who knows if I can extend that out. Qualifying for Chicago seems impossible; a 7:38 pace is just a bit faster than my threshold pace at the moment.
I've tossed around just running an 8:30 pace and banking a sub-3:45 first marathon and not killing myself, but running my first marathon at a fa
also, there’s a fair chance you might only run one so I reckon you go hard
Motivation to do another totally disappeared for me.
loco,
You barely even train for distance running. Once we all accept that reality we can accept your anecdote isn't representative to people who actually train.
1/20: Marathon W18D7
Recovery Run + Strides
40:00 - 4.07 mi/9:50 pace/137 HR/148 MHR
+ 7x 0:15 strides and 0:45 recovery + 3:00 cooldown
1/21: Marathon W19D1
Long Easy Run
2:32:13 - 17.00 mi/8:57 pace/152 HR/171 MHR
Did a light recovery run yesterday and then a long run today; I did the same loop I did three weeks ago, the only difference being this time it was 2 degrees when we left the house and there was snow on 80% of the trails we were on. This was pretty challenging, but even though my HR was a bit higher I'm assuming the cold and the snow had a bit to do with that. My left Achilles is a bit sore, so I'm going to keep an eye on that - just easy running this week, so hopefully it'll end up being nothing.
