Monte's Log, Featuring a Debate About Dotard Genetic Potential with an Ant

I feel like we need to have a beer, mussels and sausage count from your week in Belgium too

Good work getting some runs in while away

Zero on all fronts unfortunately; arrived Wednesday afternoon, worked 11 hour days on Thursday and Friday and flew out Saturday morning. As a longtime Belgian beer lover, this hurt me.

A good (short) week this week; four runs for 32 miles, including a 10 miler today at sub-9:00 pace - pretty modest compared to where I was, but combined with a decently low average HR (143), it's pretty clear that this was my best steady state run in quite some time. I also got two lifting sessions in, so a decently full six day week.

these feel more like excuses than reasons. Do better please.

Mussels are the part that you can do better than most places (and equivalent to most amazing places at home). The fries are gonna be weak even if you have a fryer and don't care to improve your game.

They have amazing beer and it is dirt cheap but finding a table at 5:30 is impossible. Not taking a stop at a beer shop is reprehensible.

Sausages?!? Is there something I've been missing out on? I like a nice piece of encased meat in my mouth as much as the next man, but I've never known belgium as a great place for this.

Even though my fitness is still not where it was, I'm finally getting back to quasi-real training, so I'll log a bit more regularly. I did an hour on the treadmill on Monday and Tuesday, as I was on the road again, but I did manage to get these sessions in the last two days, which felt much improved compared to the last few months.

12/18
AM
Tempo
20:00 - 2.23 mi/8:59 pace/142 HR
45:00 - 5.25 mi/8:34 pace/156 HR
15:00 - 1.62 mi/9:16 pace/147 HR

Instructions here were <150 HR for the warmup and cooldown and 151-161 HR for the tempo section; even though this wasn't as fast as I'd have done something like this a few months ago, it still felt good.

12/19
AM
Z4 Intervals
10:00 - 1.13 mi/8:52 pace/142 HR
6:00_1 - 0.79 mi/7:33 pace/159 HR
6:00_2 - 0.81 mi/7:24 pace/166 HR
6:00_3 - 0.81 mi/7:24 pace/169 HR
6:00_4 - 0.82 mi/7:17 pace/172 HR
6:00_5 - 0.82 mi/7:18 pace/173 HR
7:00 - 0.79 mi/8:51 pace/158 HR

This one was pace based, so the intervals were to be between 7:20/mi and 8:00/mi depending on how I was feeling; I felt pretty good today even given not optimal sleep and this being my fourth straight day running, so I pushed it a bit.

Lifting tomorrow and then a long run Saturday morning.

12/21
AM
Z2 Run
12.0 mi - 1:47:36/8:58 pace/144 HR

Still working my way back up to real distance, but this went pretty well and I stayed in Z2 for all but a few minutes (mostly due to hills).

12/23
AM
Z2 Run
1:00:00 - 6.74 mi/8:54 pace/143 HR

12/24
AM
Tempo
20:00 - 2.26 mi/8:53 pace/142 HR
45:00 - 5.33 mi/8:26 pace/157 HR
15:00 - 1.60 mi/9:22 pace/148 HR

8 seconds per mile faster than a few days ago with the same HR, so maybe the fitness is coming back. Easy pace is starting to drop a bit too.

Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you, sir!

12/26
AM
Tempo Hill Intervals
12:00 - 1.35 mi/8:53 pace/134 HR (warmup)
10:00_1 - 1.25 mi/8:01 pace/155 HR
8:00_r1 - 0.88 mi/9:06 pace/141 HR
10:00_2 - 1.19 mi/8:22 pace/157 HR
10:00_r2 - 1.05 mi/9:34 pace/139 HR
10:00_3 - 1.20 mi/8:19 pace/157 HR
10:00_r3 - 1.09 mi/9:11 pace/141 HR
23:08 - 2.49 mi/9:18 mi/137 HR (cooldown)

This was programmed as three 10 minute intervals in Z3 up a 3-5% grade; this being Indiana, the best I could do in close proximity was about a 1-1.5% grade, but it was still fine enough. I did this with a friend, and we started the first interval early (i.e. before we got to the hill) because we had a time crunch, hence the faster pace. Recoveries were obviously downhill.

Fitness seems to be coming back, which is nice.

12/27
AM
Z2 Run
1:00:00 - 6.79 mi/8:50 pace/143 HR

12/28
AM
Long Z2 Run
2:00:00 - 13.46 mi/8:55 pace/144 HR

Meant to also lift on Friday, but had a bit of work to get to and was feeling a bit tired so I skipped.

Today was my longest run since the illness, and felt pretty good; my HR was pretty squarely in Z2 until the last ten minutes of the run, which I'll take.

The plan for this marathon prep is to lift twice a week (ideally doubling up with runs on Monday and Thursday) so I can have both Friday and Sunday completely off for recovery. We'll see how I can keep it up.

I had a date night with the wife on Saturday and had three mixed drinks, which messed up my sleep (it was actually more her sleep, which messed with mine) to the point that I slept in pretty late on Sunday and then couldn't get to sleep last night until almost 2. Luckily I had to be up at 6:45 to be over to my buddy's house so he could run with me before he had to be at work, though that ended up being moot as he dropped out twenty minutes until the run because he had to hurry back and ****. Good times.

All of this is to say I realized that my generally high level of fatigue could be traced back to that highly toxic and dangerous substance I voluntarily put into my body; I realized during my run that it would have been simpler and healthier had I just pinned tren for the last few months instead of having five ounces of bourbon twice a month, though I'm fairly certain tren cough is contraindicated for endurance activities. Health optimization is hard.

12/30
AM
Tempo
20:00 - 2.25 mi/8:54 pace/138 HR
45:00 - 5.41 mi/8:19 pace/155 HR
15:00 - 1.65 mi/9:06 pace/147 HR

Knocked another 7 seconds per mile off the tempo pace at a lower average heart rate than last week, so things are definitely coming back; there's still a fair bit left to go though. Getting this to a sub-8:00 pace while remaining appropriately autistic about staying in my programmed HR zones so I get roo jerky or whatever attaboys you get from down under is the medium term goal.

PM
A
NG Pullups: +10 x7, x6, x5
RFESS: +20 x11, x10, x9

B
Bench: wu, 155 x8, x7, x6
Facepulls: 4x15
Seated Calf: 3x10

C
Step-ups: 3x10

D
Incline Bench: 50s x7x3
DB Pullovers: 65 x10x3

E
Adductor Machine: 2x15
Abductor Machine: 2x15

F
Overhead Rope Tri Ext: x12, x10, x8
DB Hammer Curl: 20s x10x3

It's truly pathetic how little lifting I've done over the last three to four months, but the journey of a single mile and all that; as stated above, I think I'm going to try to lift in the afternoons of my higher quality running sessions so my easy days are truly easy and I can have two days completely off of training. Given the baby weights and old man lower body exercises, I think I should be able to pull it off.

My body composition is kind of meh right now; hopefully I can get back down to ~185 in the next month or so.

12/31
AM
Z2 Run
1:00:00 - 6.78 mi/8:51 pace/141 HR

1/1
PM
Z2 Run
1:00:00 - 6.82 mi/8:48 pace/140 HR

Best easy run in quite a while; apparently hangovers are performance enhancing.

1680 miles run last year, which given the illness this fall, I will take. Goals for 2025 are to be healthy enough to race two marathons, fun run the ultra in June, and average two gym sessions per week. Hoping to do a 3:20 marathon in April (stretch goal 3:15) and hopefully go sub 3:10 in November, with a sub-90 minute marathon thrown in somewhere.

1/2
AM
Tempo Hill Intervals
10:00 - 1.13 mi/8:52 pace (warmup)
10:00_1 - 1.25 mi/7:58 pace
10:00_r1 - 1.13 mi/8:53 pace
10:00_2 - 1.22 mi/8:11 pace
10:00_r2 - 1.08 mi/9:15 pace
10:00_3 - 1.21 mi/8:15 pace
10:00_r3 - 1.09 mi/9:08 pace
4:00 - 0.44 mi/9:09 mi (cooldown)

HR strap didn't end up connecting so the HR data is crap, but I ran the last two legs to effort/pace once I noticed and it was probably fine. Drove to the part of the trail with the mild hill instead of running to it, so we didn't have the extended warmup/cooldown like last week.

PM
A
NG Pullups: x9, x7, x6
Walking Lunges: 25s x8x3

B
OHP: wu, 85 x7x3
Pallofs: x8x3
Seated Calf: 3x10
Facepulls: 4x12

C
Leg Ext: x12, x10
Leg Curl: x12, x10

D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 60s x8x3
HLRs: x6x3
Adductor Machine: x15x2
Abductor Machine: x15x2

E
DB LTEs: 30s x12, x11, x10
DB Preachers: 20s x10, x9, x8

Still on the baby weight train.

1/4
AM
Z2 Run
1:30:00 - 10.09 mi/8:56 pace/145 HR

Felt pretty sluggish today, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was 17 degrees outside; at least I only had 90 minutes programmed.

is this what 50 is like?

I can only hope I can still handle three drinks at 50.

1/5
AM
Z2 Run
1:00:00 - 6.81 mi/8:49 pace/142 HR

1/7
PM
Super Short Intervals
1:04:30 - 6.82 mi/8:09 pace

I planned ahead and moved some things around over the weekend to account for the ten inches of snow we got from Sunday into Monday, but in retrospect I should have done the interval session outside on Sunday morning even though I had a medium run on Saturday, because doing intervals on a treadmill blows (the watch/strap combo doesn't track pace that well).

The session was a 15 minute warmup and then four sets of eight 30 second intervals at a 6:25-7:00/mi pace with a 30 second recovery between intervals, two and a half minutes between sets and a cooldown thereafter - it boils down to sixteen total minutes of Z5ish work, which I managed to get through well enough. I set the treadmill for the equivalent of a 6:30/mi pace (9.2 mph), but having to manually toggle back and forth between speeds and figuring out how many seconds before the next interval I had to hit the button to get up to speed by the time my watch started the next interval was annoying.

Monday can be considered active recovery, as I had about an hour and a half of shoveling snow with the minis, which was quite nice, actually.

I have a marathon pace run on Thursday, so hopefully things will be clean enough that I can do it outside.

Solid running!

3:15 is my younger brother's marathon time, but you also lift and you're older, so I'm pretty impressed. You must've been putting in a ton of work.

Is it your first time in April or have you done one before? Do you train with energy gels etc?

Edit: given your time it's a pretty dumb question lol, in that case, when did you start the whole marathon thing?

Thanks! My wife would agree with you.

I barely lift anymore, unfortunately; I have the time/bandwidth to hit the gym twice a week at most, but it's been pretty infrequent the last few months due to a lingering VIRUS OF UNSPECIFIED ORIGIN (that's probably what is was). I've dialed down the lower body stuff to all single leg work to lower systemic fatigue and also because I'm a huge pansy now; I'm also a fair bit lighter (~190 lbs), but I'd like to get my upper body lifts back to what would be proportionately acceptable for an old cardiobunny. A goal for the next six months, I suppose.

Re: 3:15, that's a stretch goal time for this April; I'm currently running 5x/wk, and hit 180 miles last month. I had a 3-4 month stretch last summer/early fall where I consistently averaged 40+ mile weeks, but the aforementioned illness just never fully went away in time for me to do my scheduled marathon (November here in Indy). Given last month's volume, I'm finally "back" and it seems reasonable to think sub 3:20 is at least possible, but there's a lot of time between now and April. My training volume moving forward will likely be in the 200+ mile per month range until the taper, so if I can hold that, I think I'll have a shot.

I ran Chattanooga in March 2023 and made a bunch of rookie mistakes (mostly feeling good in the first half and going too fast); it was also a fair bit hillier than Indy, so between those two things I blew up hard around mile 22-23 and endured a world of pain until finishing with a 3:33 (goal was sub-3:30, which I was ahead of pace for until then). I also ran a local 50k in June with some buddies as kind of a fun run; our goal was sub 5:00, and we all came in around 4:50. I wasn't in nearly as good shape for that as I was for the marathon, but it was still pretty fun. We'll probably do it again this year.

Re: gels, I pretty much only use them for sessions that are 90 minutes plus, both because it's good training for an actual race, as a gel every half hour is probably what I need to be doing and you need to train your tum-tum to deal with that, and because I actually need the energy at that time/distance. I've lifted in the morning while fasted for so long that getting up and running for 60-80 minutes on an empty stomach is pretty easy.

1/8
PM
Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.84 mi/8:47 pace/140 HR

Had to do this one on the treadmill too, which I hate, but at least I got it in. Actual distance and pace was probably a bit slower since my watch doesn't track indoors with 100% accuracy, but the work got done.

I'm still a bit fatigued from the run on Tuesday, so I decided to push today's session to Friday and just get a lifting session in.

1/9
AM
A
Single Leg Press: +90 x8x3

B
Incline Bench: wu, 135 x8x2, x7
Seated Calf: 3x10
Back Extensions: +5 x8x3
Facepulls: 4x12

C
Abductor Machine: 2x15
Adductor Machine: 2x15

D
Seated DB OHP : 40s x8x3
DB Incline Row: 60s x8x3

E
BB Hip Thrust: +90 x8x3
Dips (paused): +0 x8x3

F
Bayesian Curl: x8x3
Lateral Cable Raise: x10x3

Fine.

1/10
AM
Marathon Tempo
15:00 - 1.73 mi/8:41 pace/144 HR (warmup)
20:00_1 - 2.54 mi/7:53 pace/168 HR
5:00_r1 - 0.55 mi/9:01 pace/162 HR
20:00_2 - 2.55 mi/7:51 pace/171 HR
5:00_r2 - 0.54 mi/9:09 pace/165 HR
10:00 - 1.11 mi/8:59 mi/158 HR (cooldown)

The target paces for this one were pretty broad (7:50-8:25/mi), but I settled in at the top of the range and it felt reasonably good. Everything but the first and last .75 miles was on a paved running trail that had at least parts that were entirely clear and dry, so my time running on snow was thankfully minimized. I managed to find one of Asics' trail models from last year for cheap that worked really well and gave me good traction; falling as an old man wouldn't be good.

1/12
AM
Long Z2 Run
2:30:00 - 16.29 mi/9:13 pace/147 HR

Gambled that the monon (paved running path going north from downtown Indy up north past where I live up to the northern suburbs) would be clear from snow, and it was not. I ran the first 9 miles in loosely packed snow and slush, which slowed me down and tired out my legs; I wasn't sure I'd have the first whole two and a half hours in me, but the surface streets were clear enough and I got there. Hopefully things will be clear by next weekend.

that sounds miserable

re gels, I found them quite helpful when I ran my marathon. But yeah, hard for the body to adapt. iirc I used to take 2 on my long runs in training, which were up to 35k and then for the race itself I took 3 at 60, 120 and then about 160m when I started flagging. The third one just got vomitted/spat out. Maybe they've changed in the past 20 years but I just remember the clawing sweetness

It was less fun than I'd hoped, that's for sure.

I took three (one every ~40 minutes) and I've gotten to the point where I tolerate them pretty well; I brought half a liter of water with me, which I didn't come close to finishing, which is probably a leak. There are a lot more options these days, but a big part of training is figuring out which gels work the best with your stomach. I'm lucky that this is one thing that hasn't bothered me all that much.