Truckin'

I just keep truckin' along, I guess, tired or not.

I was tired yesterday, but my run home felt really good. I walked the ups and cruise-controlled the rest. I was way slower than the 57:xx I ran a few weeks ago, but I wasn't trying for time on this 10K uphill course.

As I was cooking dinner and washing some dishes last night, I could feel the residual tiredness in my legs. It's been a while since I have had this kind of accumulated fatigue in my legs, but it's important to get there as part of my training.

My wife was off lifting while I was cooking dinner. She's been using the New Rules of Lifting for Women book, and she has been making great progress. In the men's book, there are different workouts based on goals of fat loss or strength or hypertrophy. In the women's book, there are simply stages, and you move through them in order. She started Stage 3 this week, which seems very interesting. A lot of the lifts are complex movements that require very little weight other than body weight or fairly light dumbbells. Then, after the workouts, there is a bodyweight "matrix" to do one day and a high intensity interval workout the other day.

When my wife walked in the door last night, it was clear the workout had worked her over. I'm betting she is sore today. I know a number of women who have found Stage 3 to be fairly challenging.

This morning, I lifted at the gym, and I worked hard. Today's workout included 4x10 squats and 2x20 squats, each as part of a larger giant set. With squats and deadlifts, I'm always careful to warm up, with about 5 reps each at lower weights, on my way up to my target weight. So, all told, I did at least 100 squats this morning. I also did 80 weighted bench step-ups per leg. I was tired and sweating like crazy by the end of the workout, but I was happy with my effort. I've got one week left in my current routine and then I may take one week off lifting before starting the next routine.

Today, after work, I'll do a very easy 8 miler and then rest tomorrow before doing 10 and 24 mile days over the weekend. After Sunday, I'll take a rest day and do a mini-taper into my pacing duties at MMT next weekend. However, I'll still run and lift a couple times from Tuesday-Thursday next week.