Stryka’s BodyBlog

Ok I have some questions for you all - How is it that when I try to buy a loaf of bread from the supermarket it has a use by date of about a week and is baked on the other side of the country? How is this possible? Does anyone know what they put in bread to keep it fresh for so long and are there any problems with it?

My next question is regarding low gi white bread. I usually try to buy wholegrain brain but there is two different bakery chains that have low gi white bread and low gi multigrain loaves. If i got this instead at least I would know that it is fresh but to me it sounds like over processed rubbish?

Next is how much sodium is to much? Is it something I should be concerned with that would help me lower bodyfat or should I just try to drink more water to flush it out?

As for my training I have just completed the 2nd week of running with a quick arm session last night followed by 4kms on the treadmill set at 6% incline (6% is the average incline of my mountain race) I average about 9.5kph but I did it at varying speeds -

1st km at 9.5kph

2nd km at 12kph

400metres at 6.5kph (walking)

500 metres at 12.5kph

400 metres back at 6.5kph

Final 700metres starting at 11kph and slowly increasing through to 15kph.

Tonight was just one of those nights at the gym first of all my gym is at a sports centre that has a indoor netball and basketball and it seems that just as I was getting to the gym netball training was finishing and all the netball mums were picking up their little darlings. These are a breed of people who drive around in a little bubble with no concept whatsoever that there might actually be someone else on the road. The road into the sports centre complex is fairly narrow but plenty of room to pass should you slow down and actually keep to your side of the road. I literally almost had five head on collisions within a space of about 500metres so my blood was boiling before I even started.

Then I set up to do my deadlifts and just as I was ready to do a set this tool grabs a couple of 20pound dumbells and parks his ass about 3 feet in front of me. I am sorry but I do not need to have an ass in my face when I am trying to lift. If you see someone set up somewhere do your hero curls somewhere else, there were about 4 people in the gym at that stage so it was not like there was a lack of space.

It seems to be that time of year here in tassie as summer approaches more people seem to think that rockin up to the gym to do a few arm curls and bench presses will offset a beer and chips diet. At least you might only see them 2 or 3 times tops before the lure of the pub gets too much. But they will come in packs and spend more time sitting where you want to work than actually achieve anything.

There was also a young kid who was managing to do what I can only describe as some sort of reverse shrug with a whopping 10 pounds on the pin loaded chest press machine he was pumping the reps out as fast as he could but through a range of motion of about 3/4 of an inch.

 There was something else tonight that I think I overheard. There is this girl who has just started training and has a bit of weight to lose. BUT she works hard and is obviously trying. Anyway I thought I overheard her saying to the trainer that she feels like people look at her in the gym as if she isn’t supposed to be there. It really made me sad because she is in exactly the right place and is trying to get healthy. I was going to say something to her but I didn’t want to interupt her session with her trainer and besides that I wasn’t 100% sure I had heard her right because I had my MP3 going. If anyone thinks that people are unwelcoming in the gym please know that I would rather share the gym with someone who works hard than any of the other tools I have talked about tonight and that the skinny guy is probably just as self concious about working out around bigger and stronger guys because I know I am! We are all just on different points of the same journey.

And now for something completly different….. I found a pretty cool track in the bushland near my place that gives me a decent 5k-ish loop although I didn’t get the greatest run in because I turned the wrong way and got a little bit geographically embarressed and then the track came out in a street that I didn’t expect so I had to walk a bit to work out where I was…. next time though will be a great run through the bush!

Today I actually got my bike out for the first time in ages and rode about 30kms up some hills. Every direction you go from my house involves hills you just can’t avoid em.

Tonight I also did some squats and some ab work. I learnt how to do windscreen wipers the other day and by golly do I feel them!

Day off running today, just had no energy at all. This meant my gym session was probably the shortest its ever been - 4 sets of dips with 25kg then 4 sets dumbell curls. Was in and out in around 15-20minutes. Normally I would have trained through the fatigue but I figured that if I tried to run tonight then I would have done a half assed effort and then been trashed for tomorrow and ended up with two half assed days of effort.

Planning on cycling tomorrow, I haven’t been on the bike for a while so it will be a good change, will try and do a longer session. will see how it goes.

Well I am now less than four weeks away from the point to pinnacle and I have realised something over the past week… I should have done a lot more running up till now!

One positive things is that I recovered well from yesterday and a couple of weeks ago I was getting pain in my foot after the longer runs but that seems to have healed now because I ran tonight and felt nothing.

I didn’t push myself much today just ran to my gym which is about a hilly 4km away then did my dumbell shoulder presses and a couple of ab sets and ran back. I knew that I wouldn’t get a great workout in by running first but I guess that isn’t really my focus at the moment. 

My bodyfat was back to low 8’s too tonight so I guess last week was just an anomaly but I have dropped a bit of muscle as well but again I guess that is to be expected. I have added back a few more carbs to try and fuel the running too. But one of the best things I have achieved over the last couple of months is to break my dependance on processed carbs like white bread. Now when I think carb for the most part it is wholegrain bread, sweet potato and brown rice and fresh fruits and veggies. I have even began to crave broccoli! I still find myself having a small treat every now and again although it is usually stealing one of my daughters fun size chocolates which are so small I guess they wont kill me but they don’t help anything either.

Well I have just come back from my mountain training run and let me tell you that I hurt! It is a beautiful spring day here and probably the warmest we have run in yet. I had some extra motivation today as we had a couple extra people tag along and one dude was just unbelievably quick. His leg strength wasn’t quite up there yet so he did walk a bit towards the end but he still beat me by about a minute! and I probably did my best time yet in about 1:19 although I forgot to wear my stopwatch so I can only give you a minute time not to the second.

As demoralising as it was every time I thought I was running this fella down he would take off again it probably did push me that little bit harder to try and catch me and so that is why I got my best time.

other good news for me is that I ran the first six km in 38minutes so I only lost 3 minutes on the second 6km which is the steeper part so that bodes well for being able to keep a decent pace over the full half marathon on race day.

Well true to my word I did a single exercise for triceps and a single exercise for biceps of about 4-5 set each then hit the treadmill. I started off fairly easy at 11kph but was really pushing it at the end up to 17kph. I did 5 kilometres in 23:40minutes. Tomorrow is my rest day but then sunday we are doing a mountain run for 12kilometres which last time took me about 1hr22. This bit of the run starts at an altitude of 425metres and finishes at the top at 1294metres.

First up I will write about my training since my last post on monday. Tuesday we had some really crappy weather so I did my very short weights session then spent some time on the stepper and then the treadmill set on a 4% incline, I was a bit disappointed though because I set the tready at 12.5 kph to try and help improve my speed but I only got about 2kilometres out before I was stuffed. The mountain averages about 6%ish and I am currently averaging about 9kph on my longer training runs up it.

Wednesday was a day off running so I simply did some relatively easy squats (if squatting is ever easy) and then some ab work.

Thursday I did some 1km intervals loops around what we have renamed "spew hill" which gradually climbs up and then finishes up really steep. No nobody spewed after the hill just one of my running companions suggested it after the first loop because of how steep it is. I was hoping she would though because she is one of the instructors at my gym so the idea that I came up with a training session that made a gym instructor spew sounded good to me (just kidding). Then later I went in to the gym and did some light deadlifts at 120kgs and then some abs.

Today (it is already 1:50pm on friday for you americans who are behind the times) I have been slack, I was planning to just do a short 5-6km run but I might just do it on the treadmill tonight, will let you know.

Well I am only onto day 2 of my focus on running over weights and I am finding it harder to stop at one exercise than bypassing the choc bikkie aisle at the supermarket.

I did my hill sprints today and then shoulder press and abs at the gym tonight. On the plus side I have more time to get in a good ab workout as oppossed to a rushed 5-10 minutes at the end of a session I can actually feel sore abs for a change!

On a negative sign my bodyfat % went up to 9.6 tonight. It was trending down towards low 8’s over the last few weeks so it was frustrating to go backwards. I think though maybe it could just be an anomaly. I don’t think the tester at my gym is even that accurate (in that it gives me a better % than reality) but I do it at the same time every monday so at least it gives me a good idea which way I am going. I had lost more weight than I had wanted so maybe I just need to increase my protein calories a little bit?

Well today (sunday for those of you still on the 18th) is the start of my focus on running so I can do well on my race and it didn’t exactly start to plan. There is about four of us that meet on a sunday morning to train and this morning two piked out because of a hangover. It looked liked it was raining around the mountain anyway so we canned the run and I spent the next couple of hours on this site instead whilst I worked up the motivation to go when the weather improved.

I ended up doing some 1k intervals up a hill loop near my house which was good because I think my pace is the biggest thing I need to work on at the moment. The loop starts off at a steady climb but then the last 500metres is like running up a cliff. If anyone wants to give me some advice on techniques to pick up the pace that would be cool.

Anyway so I have decided to cut back on the weight sessions - sort of. I will keep the same training split but I will gut the program down to just one major exercise per bodypart and will stay to a 3 x 12 type routine. Might try and increase ab work but I also want to do some short intense work on either the stepper or treadmill to again get my running pace up a bit.

My program will look like this:

Sunday - am - Long Run (usually 12km mountain run or 16km undulating loop) - pm - Incline Bench, Abs

Monday -am - 100mtr hill sprints - pm - Shoulder press, stepper/treadmill

Tuesday -am - 5/6 km recovery run - pm - Dips, Barbell Curl, Abs

Wednesday - am - rest - pm - squats - stepper/treadmill

Thursday - am - 5/6 km recovery run - pm - deadlifts, abs

Friday - am - 1km hill intervals - pm - Close grip decline bench, dumbell curls, stepper/treadmill

I want to keep the weights fairly intense but with only one exercise should keep me fairly fresh to run but I will see how I go over the next couple of weeks. The race is nov 23 so I will probably cut weights altogether in the last week or two.

Whilst my current program never kept me in the gym longer than 45mins to an hour it is cutting out a lot and will mean that there will be no training to failure either. Who knows it might even do me some good and have me convert to the less is more mentality?

Here is what I am training for: