It really sucks to wake up just feeling like garbage…and it’s even worse you feel more awful than garbage. That’s how I woke up at 4:30am, I couldn’t breathe through my nose, my joints ached and my throat was sore as hell. I decided to sleep in a bit and tried to sleep until 5am when my wife’s alarm would go off.

Yeah, more of the same, we both ended up sleeping until 5:30am. I woke up and realized that I had no voice, and absolutely zero desire to try and push myself to work out. Plus, it was just too late in the morning for me to be able to get my normal start in.

I’m slowly feeling a little bit better, but I’m definitely going to need to take it easy the rest of the day. Thinking about lifting tonight, but who the heck knows.

I’d never previously understood how some parents are just constantly sick, but I’m starting to get it. Since my kids started in daycare, I’ve been sick in some capacity pretty much constantly….it’s super fun.

Ok, so I’m feeling ill-used today, but in a good way. I had a tough weight workout yesterday morning, then BJJ class last night and then went for a run this morning. I’m definitely tired, and I’m thinking that on days like this it will behoove me to increase my carb intake, especially in the morning, but that’s neither here nor there.

It was finally my first chance to use my FitBit Ionic, which I got middle of last month. I got it specifically because I like being able to track my sleep and my heart rate as a general measure of my physical health. When I got sick last week, my rest heart rate was definitely quite elevated, and now it’s back down closer to normal. So this is probably a decent measurement tool for this.

Additionally, since my goal was to get back into running regularly, it was nice to have a tool that does all the things I need while running in one shop. Aside from using GPS to track my run, I like having a way to monitor heart rate while running so as to ensure that I maintain my beats per minute within the appropriate heart rate zone (Zone 2 in most cases, between 131 and 145 beats per minute), as well as having music to listen to while running.

This watch happens to do it all, it even stores Pandora stations so that I don’t need to bring my phone with me to listen to music. If this morning’s run was any indication of how well it works, then I’m very happy about it.

I realized in my current conditioning that worrying about pace and distance is largely unimportant. I should be focusing more on time on my feet, and go for time markers rather than distance markers. So my plan for the first 2 training blocks is to run 3 times per week, with each run being in Zone 2 to help develop an aerobic base. Runs 1 and 2 will be just 30 minutes long, and Saturday will be my longer run, which will be stretched out to 60 minutes instead.

This morning, I managed to go 2.16 miles in the 30 minutes, which is terrible pacing, but again, that isn’t my primary concern right now.

It was a good run, so now I just have to continue building. This should also help my lifting as it’s non-competitive stressor, and will likely help with inter-set recovery.

Well…the last few days have certainly been quite a ride and that has to be the understatement of the year. After Monday’s workout, I felt great going to work and had a pretty solid day in the office. No issues, other than needing to eat a late lunch due to a late meeting, as such, I wasn’t particularly hungry when I got home.

My wife and brother-in-law got home and were pretty hungry and opted to order pizza from our favorite place, to which I had no argument. Sure, I was full, but it’s pizza! After 2 slices, I was pretty full and satisfied, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering how late I had eaten my lunch. To give you some perspective, I ate lunch around 3:45, and we got the pizza around 5:30. The lunch, I might add, was a very filling sandwich from the deli (The Cluckin’ Russian – Grilled chicken/chicken cutlet, bacon, cheddar cheese, Russian dressing, lettuce, tomato and red onion on a hard roll…so freaking delicious!), and I was still feeling full by the time the pizza arrived.

Anyway, I started feeling a little chilled to the bone, which isn’t too surprising given how cold it got over night that night, and the fact that our house is poorly insulated still and doesn’t maintain temperature very well. But by 8pm, I was feeling downright rundown, and opted to go to bed. By 9:30pm, I was wide awake running for the toilet, and had my had shoved into it vomiting up everything I’d eaten that day. To say the least, it was “fun” night. Went back to bed (after much mouth washing and teeth brushing) and woke up again an hour later to repeat the whole process, but this time with only water and bile coming up (apologies for the very graphic information, this is totally TMI, but just need to set the stage in totality). Usually, after the second go-around, in my experience, I’m all good, so I went back to sleep with the comforting thought that I would be fine the next morning.

At midnight, my daughter woke up crying, so my wife went in to take care of her. At this time, I noticed that I was still feeling rundown and nauseous, but didn’t think too much of it. I hear a yell from the kids’ room, and my wife comes running in carrying our daughter and vomit everywhere. So I quickly got up, and helped her to get the girl undressed and cleaned up and immediately needed to find the toilet again.

Luckily, that was it for me, my daughter kept on vomiting all night, and I was stuck with a nasty fever all of the next day. Apparently, my whole family got taken down, except for my son. My wife ended up coming home early from work and picked up the kids from daycare, our daughter was finicky all day and my wife was just as nauseous as me.

All that said, I needed to take a few days to rest and recover and am just starting to feel 100% today. I was going to train this morning, but I had a few productive thoughts this week while recovering and decided I would restart the training block on Monday.

Here are thoughts:

• In a traditional conjugate-style program, the maximal effort movements would be taken to max singles every ME day – I am not doing this. I’m working submaximally at this point.
• In a traditional conjugate-style program, the maximal effort movements would be rotated every ME day, this is specifically for late-intermediate and advanced lifters – I am not doing this, because I am neither of these.
• Since my goal is to build strength using heavy, submaximal loads, it would behoove me to stick with the same movements/set ups for several weeks and try to break records each week while maintaining the RPE ceiling – I can’t do this successfully if I’m rotating exercises each week.
• My original plan for using a 2-count paused variation of the main movement won’t always work with movements that already start with a dead stop, such as pin presses, pin squats and block pulls. For these, the goal should just be lower intensity with higher volume.
• Based on standard conjugate programming, the first supplemental movement should be trained in the 6-8 rep range, so that’s what I will do. Previously, I had programmed the first supplemental movement to be trained for 3 sets of 5, but I’m going to increase that to 3 sets of 6-8 reps with 80% of the top set weight.
• I’m going to stick with the top set of 5, with a RPE8 ceiling, no reason to change that just yet. I need to build volume and work capacity right now, way more than my ability to strain. Once I have a meet picked out, I’ll start working in the 1-3 reps range.
• ME and DE movements will operate in 3 week waves, for ME that will pertain to the movement/set up specifics, and for DE that will pertain to the intensity and/or volume over the 3 weeks wave.
• For DE work, I want to operate with a higher volume, so intensity will be lowered to accommodate that for the first few blocks. I’m going to use 15-20 sets, with waves within the workout (increase by 2.5% every 5 sets or so), so there is built in warm-up.
• Use last DE day of each training block to test heavy doubles on competition movements.
• Also, don’t use any accommodating resistance on dynamic effort work for the time being, and allow the dynamic work to be with strict competition form (except for bench where I will use 3 grips).
• Use this program design set up through June and gauge progress from there.

There you have it! All the gory details and programming details.

Finally, I got my butt out of bed at 4:30am on a Tuesday morning and hit the roads. My brain was totally making up reasons to stay in bed: “it’s too cold,” I thought; “it’s too dark,” my mind worried; “what’s one more day of avoiding it?” my mind asked. These and other similar thoughts were running through my mind as I slowly got myself dressed, and then a little extra bundled up because it really was just that cold this morning.

[Note:I checked the weather after I got back, and found that it was 1° Fahrenheit and it felt like -10°. Yeah, my brain was definitely onto something.]

A quick 2-mile tempo run down and I was back home, I was shooting for an abyssmal 12-minute mile tempo pace. This is for several reasons:

1. I haven’t run regularly enough to know what an accurate 5k race pace would be for myself,
2. I knew from prior runs that I generally averaged anywhere from 12 to 13 minutes/mile when I was taking my time,
3. I’m slow as hell, and jumping too far into a faster pace would have been the perfect set up for some kind of overuse injury that would sideline me, and lastly,
4. It sounded like a good, arbitrary amount of time to be out of the house at 4:45am.

I’m going to gradually start pushing that pace down, so that I’m comfortably able to run a tempo pace of 10 minutes per mile. After this first 4 week training block, I’m considering extending the tempo run distance, but that might be premature at this point.

Honestly, my first real taste for what my actual endurance level will be on Saturday, when I go for a 60 minutes long run. I’m just shooting for time on my feet and nothing more. I don’t need to even run the whole time, just be out there putting the miles under my shoes. I’m going to really try and keep myself at a comfortable pace, and keep my heart rate near 120 beats/minute so as to avoid excessive fatigue throughout the run.

Between my lifting sessions yesterday morning, BJJ last night and the run this morning, I’m feeling really good! I’m just hoping that BJJ tonight treats me just as well, so that tomorrow morning’s lifting session is equally comfortable. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

Here’s some great news for 2019! On January 14th, at 8:15pm, I finally made it to my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class of the year. This really shouldn’t be a highlight, but given I haven’t been on the mats in about a month, and that my longest consistent stretch was maybe 3 days in one week about 4 months ago, I’m just happy to be there.

It was a solid workout, and one that I’m hoping I’ll be able to stick to a solid schedule for moving forward. It’s nice that my kids go to sleep around 7pm, which means I can be out the door by 7:45pm without too much issue to make it to the gym early.

This morning, on the other hand, was another no-go for running. No reason other than the fact that my son was a brat last night and decided he had to sleep with mom and baba…which means, my wife brought him to bed and he wriggled out of her arms and slid under mine. I really don’t know how me manages it at not even 8 months old, but frankly, I don’t mind. It does make for a solid reason not to get up early so as to avoid waking him up.

Anyway, I’m going to have to start committing to the running, otherwise, I’m never going to see any progress with it.

Also, I’m 2 weeks into the year, and well behind on my count, but I’m currently at 8 workouts in 14 days: 6 weight sessions, 1 run and 1 BJJ class. I’m going to have to up the frequency on the running and BJJ if I’m going to get any kind of appreciable workout count by year end!

If all goes well, I’ll be back on the mats tonight for another BJJ class.

Well…I guess I kind of went for a run this morning. Ok, so I ran a mile, not really “running,” you know, with a capital R, but still I ran.

I woke up without too much as hassle at 4:30am, and got myself put together, but then once I stepped out the door, I realized I’d made the cardinal sin (in my opinion) of running the winter. For the record, it was in the upper 20s this morning, not tortuously cold to be running, but still pretty damn brisk. I’ve gone running in temperatures close to 0F and didn’t have too many issues but this morning was challenging.

But, I digress. The cardinal sin I was speaking of was bundling up the upper body and allowing the lower body to regulate. Normally, all winter long, with the exception of snow storms, I wear shorts when I run. I’ll usually put on a thermal bottom layer, with a shirt and then a sweatshirt above that on top, but shorts on the bottom with maybe thermal tights underneath if it’s particularly brisk.

I didn’t do that this morning, for some reason I decided sweats would be the right option and only wore a t-shirt and a light sweatshirt on top. Paid for it and was only able to get a mile before my chest was feeling compressed from the cold air. Decided to cut it with that and just call it a day.

Just have to remember to not make this mistake next time.

Despite my desire to run on my non-lifting days, the time of year is far from cooperative with these plans. This morning we had a nice mix of rain and snow which made for an icy mix. In the past, I would have happily gone out for a trot, or at least tried, but since having kids I’ve started feeling my own mortality a bit more. This is especially true when there’s no sidewalks to run on, mixed with icy weather conditions and the ever questionably present driving skills at 4:30am.

I’m not training for any particular goals aside from assisting in fat loss, and cardiovascular conditioning so it’s not the end of the world that the runs just aren’t happening lately. What I do need to do, though, is find a way to replace the missed runs. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to start implementing kettlebell swing workouts on these days where I can’t get out into the elements for a run.

I have a few ideas on how I can make these fun, aerobic and anaerobic workouts that’ll provide the conditioning benefits that I wanted along with potentially added strength benefits if I do it right.

If Thursday is another no-go for running again, I’m going to attempt the following:

Kettlebell swing workout:

• Empty handle – 50 reps
• +10lbs – 50 reps
• +20lbs – 50 reps
• +30lbs – 50 reps
• +40lbs – 50 reps
• +50lbs – 50 reps
• (Depending on the time, and the condition of my grip, I’ll work back down the ladder with 25 rep sets, with the goal of gradually building these up to 50 reps as well)

Due to unplanned circumstances, I did not make it into the gym for BJJ last night…such is life I suppose, but that means I’m going to have to make up for it somehow between now and the end of the training week (remember, we’re starting the training week on January 1, 2019).

This morning, I had planned on going for a short 2-mile run (that’s my normal routine between lifting days), but the forecast called for rainy snow. And because I value my orthopedic health, it made for a very good reason to sleep in an extra 30 minutes and wake up at 5am instead. That said, I have now 2 workouts that I need to make up for at some point. My goal is that I’ll be able to get down to the garage to get in a short conditioning workout this evening after work, but who’s to know what will happen?

As of January 1, 2019, my weight has 198.8, and yesterday it was 202.4. Today, I’m happy to say that I’m at 200.6. I’m trying to weigh myself at exactly the same time under the same conditions. Hopefully, without going crazy about macros and calories, I’ll be able to manage my weight better this year than last year.

Last year, I used a very keto-driven approach to my diet, which worked but it also made eating with my wife difficult. She isn’t particularly enamored with meat, and as such doesn’t cook it very often. This isn’t a huge problem as I enjoy cooking, but it made for awkward meals when we were cooking 2 separate meals just to sit down together. So, going into this year, I’m looking at revamping my diet as well as my training.

Looking at the higher overall volume of work that I’ll be doing week to week, between lifting, BJJ and running, it makes sense to reintroduce carbs as a staple in my diet. I’m not going to crazy with them, because I do see benefit in controlling carbohydrate intake, but I will definitely eat them. I’m thinking something akin to what is put forth in this T-Nation article: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/one-hundred-gram-carb-cure.

So bottom line, I’m looking at 100g of carbs daily, plus I’m going to push to get my protein volume up. I’ve been sorely lacking in this area of late, and most of my daily calories have been combinations of fat and carbs instead. Ideally, I’d like to be getting 1g/lbs of body weight, as a minimum, but I’m going to set a daily goal of 1.5g/lbs of body weight.

Let’s see how we do!