Second Program: Week #10

Week 56: Second Program - week 10 out of 15

Week settings:

• Area of focus: Cardio-Strength
• Number of training days: 4
• Limitations: none
• Last week feedback: "Hard, but ok"

Training:

• Tuesday: Hades standard (19:53*)
• Wednesday: 400m (1:30 -First time) +400m (1:26 -PB) +5K (25:32 -First time) +Gaia standard (30:03*)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: Hera strength (21:51* -PB)
• Saturday: Kronos standard (46:26*)

Statistics:

• 2'753 points
• 146 minutes

For readers arriving directly on this post, let me start this post by summarizing week #9:
Basically, I was sick most of the previous week and ran late on my training schedule (2 out of 4 sessions couldn't be done within normal time frame). To catch-up this delay, I completed both sessions on the following Monday and started my week #10 on Tuesday.

To put it differently, instead of my usual 4 training days I chose to complete 6 days worth of training over 5 days. So I approached Week 10 just like a Hell Week: as an endurance test. Don't get crazy about getting Personal Bests, the focus is to complete every single workout and ensure that I get enough sleep to avoid injuries.



As it was impossible for me to complete the running assignments on Day 1, I swapped days 1&2 and tackled Hades standard instead. I had some sore muscles from the previous day, and didn't score a stellar time. But it really felt good to be training again.


The coach had been very "generous" on Day 2. The combined running distance of 5.8 km was fine. The 2 sprints before the 5K increased a bit difficulty, as but it remained of moderate difficulty. The real challenge was to complete Gaia at the end. Thankfully it was only the standard version, but it gave me a good sweat. I was more dripping from Gaia, than from running 5.8 km under the rain...


Thursday I was glad to return to my weekly boxing session after missing the previous one. At that point of the week, my body started to grow tired. I could feel a bit more sluggish than usual, but nothing alarming.


On day 3, Hera strength started on a good pace, but it dropped round after round as I had to break my high jumps rounds into smaller consecutive sets. Nonetheless I managed to complete the last round of high jumps all in one go (motivation surges when one sees the light at the end of the tunnel!). This led to an unexpected personal best (8s better than 2 weeks ago). I find that these PB always feel more rewarding when happening toward the end of a long day/week.


For my last day of the week, I was assigned, surprise, surprise, Kronos.
My first intention was to complete it in the evening on the same day as Hera, in order to give my body a full rest over the week-end.
In the end, I preferred to spread the effort over an additional day. Once again my time was still far from my PB, but improving versus last time (02:12 better than last week).


If on Monday I was glad to be back to training, on Saturday I was equally glad when it ended! The week was demanding, particularly on legs. But at least I'm back on schedule, so mission accomplished!