Week 60: Second Program - week 14 out of 15
Week settings:
- Area of focus: Cardio-Strength
- Number of training days: 3
- Limitations: none
- Last week feedback: "Hard, but ok"
Training:
- Monday: rest day
- Tuesday: Hades standard x2 (43:26* -First Time)
- Wednesday: Venus (15:54* -PB)
- Thursday: boxing training
- Friday: 400m sprint (01:29) +400m sprint (01:26) +5K run (25:31 -PB) +Iris standard (30:34* -PB)
Statistics:
As explained in the last post, after 7 straight days of training, I took a full day of rest and asked the Coach to generate 3 training days only.
But the coach doesn't like when we try to take the easy road.
So despite a day less, it packed about as much sweat as usual (often ~3'000 points per week).
On day 1, I tried my first double Hades. The last burpees were difficult, but I was pleased with my pullups. My first thoughts after competition were to thank Kronos. All these iterations over the last few weeks paid-off.
The first half took me 20 minutes, the second approximately 23.5 minutes. As often with multiple workouts, it's hard to keep the same pace all along. In this case, I found that the drop in pace was reasonable (at least roughly what I expected)
My rule of thumb for estimating the length of a new double workout is to take the average completion time of the single version and add 25% on the second repetition. For example, on an average day I would complete Hades in 19 to 20 minutes.
So following my rule, I expected to complete Hades x2 somewhere in-between:
- 19:00 + (19:00 +25% extra time) = 19 + (22:45) = 42:45
and
- 20:00 + (20:00 +25% extra time) = 20 + (25:00) = 45:00
I'd add that this rule works best with regular workouts. For the most difficult ones (Kentauros, Kronos, etc.), I use a penalty closer to 50% on the latter repetitions.
For short ones (or workouts that includes rest periods), I assume no to 10% penalty only.
On day 2, I only had 1 Venus. After so many busy days, it felt great to have a training day with only a short session! There was no side effect from day 1 efforts. I had a good feeling on pushups and improved my PB by over a minute.
For the last day, the coach made me run in all kind of ways. It started with two 400m sprints. I was tempted to run just below my fastest pace to save some energy for the following workouts. But in the end I performed on-par with previous attempts (second run was a tie with my PB).
Then I was assigned 5K. Like for the sprints, I ran without thinking about what was coming next and even managed to improve my PB by 1 tiny second.
Then came Iris, with it's 2 x 1 km mixed with exercises. I was a bit more apprehensive about this one. Last attempt during Hell Week had left me breathless, and I now had to do it after having already run 5.8 km.
But it wasn't such a bad experience. Last week I think that I tried to do too many climbers in a row, too fast. Which forced me to take breathing breaks. This time, partly due to tired legs, I performed the climbers more slowly but with no/little breaks. To my surprise (and pleasure), this approach produced a PB. Again, only by 1 second, but a PB is a PB...
And it's the best way to finish a training week!
Week 59: Second Program - week 13 out of 15
Week settings:
- Area of focus: Cardio-Strength
- Number of training days: 4
- Limitations: none
- Last week feedback: "Hard, but ok"
Training:
- Monday: Kronos standard (45:00*) +2/3 Metis strength (06:54* -First time)
- Tuesday: 25 pushups (00:35*) +50 squats (00:57* -First time) +25 Jackknives (01:00* -First time) +Gaia strength (47:01*)
- Wednesday: Artemis standard (25:50*) +Hades standard (22:11*)
- Thursday: 25 burpess (01:20* -First time) +25 pullups (01:22* -PB) +50 pushups (01:51* -PB) +25 High Jumps (00:25* -First time) +Hera strength (23:16*) +boxing training
- Friday: Kronos standard (42:26*) +Ares standard (07:43* -First time new version)
- Saturday: 50 pushups (01:47* -PB) +50 pushups (02:07*) +50 squats (00:59*) +50 squats (00:55* -PB) +Iris standard (30:35* -First time new version)
- Sunday: Aphrodite standard (21:28*) +Hades standard (21:55*)
Statistics:
Week 13 started in shock & awe when this popped-up on the screen of my phone:
Hell Week...
Didn't see this one coming...
Technically I didn't expect either Hell Days the previous time (week 7), but that was bad maths on my part. This time I had really no reason think I would get a Hell Week, as it is traditionally assigned for the last week of the program (as "good bye party"). Not sure if it's a bug or if the new Coach can assign Hell Weeks whenever it wants.
Day 1
Kronos is already pretty tough on its own, but by combining it with Metis strength the Coach was telling me that I should expect no mercy this week!
A session of over 50mn that sets tone for the rest of week...
On the positive side, my Kronos time improved by 28 seconds versus last attempt 2 weeks ago.
Day 2
When I get assigned a Kronos, Gaia often follows in tow. It happened again.
No need to comment the short exercises, these were just the appetizers before the real thing: Gaia strength.
Up to now I only got either the standard version or a fraction of the strength version. This was my first encounter with the full 10 rounds of Gaia strength. I had a bit of apprehension on how the last 2 rounds would go...
I took me 47:01* to complete the full thing. Compared to the 28-30 minutes range it takes me for the standard version, this shows that Froggers & High Jumps are not just cosmetic changes: the difficulty ramp-up is real.
It was another tough session, but I felt good and was pleased with my performance. My last Gaia strength that was a partial one, with "only" 8 rounds out of the normal 10, completed in ~41 minutes.
Today my split time after round 8 was at ~38 minutes. A 3 minutes improvement is pretty good. During training, I felt that I had a good pace on froggers. Also I forced myself to complete all the high jumps by sets of 10 in a row, to have a regular effort all along and avoid burning my stamina in the earlier rounds. This tactic paid-off.
Day 3
Artemis+Hades made-up another big session (over 45mn in active training time). Probably due to Monday's Kronos I found the pullups harder than usual, strangely pushups felt much smoother than usual and I completed them rapidly.
By the time I started to work on Hades burpees became harder as well. Especially in the second half, when my pace dropped.
Day 4: the scariest day this week.
The only time I could complete the pullups was in the morning. So I woke-up earlier than usual (I need a good 20-30mn of awake time before starting working out) and did the 4 short exercises indoor.
For Hera strength, I waited lunch time to go outdoor and run. Completing 200 high jumps after after the 300 I already did on Day 2 finished to kill my lower legs. As usual after so many repetitions, I could already feel my tendinitis creeping back. Good thing these were the last jumps of the week.
To make my day complete, in the evening I had an hour & half of boxing training. No need to say that I wasn't in peak condition. Stiff legs & sore arms/shoulders. I had feared that having several workouts spread throughout the day would drain all my energy, but at least cardio & stamina were correct.
I need some sleep!
Day 5
Long day at work, it was only 9pm before I could start training. Hungry & tired with sore muscles, I wasn't thrilled at all at the perspective of going through roughly an hour of gruesome strength training.
But a Freeathlete got to do what a Freeathetles gotta do, so I started my workout. No effort planning, no tactic, I just took it one rep at a time.
It turned out to be a great session!
After the initial 100 pushups, my body responded very well. The big chunk of abs+squats+leg levers felt very natural and much smoother than usual. Pullups were slightly better than last few attempts. Overall this Kronos took me 42:26*, still far for my old ~38mn PB but much better than Monday's iteration (02:36 gain).
I still have to take breaks during pullups to let my arms/shoulders/back recover. The 100 reps take me ~10 minutes. Breaking my PB will require improving the number of consecutive pullups I can bear to do 100 under 6 minutes (for the records, my performance for 25 stand-alone pullups range between 01:00 and 01:30 so the under 6 minutes target is achievable... Some day...)
And just to make my day better, I finished my session by beating my Ares PB (unbroken for 11 months!) by 1 second. Scoring a new PB on a workout made-up mostly of pullups and situps after Kronos, was completely unexpected. I didn't even try. Yet it happened.
I probably mentioned this already in the past, but I love days like these. Motivation is super low and out of nowhere you pullout a great performance. It's just an amazing feeling. And if you score a PB in these conditions, this PB "tastes" even better than on a regular day.
Day 6
At this stage in my Hell Week, my confidence level was fairly high. The training plan was almost complete and all the "biggies" were behind me (i.e. the Kronos/Gaia/Artemis days).
To complete my assignment I opted for a session before breakfast. I completed the 4 short exercises indoor, before going to a park for Iris.
This workout was tougher than I expected. It started getting pretty cold outside and training at dawn on humid ground is never fun. But I think the main difficulty was that I had not fully recovered from the previous night's session. I felt sluggish, and the climbers killed me (I had to take many breaks to recover my breath).
The app indicated a PB but only because it was the first time that I completed Iris since the new program was launched, my overall performance was ~02:30 above my old PB.
Day 7
Another tough day. As I said, I thought the hardest part of the week was behind me. Technically, it's correct, the most challenging workouts were at the beginning. But in the last 2 days I started to feel the effect of aggregated tiredness from a week worth of training.
I started with good old Aphrodite. For my reunion with this tough lady, I really tried to give my best. I finished ~2:30 above PB.
Last but not least, Hades. Sames thing than for Aphrodite, I was in damage control mode: PB was never in sight but I was giving my max to avoid letting the timer run too far. These last burpees of the week were a nightmare! Results was ~4mn above best performance in the month and ~6mn above 10 months old PB.
Final thoughts on this Hell Week
This was my third Hell Week since starting this Freeletics journey (last 2 iterations were at the end of the free trial and the end of the first program). I have now started to get a good grasp on how to schedule this daily training load around my normal days. But all along the week, I couldn't help but think that the intensity and the overall training load was heavier than what I had done in the past. Now that I'm sitting to write this post, I'm comparing my training records to see if this feeling was justified.
It was.
Looking at the overall load, my first 2 Hell Week took roughly 200 minutes of active training time to complete. This last week represented over 300 minutes of training. That's a big increase.
But if we drill further than just overall length, there are other lessons to be found.
My first Hell Week was 200 minutes long because I was out of shape. These were the days of ~28 minutes Aphrodite and ~33 minutes Dione. So basically, just doing 1 single workout per day mathematically meant circa 200 minutes of training per week.
The second Hell Week started to become more intensive. My Aphrodite & Dione times had improved to respectively ~22 minutes & ~26 minutes. If the week also lasted 200 minutes despite my performance on these basic workouts having improved by nearly 20%, it's simply because the coach had given me more workouts (3 days out of 7, I had to complete a regular workout, with a second workout on top).
This third Hell Week, was made of multiple workouts every day. And not a comibination of short workouts, instead it was packed with long ones such as Kronos, Artemis and Gaia (strength!), with a short/medium workout on top.
Bigger workouts provide less opportunities to rest. 1 Kronos or 10 Poseidon may both take you 40mn of active training time to complete. But in the latter case, you can take a few minutes rest between each Poseidon or even spread them over the day. With the big ones you tend to keep breaks at their minimum to avoid training your completion time.
To put it differently, this time Hell Week didn't simply feel like I had to train every day. It felt like going through Hell Days for 7 days in a row.
If you are new to Freeletics and read this, before you run away screaming, please keep in mind that difficulty is progressive. I doubt that the Coach would have assigned me such a long training schedule if it took me an hour and a half to complete 1 Kronos.
I'm not complaining about the difficulty. This was a great challenge. A tiring week, but good for motivation and self-confidence. It showed me that I could withstand much more than what I thought (on my own I would never have tried combining Kronos with anything else!).
The only downside that I see from such a long week, is well that it takes time, a lot of time... Fitting 5 hours of training in your schedule might be really tough (especially for people travelling or with little flexibility). I was lucky that this popped-up in a normal week, and not one filled with personal/professional commitments.
At the end of the week, there was still 1 question on my mind: why did I get a Hell Week in Week #13? Does it mean that I will get another one in Week #15?
#confused.
In order to provide enough time to recover after my extended week and in case the last week of the program is another journey through Hell, I decided that week #14 will only be made of 3 training days.
Week 58: Second Program - week 12 out of 15
Week settings:
- Area of focus: Cardio-Strength
- Number of training days: 4
- Limitations: none
- Last week feedback: "Hard, but ok"
Training:
- Monday: Metis standard x3 (19:35* -PB)
- Tuesday: Artemis standard (24:56*)
- Wednesday: Apollon standard (22:09*)
- Thursday: boxing training
- Friday: 100M sprint (00:19 -First Time) +200M sprint (00:41 -First Time) +200M sprint (00:37 -PB) +5K (27:03) +Venus standard (21:14*)
Statistics:
The stats of week #12 summarize well its content: lots of points but much less training time (compared previous month workouts). Most workouts were fairly short (i.e. no Kronos this week, so less time wasted staring at the pullup bar while my arms recover!), but packed a lot of intensity.
Day 1 set the tone with Metis standard x3. It was the third time that I completed this workout, so no real surprise there. I was glad to improve my PB by nearly 1:30 minute. It left me laying on the ground looking for my lost lungs, but it's a normal side-effect. And I can't complain when the coach is merciful enough to grant short sessions...
Day 2, I completed Artemis instead of Apollon (I was featherbrained enough to forget my gym bag, so my running session had to be postponed by a day).
I have to confess that I totally underestimated this workout. I mean, I know Artemis is tough on the arms, but I had been doing so many Kronos lately that doing 50 pullups instead of a 100 seemed (on paper) easier. Boy, was I wrong. Artemis' burpees and doing the pullups before the pushups are 2 factors to be reckoned with.
As a result tmy arms were toasted and the 100 pushups were much slower than during a Kronos. No PB for me, that will teach me humility...
Day 3: burpees felt good but again no PB today (0:45 above my record). Running will need to be improved.
On Day 4 there was a novelty for me: sprints. I had done the 2x40m runs within workouts, but never tried stand alone short runs.
Last time I did a 100 m was in high school, I don't remember what my time was back then. It was probably really bad anyway. Nowadays, it took me nearly 20s (it helped me put in perspective Usain Bolt's insane 9:58 world record).
I used the auto-complete function, which I found extremely useful for such short distance (sprinting and watching your phone don't mix well).
The 100m was followed by 2 sprints of 200m. It's a new kind of effort, with its own learning curve. On a shorter distance there is no/little holding back, but it still requires finding the proper breathing pace to maintain a constant pace. My second attempt was 4s better, mostly because I focused on breathing (a lot).
These discontinuous efforts were followed by a 5k. Unsurprisingly during the first kilometers it felt like my legs needed to adjust to the new pace. But I felt good. The only really annoying point was technical issues with the app (on iphone). I like running with music but couldn't do it in-app, so I launched the music in separate app but it conflicted with the sound from the Freeletics app. So I had no audio feedback (shuting down the music app didn't solve the problem). Furthermore my screen kept shutting down (screen saving mode), the only way to see my progress was to regularly fiddle with the phone to enter my code and look at the distance covered. Lesson of the day: for any run of more than 2K, I'll keep using a different app (for the moment Mapmyrun suits me the best) and log manually the results in the Freeletics app.
This long session ended with Venus. It's mostly a strength workout, so I didn't think my performance would suffer much from short runs. Wrong. My stamina had been more depleted from running than I had estimated. I was quickly out of juice on pushups, with an overall time 4 minutes above PB (this is a huge difference versus a ~17mn baseline).
To summarize nothing crazy this week, mostly short workouts and with a focus on legs.
Once again running was used as a complement to the usual gods/goddesses. The Coach is making full use of this new feature, I'm now expecting a run to be assigned almost every week.
