Inquiring minds want to know, “What are you doing now to train?”

My friends are curious about what I am doing when I disappear for 2-3 hours per day and don’t answer their calls and texts.

The training spreadsheet below will give you a pretty good idea.

This is a snapshot of three weeks of training in September.

Tiffany Nesfield, my fitness coach, has prescribed a combination of strength and endurance training – three strength sessions a week in the gym and 6-7 endurance training sessions, mostly outside on a trail, hill, stairs, or on a Peloton bike, rower, skierg or in a pool. Bar none, my favorite place to work out is outside. The goal of my regimen is to build muscle endurance so I can go at a steady state for long periods of time while on the snow in Norway, not to build big muscles.

I do my best to stick to Tiffany’s prescription, but there are some days when I need to listen to how my body feels and adjust the workout depending on the aches or energy level.

Today, I have a cold and decided to walk hills for an hour instead of what was planned.

We live in a society of immense pressure and focus on measurement, analysis, judgement and perfection. I see this especially in Tia and her teenage peers influenced by edited and crafted social media accounts.

I am not and have not been a scale user. I like to keep track of things based on how my clothes feel and how I feel in terms of energy, mood and sleep. I haven’t been a calorie counter for years and years. If that’s your thing, then that’s great, but it’s just not my thing.

I realized after I had kids that what makes me happy and motivated to work hard in athletic endeavors is to feel good.

HOWEVER, this “situation” I am in with Norway is a bit of a different animal and I am trying to get used to it.

I am expected to increase strength and endurance with the end goal of increasing metabolic capacity (aka VO2 Max or resting heart rate). To help with that, I train in aerobic zones, work to hit daily goals, track my progress with body fat %, weight, body measurements and resting heart rate. I am OBSESSED with my Apple watch and closing those darn activity rings each day. I track my heart rate and fitness metrics every day with that device.

Here is a high-level snapshot of results from February to September, 2019:

Resting heart rate: 62-64 in Feb to 47-50 in Sept

Body fat percentage: 22% reduction

Weight loss: 11 pounds

BMI: 12% reduction

Lifestyle factors: My clothes fit better. I feel stronger. I am more upright 🙂

I sleep better. I feel happier. I have more energy. I am drinking less because I’m too scared to be even slightly hung over at a training session. I feel more mentally sharp. I am forced to listen to my body and think more about self-care.

I am very happy with the results to date.

As my good friend Jonathan Terrell recently wrote me, “Now you need to focus on building a huge aerobic engine.”

Onward and upward! 5 months to go until I set off at the Sweden/Norway border for PKU!!

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