Nude Numbers are my weekly progress reports on my fitness goals. See About Running Naked for the philosophies involved.

Summary

Week 10 of the winter plan and, despite a minor cold, I’m still broadly on track.

Subjective Data

I continued to increase calories this week, although I found it harder than I expected. I’ve trained myself to not eat unless I’m hungry, and to eat small meals, wait 10 minutes, and then only eat if I still feel hungry. To hit 3,000+ a day calories I have to eat even when I’m not hungry. I did ok, but most days I only ate around 2,500 to 2,750 calories. It’s amazing how much of a habit light eating has become for me.

This week my swimming improved quite a bit. I’ve been getting aerobically exhausted really quickly while swimming, but on Thursday my coach watched me and suggested I try something odd – not expelling water in my mouth by blowing out. Instead, he said just leave my mouth open when I turn my head under water. Voila, the water just flows out, and I don’t waste oxygen expelling it. For some reason, this really seemed to help me control my breathing and increase the # of laps I need to take before resting.

On Thursday afternoon I finally caught a cold my wife had been incubating for a week. Getting the cold was annoying, but I was good and rested through it. That meant no Thursday run, no lifting on Friday, and no spin class on Saturday. I did sneak in a swim Saturday afternoon that I probably should have cut out, but I wanted to see if the breathing technique I found on Thursday still worked. The answer is yes 🙂

Objective Data

Blue lines == actuals; Gray areas == my target range for that week.

Assessment

This week, despite the cold, was another good week. And the cold symptoms were pretty mild and they’re gone now. I still feel broadly on track, and feel excited that my swimming is markedly better now.

Plan

I made a few adjustments to the plan moving forward this week. Next week is a HEAVY lifting week, and so I’m going to cut back on spinning during that week to focus on lifting instead. I’m going to try to do 5 lifting days of 45-minute sessions instead of 3 days of 90 minute sessions. I also pushed my running ramp-up out another 3 weeks; I don’t need to really ramp running until after March to be able to do the 10k tri-distance easily, and I have enough things going on right now between this and work to keep me more than busy. But apart from that, just another week to try to forge ahead with gaining weight, gaining strength, and increasing swimming endurance (i.e. the winter goals).

Reminders

I’m still undecided between running a marathon in New York (November 2) or in Dublin Ireland (October 27). If you’re interested in running either with me, let me know. I’m not going to decide until around April. Also, if anyone is interested in doing the Philly Triathlon (June 21) with me, you’re welcome to join the team!

Presentation Notes

These notes are always presented in SOAP Note format. Click here for all the Nude Numbers posts.

Thanks for reading.

– Art