Week 63 – The quantum theory of exercise

This week was a down week. Down weeks are your body’s opportunity to recover from the abuse you inflicted on it. It’s an important process in training for an event like a triathlon. Really important.

Really.

Because once it’s over you’re going to start climbing the mountain of pain. Next week I am hitting 10:20 minutes of exercise.

A brief humble brag

On Friday I set a new personal best during my time trial. This is significant for two reasons:

  1. I set a new personal best and that’s always fun.
  2. I did it way earlier in my training cycle.

As for the improvement, it was 11 seconds over 5km…

The quantum theory of exercise

Fig. 1: Probability densities corresponding to the wavefunctions of an electron in a hydrogen atom possessing definite energy levels (increasing from the top of the image to the bottom: n = 1, 2, 3, ...) and angular momenta (increasing across from left to right: s, p, d, ...). Brighter areas correspond to higher probability density in a position measurement. Such wavefunctions are directly comparable to Chladni's figures of acoustic modes of vibration in classical physics, and are modes of oscillation as well, possessing a sharp energy and, thus, a definite frequency. The angular momentum and energy are quantized, and take only discrete values like those shown (as is the case for resonant frequencies in acoustics)

Taken from wikipedia: Probability densities corresponding to the wave functions of an electron in a hydrogen atom possessing definite energy levels (increasing from the top of the image to the bottom: n = 1, 2, 3, …) and angular momenta (increasing across from left to right: s, p, d, …). Brighter areas correspond to higher probability density in a position measurement. Such wavefunctions are directly comparable to Chladni’s figures of acoustic modes of vibration in classical physics, and are modes of oscillation as well, possessing a sharp energy and, thus, a definite frequency. The angular momentum and energy are quantized, and take only discrete values like those shown (as is the case for resonant frequencies in acoustics)

One thing I have learned in all of this training is that the amount of training feels very different at different discrete quanta.

Between 0-3 hours it feels like you’re basically just moving your sorry fat ass around or keeping fit. Not training for anything, but staying generally healthy.

At 3-6 hours it feels like you’re actually improving your physical body, you feel good doing the work, and it doesn’t feel like this massive amount of effort. Your body is getting in better shape, you’re feeling tired, but it still feels okay.

From about 7-10 hours, it just sucks. Throw in travel time, setup time, and tear down time, and it feels like a frigging part time job. And the exercise hurts. I mean, hurts. You spend 3 hours on a bicycle in a garage and it just sucks. I mean sucks. Then the next day you go on a 2 hour run, and you’re body is feeling like someone out there better be driving a truck to cripple you… This is just hard frigging work. It’s brutal.

I am not quite sure what 16 hours feels like when training for an Ironman. I will be sure to update you on that.

But it is interesting to note how the way your body and brain react to the discrete levels of training is different. 0-3 hours feels like something I can do whenever, however, without much effort and it feels pointless. 3-6 feels about right and fun. 10 hours feels like I am just a sadist.

I think what it really says is that once I do my first Ironman, it probably will be my last Ironman.

Getting Faster

Did my speed training workout and I improved my 5k time by about 11 seconds. Not bad, not bad at all. My coach believes it’s the training, I am saying it’s the weight 🙂

Speaking of speed training, 30 minutes going all out just sucks. It’s really really hard. And it’s hard mentally because you’re natural instinct is to slow down and stop and you have to keep pushing really hard. And what makes it worse, is that after you’re done with the speed training it feels like you just finished a marathon. A lot of times you end up hurting yourself in new ways because you’re just going faster than you normally do.

*sigh*

Weight update

2014-03-31_0746

Progress was made. This week I went through a clothes purge.

Clothes that no longer fit. To be donated ...

Having lost 20 pounds since the last time I bought clothes, I went shopping, and threw out everything that was too big. Something about burning the boats I learned a while ago…

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