I spent the past couple days in Lisbon visiting the office and getting to know my colleagues, since I never met them before. While it was a great experience, it was very short!
Since every time I’m visiting a new city, I like to do a run and get to know the surroundings better, this time I chose the biggest green spot on Google Maps and created a route through that park. It was Parque Florestal de Monsanto.
A very nice and big park where I would have liked to spend more time there to discover the trails in it, I had to stick to my route because I had limited time before going to office. Overall, it’s a nice park but there are many small roads that are paved; so the route I prepared from home (trail running and following popular routes on Garmin) used the paved roads half of distance I think.
Nevertheless, it was a nice early morning run! By the way, during the 2 hours run through the city and the park, I’ve seen 3 people running! Compared to Barcelona where I would have seen hundreds at the same hours. Guess running is not a big deal here…
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 10 of what I will be doing from this test series. Also this is the final week of training before my first A race for this season – next Sunday, June 18. After this next week, I will keep using the daily suggested workouts, but will stop training daily. Meaning, I will switch to 3-4 times a week only. I feel I need some rest and also want to do something else, like going to the gym maybe, need to strengthen my core a little.
What I noticed in the last 2 weeks is that I’m feeling tired; I can’t seem to be able to keep up with the pace long enough. The interesting thing is that my HRV is unbalanced, which, according to the watch, “may indicate excessive fatigue”. Oh, great, my watch knows I’m tired but it still keeps suggesting high intensity workouts 🙂 Guess the AI behind it still needs some more improvements. Anyway…
As to the training phases, I’m in my Taper phase that’s suppose to last until June 17: “The tapper phase decreases training volume but maintains intensity to help you be fresh and recovered.”. Afterwar the primary race we start again with a long base phase, followed by build, peak and taper phases. These phases lead up to the race season in October, when I have 2 short races planned – 11 km trail race and 10 km road race. The 10km road race will be my primary race. I will try to improve my 10km PR – 48:21.
Here are the training stats details after 9 weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: 53. “VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up steadily.
“HRV status provides a 7-day average of your overnight heart rate variability compared to your HRV baseline.”. Something happened during 2 days and it went to Unbalanced state but it managed to recover and get on track.
Week 10
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
VO2 Max 42:00 4×4:00@4:15 /km
Recovery 30:00 @6:35 /km
Base 46:00 @5:45 /km
Threshold 42:00 3×6:00@4:35 /km
Rest
Base 32:00 @5:45 /km
Race 13km
Actual
VO2 Max 42:00 4×4:00@4:15 /km
Base 46:00 @5:50 /km
Recovery 30:00 @6:40/km but I rested
Threshold 42:00 3×6:00@4:40 /km
Rest
This week’s plan as seen on Sunday afternoon (after the morning run) and the actual workout seen from the watch on each specific day.
Sunday: Well, my A race ended today. Overall, I felt ok. Maybe better in the 2nd half of the race. I felt tired the 1st half but that may be due to the high pace everyone was having and me trying to hold my horses for later.
When I started training I put myself the goal of finishing in 1h and 15 min. This morning Garmin said I can finish the race in 1:09:17 and I finished it in 1:13:56. So this time I was not able to meet Garmin’s expectations but I’m happy for doing it in the proposed time!
Next stop, 2 races in October. Will see if I will use Suggested Workouts feature or I will train with the athletics club from my city. To be decided, but nevertheless – I found this feature very good for self-training!
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 9 of what I will be doing from this test series. Exactly 2 weeks to go until my first A race for this season. As mentioned already, I will stop doing daily workouts afterwards and will switch to 3-4 times a week only. Want to rest and do some gym maybe, need to strengthen my core a little.
Peak phase will last until June 8: “The peak phase includes workouts to focus on speed and further increase the intensity of your training.”. Followed by Tapper phase between June 9 and 17.
This week I had 2 hard days, with a sprint and an anaerobic workouts. After the anaerobic workout, my lactate threshold changed to 4:37 /km at 161 bpm.
Here are the training stats details after 8 weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: 53. “VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up steadily.
“HRV status provides a 7-day average of your overnight heart rate variability compared to your HRV baseline.”. Something happened during 2 days and it went to Unbalanced state but it managed to recover and get on track.
Week 9
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
Recovery 30:00 @6:35 /km
VO2 Max 40:00 7×2:00@4:15 /km
Base 42:00 @5:45 /km
Threshold 42:00 3×6:00@4:35 /km
Rest
Base 42:00 @5:45 /km
Base 39:00 @5:45 /km
Actual
Recovery 30:00 @6:35 /km but I rested
VO2 Max 42:00 4×4:00@4:15 /km
Base 46:00 @5:45 /km
Threshold 38:00 18:00@4:35 /km
Rest
Base 46:00 @5:45 /km
Base 46:00 @5:45 /km
This week’s plan as seen on Sunday afternoon (after the morning run) and the actual workout seen from the watch on each specific day.
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 8 of what I will be doing from this test series. 3 more weeks to go until my first A race for this season. Afterwards I will stop doing daily workouts and will do 3-4 times a week only. My body asks me for some rest.
This week will kill me! It looks like we’re all in with longer runs, no more 30 min runs… And intensity…, let’s not start this discussion 🙂
I’m still in Peak phase until June 8: “The peak phase includes workouts to focus on speed and further increase the intensity of your training.”.
Here are the training stats details after 7 weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: Still at 53. Lucky me!
“VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up quite fast.
“HRV status provides a 7-day average of your overnight heart rate variability compared to your HRV baseline.”. I’m not quite sure yet on how to interpret this data; will need to look into this.
Week 8
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
Tempo 56:00 36:00@4:55 /km
Recovery 28:00 @6:55 /km
Sprint 51:00 9×0:10@2:55 /km
Base 1:05:00 @5:55 /km
Anaerobic 50:00 7×1:00@3:55 /km
Long run 1:30:00 @5:55 /km
Base 42:00 @5:55 /km
Actual
Tempo 56:00 36:00@4:55 /km
Recovery 28:00 @6:55 /km but I took a rest day
Base 1:07:00 @5:50 /km
Sprint 44:00 7×0:10@2:55 /km
Anaerobic 50:00 7×1:00@3:55 /km
Long run 1:27:00 @5:45 /km
Base 42:00 @5:45 /km
This week’s plan as seen on Monday afternoon (after the morning run) and the actual workout seen from the watch on each specific day.
Tuesday: Took a rest days instead of active recovery. Due to this, my plan changed a lot! I now have more intense workouts during the second half of the week.
Friday: After the Anaerobic workout my threshold got updated, as a result of this my “base pace” is not 5:45 instead of 5:55 /km
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 7 of what I will be doing from this test series.
This week looks harder than the one before. There is one long run with is way over my available time so I will see how I will squeeze this in.
I started the Peak phase on May 19; it will last until June 8: “The peak phase includes workouts to focus on speed and further increase the intensity of your training.”.
Here are the training stats details after 6 weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: Increased to 53 during the week but it went back to 52 after Saturday’s long run that I did on the same trail route as my next race. After Monday´s workout it went back to 53.
“VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up quite fast.
“HRV status provides a 7-day average of your overnight heart rate variability compared to your HRV baseline.”. I’m not quite sure yet on how to interpret this data; will need to look into this.
Week 7
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
Base 32:00 @5:55 /km
Sprint 44:00 7×0.10@2:55 /km
Tempo 50:00 3×8:00 @4:55 /km
Rest
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Base 41:00 @5:55 /km
Base 47:00 @5:55 /km
Actual
Base 31:00 @5:55 /km
Sprint 44:00 7×0.10@2:55 /km
Tempo 50:00 3×8:00 @4:55 /km
Rest
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Base 40:00 @5:55 /km
Base 45:00 @5:55 /km
This week’s plan as seen on Monday afternoon (after the morning base run) and the actual workout seen from the watch on each specific day.
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 6 of what I will be doing from this test series. So far, so good! 🙂
This week looks harder than the one before. There is one long run with is way over my available time so I will see how I will squeeze this in.
I’m still in the Build Phase until May 18: “The build phase ramps us the intensity of workouts to increase your aerobic capacity.”. This phase will be followed by “peak phase”, between May 19 and June 8.
Here are the training stats details after 5 weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: Dropped to 51 during the weekend but it went back to 52 after this morning’s run. “VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up quite fast.
“HRV status provides a 7-day average of your overnight heart rate variability compared to your HRV baseline.”. I’m not quite sure yet on how to interpret this data; will need to look into this.
Week 6
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Recovery 28:00 @6:45 /km
Threshold 18:00 @4:45 /km
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Long run 1:27:00 @5:55 /km
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Actual
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Recovery 28:00 @6:45 /km or Rest
Threshold 18:00 @4:45 /km
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
Long run 1:25:00 @5:55 /km
Recovery 28:00 @6:45 /km or Rest
This week’s plan as seen on Monday afternoon (after the morning base run) and the actual workout seen from the watch on each specific day.
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 5 of what I will be doing from this test series. Well, well, well… 4 weeks done! Overall, I liked it and I’m feeling good, better, stronger 🙂
So far, this week shows two 1h runs, a tempo and a long run, and time increases for all base runs. I guess the plan is starting to increase the intensity; enough with mileage to build endurance. As the watch shows it, I’m in the Build Phase during 28 Apr to 18 May: “The build phase ramps us the intensity of workouts to increase your aerobic capacity.”.
Here are the training stats details after 4 weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: 52, no changes since last week. “VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up now.
HRV Status graph appeared out of nowhere… “HRV status provides a 7-day average of your overnight heart rate variability compared to your HRV baseline.”
Week 5
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
Recovery 28:00 @6:45 /km
Tempo 1:05:00 4×9:00 @5:00 /km
Base 34:00 @5:55 /km
Base 34:00 @5:55 /km
Rest
Base 47:00 @5:55 /km
Long run 1:11:00 @5:55 /km
Actual
Decided to take a rest instead
Tempo 1:05:00 4×9:00 @5:00 /km
Base 34:00 @5:55 /km
Rest
Sprints 7×0.10 @3:00 /km
Base 46:00 @5:55 /km
Base 1:10:00 @5:55 /km
This week’s plan as seen on Monday morning and the actual workout seen from the watch on each specific day.
Monday: The Recovery workout today says “Active recovery or rest suggested”, so I chose the later 🙂 probably above planned workouts will change due to this.
Thursday: Plan changed from Base to Recovery but I decided to rest because tomorrow the plan added sprints instead of my well-deserved rest day.
Saturday and Sunday: I spent the weekend in the Pyrenees, on the French side. The two training sessions were done at 1700 altitude and it was great! My VO2 max seems to have suffered but this is normal when training to higher altitude than usually.
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 4 of what I will be doing from this test series. So far, it looks good, although previous week was quite lite (2 rest days), I got a trail running race on Sunday so it topped the week fully! Will see how this week goes, seems like a week with 3 base runs, one long run and a sprint. The other 2 days appear as rest now.
Here are the training stats details after 3 weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: 52, no changes since last week. “VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up now.
Acute Training Load graph appeared again!
Week 4
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
Rest
Base 30:00 @5:55 /km
Base 35:00 @5:55 /km
Rest
Sprint 44:00 7×0:10 @3:00 /km
Long run 59:00 @5:55 /km
Base 36:00 @5:55 /km
Actual
Rest
Base 30:00 @5:55 /km
Base 35:00 @5:55 /km
Rest
Sprint 44:00 7×0:10 @3:00 /km
Long run 1:00:00 @5:55 /km
Base 39:00 @5:55 /km
This week’s plan as seen on Monday morning and the actual workout seen from the watch on each specific day.
“Daily Suggested Workouts are workout recommendations made by your watch to provide a level of challenge to help you maintain or improve your current fitness level.”. This is the description of this feature from here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A.
This is week 3 of what I will be doing. As mentioned already in Week 2 post, So far, I seem to get used to do something daily although the rest days are always welcomed! 🙂
Here are the training stats details after two weeks of training. Info taken from Training Status on Garmin Connect page. Under Reports – All activities.
Running VO₂ max: 52, increased from 51 on Tuesday, Apr 25. “VO₂ Max is a good indication of your cardiovascular fitness and should increase as your level of fitness improves.”
“Exercise load measures how much oxygen your body consumes for recovery after an activity. The longer or more intense the activity, the higher the score.”
“Acute training load is a weighted sum of your recent exercise load scores. It’s rated low, optimal or high based on your fitness level and training history.”. The green tunnel seems to be heading up now.
Note that since I changed my watch a little over a week ago, the Acute Training Load graph change its title to 7-Day Training Load and it seems to be missing data for now. Garmin support said I need to wear my watch more time so that this graph starts showing data. Although this seem like a bad excuse, since I can view this data in the Connect app on the phone.
Below is the same screenshot from last week. Current week shows no data in this graph.
Week 3
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Planned
Rest
Base 30:00 @5:55 /km
Recovery 24:00 @6:45 /km
Threshold 2×8:00 @4:45 /km
Rest
Base 30:00 @5:55 /km
Trail Running Race 11km
Week 3 planning
Regarding the plan itself, below are some screenshots from how Garmin described it. As a note, I have a trail running race on April 30 and June 18. June 18 being the primary race, so the plan is build so that I reach this race with the best possible form.
As you can see, there are several phases to go through: Base, Build, Peak, Taper, and the race day. Depending on when the primary race is, in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months etc, the entire plan will be built accordingly with each phase taking a specific timeframe. This same approach is described as “periodization” in Joe Friel’s book “The Cyclist’s Training Bible“. I can’t recommend enough this book! I’ve read and followed this book several times when preparing for mountain biking cycling races and every single time, I reached my peak performance right when needed and all my races were a Personal Best! I can’t say the same about his “The Mountain Biker’s Training Bible” book though. It just confused me more I guess…
Monday: Rest day.
Tuesday: Base workout.
Wednesday: Recovery run. It costs me a lot to run at 6:45, my legs feel more sore after this run 🙂
Thursday: Threshold run.
Friday: Rest day.
Saturday: Easy, base run. Tomorrow is my trail running race. Will be interesting, since I only trained on asphalt lately. Garmin says 57 minutes as completion time. Well, on asphalt I can believe it; on trail I kind of doubt but will see tomorrow what can squeeze from my legs.
Sunday: Finally, the day with my first race as part of this “Garmin” test is here and has been completed successfully but not easily. First of all, what surprised me the most is the watch showing “no events” in today’s suggested workouts list. I was expected it to say something about the race but no… nothing. Only the morning report showed a screen about it but nothing else as far as I could see.
Now, remember up until yesterday the watch was kind of guessing the race completion time. It dropped from the 1h 5 min about 10 days ago and dropped to 56 once and yesterday showed 56 min and 50+ seconds, so 57 minutes. Guess what, I did 57 min 18 sec! This is my start to end activity time, during which I ran 55 min and walked 2 min.
About the race, overall it was good. I knew the trails like my hand because I lived there for 2 years and ran a lot on those trails, but today’s run was “all-in”. I suffered a lot, I tried to run as much as possible and stopped only one some hills to drop my hear rate a little. But, I did not notice I forgot to run fast on the descents. Could be due to lack of training on the trails, since I trained only on road lately. I think I will start doing more runs on trails, even if my workout execution score will drop a little. I need to be better prepared for running up and down the hills.
My gps managed to direct me to the wrong city so I arrived at the start about 15 min later. The crowd of 2000 people were already long gone and I had to catch them and overpass, because I wanted to walk fast, to see if I can sustain a high pace for this distance.
It took me about 2 hours to get in the front of the biggest group. At the first checkpoint I was in the 400-ish position.
The second checkpoint, 372 position. From this point, it was harder and harder to reach and overpass someone, people were walking faster and were more spread.
Third checkpoint and the place where the lunch was organized, 325. I ate my home-made lunch quickly and left. I did not get anything from the organizers as there was nothing vegan.
Last checkpoint before finish, 212! I guess there was a good number of people still having lunch 🙂
