So I signed up for my first 24 Hour foot race and detailed my high level training plan and my nutrition plan.

So now I will detail my training from Week 10

First off.. a big awesome super congratulations to Amanda at 1 mile 2 Go for just hammering her first 24 Hour this morning at the NorthCoast 24-Hour Endurance Race with over 82 miles completed!! Brilliant! We have been tweeting back and forth about our upcoming 24 Hr’s and I am so excited for her! An awesome race report will be coming I am sure!

Oh and really looking forward to writing about my running and race walking training on my weekly recaps… since these are recaps on training for a “running” race.. but not yet… the damned right foot still isn’t right yet. Seeing both my podiatrist and my chiropractor this week so here is hoping that it is 100% soon. Nothing more that I can do but what I am doing and wait.

I continue to get stronger in the gym, so I have that going for me. I really enjoy the workouts and am excited about continuing to get stronger (althoug I don’t consider myself “strong” yet) and know that it will help in some way on race day… but also know of course that I need to run and walk.

So a few things that I learned or just wanted to discuss from last week:

• During a serious and long ultra (I know.. are there any other kinds of ultras!) one area that can get quite sore and abused are your hips. I don’t mean they generally get injured.. I just mean that putting enough miles and hours on them they can really start to get sore, weaker and generally annoying. I have experienced this and I guess after 10,000s of steps this shouldn’t be too unexpected. One thing that I have noticed (and of course knew beforehand but never really thought about it because I hadn’t trained these exercises heavy for a running race) is that my whole hip structure gets seriously worked and sore for a few days after the heavy deadlifting, leg pressing and squatting.. but then feels better and stronger a couple days later. My expectation is that this will help on race day as my whole hip girdle is stronger and more resilient. We use that area in running but don’t strengthen it in the way that I have been. We will see… it is part of the experiment.
• My feet are slowing starting to get a bit thinner and my arch is ever so slightly getting a bit lower. As I detailed in my first writeup on my barefoot running journey my feet significantly changed as I became a better and better barefoot runner. They got a bit thicker as they got stronger and my toes spread out a bit while my arch got higher. There hasn’t been significant regression with my not being able to run but I can notice something… and I don’t like it.. but they will come back in probably 3 weeks or so once I am able to start running and race walking again. Looking forward to that soon.
• I will have an even more thorough detailing of my diet at some point, but my recovery in the gym, my ever increasing strength and the changes in my musculature reinforce to me that I need to keep this going and spread the word that most of us aren’t eating enough and by grazing throughout the day we allow our bodies to better fully heal.

So now I will detail my training from Week 10.

So onto last week:

Tuesday the 17th: 6 sets on the 45 degree Leg Press ending with 540X6 and 590X4 which is a serious bump from the last time that I did it. Looking forward to going over 700 and beyond. I could feel that this type of leg pressing helps strengthen the knee tendons and that could help me on race day.

Only 12 sets for Chest but got up a pair of 95lb dumbbells in the flat bench press and it has been a while since I did that. And was reminded of a great exercise for overall chest wall thickness (and reduced stress on your wrist) from a friend of mine and I really like them. They are doing the flat bench using the Smith Machine but with a reverse grip. Big fan and felt soreness in my chest in a different way the next day. Will keep them in the program!

Ran out of time so did the rest of this workout on Wednesday.

Wednesday the 18th: 17 sets for Traps and Rhomboids (which is a lot for those muscle groups) finally getting back to decent weight on barbell trap shrugs with 405X4. There was a time many years ago when I could do 1000lb barbell shrugs but I don’t know if that will ever happen again. Was happy with this workout and felt it later in the day when just holding my head up at my desk was a bit challenging 🙂

Finally incorporated a bit of forearm work into my training doing 4 sets of standing barbell front and rear wrist curls. I hold the barbell at my waist and push forward and backward as far as I can go with my wrists only. Ended with 110X10. Then also did 3 sets of wrist roller work using a barbell on a bench rack. I just load up the barbell and turn it using the outer Olympic sleeve. It is a favorite of Magnus Samuelson and he has some crazy grip strength and forearm size. I like them.. forearms were bursting with blood and it was kind of fun. I really felt it later in the day that my wrists were seriously worked.. maybe did slightly too much for the first time back but I was fine the next day.

5 sets for Abs and Obliques

Friday the 20th: 4 sets for Glutes getting up to 100lbs on side lunges and 150 for 2 sets on the Glute Press

17 sets for Delts and did standing barbell push presses (and it has been a while for them) and got up to 155. Not bad and felt good about it. Want to get back up to 225 eventually but will be awhile.

11 sets for Biceps

Then my second round of forearm/grip training for the week with 2 sets using the Trainer version of the Captains of Crush grippers. Really enjoyed it.. always have enjoyed training grippers.. and forearms blew up with blood again so that is cool. Looking forward to keeping up working them over the coming months. Probably won’t help my race but will balance things out and help keep me injury free in the gym.

Sunday the 22nd: Planned on doing deadlifts, lats and triceps like normal (although I usually do them on Saturday) but for a couple of reasons… (was exhausted from an extra stressful and long Saturday and also starting the workout really late and not having eaten anything beforehand) I was just beat down after the deadlifts and will have to get lats and triceps in tomorrow.

I was still happy with the deadlifts though because I went up 20lbs from the last session ending at 345X4 and 355X3.

That is about it for last week’s training but please be on the lookout for a number of upcoming posts! I have an awesome review and giveaway (a pair for men and a pair for women to give away!) of some recovery sandals, my movie review of the bodybuilding expose Generation Iron (in short quite good.. but had the potential to be great and wasn’t) and my first Japanese Whiksy review (and it is an utterly grand dram!). So lot’s coming up at Mavrocat Strength!

Oh and finally (and very very cool) Mavrocat Strength got nominated for the Leibster Award

by Amy at Coffee, Scarves and Running Shoes. This literally made my week and I will also be writing the post that is required (answering a lot of fun questions for my readers 🙂 ) to accept the honor of this nomination! That will be coming and I am very honored and proud to be deemed worthy by a fellow blogger of this award! Super cool.

Best of luck in your training,

Chris