Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Week 5 Update: July 17th, 2013

Week 5 Update: Jul 17, 2013

Two weeks of hypoxic sleep and going strong! Here are some things I learned this week:

  • Tapering off from high workloads makes me very tired. Week 5 was a relatively light week (15 hours) and I felt tired.
  • Training feels easier after hypoxic sleeping BUT hypoxic naps really zap my energy
  • The heat in the tent continues to disrupt my sleep
  • 9000 feet offers me very little O2 to recover. I feel tired in the morning after a long workout the day before.

Workout Progress

My preferred workload seems to be front-loaded (more time spent on Sunday through Tuesday) and then a slow taper from Thursay through Saturday.

plot of chunk WeekEx

As I indicated above, front-loaded weeks work best for me now. I decided to show you (and myself) the weekly distribution of my training hours by day of the week. The figure below shows how I front-load my hours. So far, so good; I prefer this distribution. In years past, when I trained for the same duration each day, I got bored. Varying my training duration and intensity keeps me fresh and interested. I sure look forward to Wednesday nights sailing with my friends and family. Last week, no sailing; Patrick (my son) had a swim meet.

plot of chunk DailyWL

Below is another new figure that my swim coach (Cheryl Ward) asked me to place on the blog. Did I get it right Cheryl? My training so far is about 1/8th of the way to my 800 total hours.

The figure below shows the cumulative workload for my entire training preparation prior to climbing Everest in April 2014. My progress to date is shaded and the unshaded portion remains white. The x-axis is weeks until the climb and the y-axis is total weekly time training (i.e., not broken down by training modality or day of the week). Hope you find this new figure useful. If any other readers have a request for a figure or some other details, please do not hesitate to ask; I will do my best to provide the requested information.

plot of chunk CumWL

Weekly Summary

The week was a relatively easy week. I really appreciated the extra time so I could get more work (non-workout work) done before I take a little time off in August.

Mood

I am psyched about this entire enterprise. Yes, I am tired but not as tired as I was the previous week. Some of you asked me about the scale range below. I use a standard 10-point scale ranging from 0 (horrendously negative) to 10 (totally awesome).

plot of chunk Mood

Hypoxic Training

The figure below says a ton about the last week. My sleep quality has taken a severe hit - probably due to the heat - while my resting heart rate has steadily increased. Sleep quality ranges from 0 to 100 where all the numbers reflect my subjective evaluation of how well rested I feel and how well I slept through the night. Ratings below 6 are not good for me. I tend to sleep through everything and right now I am not sleeping through anything. My dogs, the tent temperature, the workout strain, and the reduced O2 are all affecting my sleep. There are days when I feel like I did not sleep much at all. Hope the next few weeks make up for this week! At this point, Kathy and I are now at 9000 feet and sticking to that altitude for a bit while we both acclimate.

plot of chunk Hypoxia

Updates for the week

Just a few updates.

  1. I started wearing a compression top and pants to see if they help me recovery from some difficult workouts. So far, I don't see much of a difference but things may change as I increase my workload.
  2. Kathy and I both experienced some odd drops in our spO2 readings. The initial readings in the morning sometimes dipped below 90% but they steadily increased to 93% or higher in about 2-3 minutes. What I am unsure of is whether to believe the initial readings or to assume that the device registers low readings initially that are inaccurate of the true spO2 levels. One way to closely monitor these levels is to track spO2 during the night via a continuous data collection stream. I intend to contact Brian Oestrike about this point later next week. Stay tuned for an update.
  3. I ordered two fans for the tent. Hopefully the arrive mid-week so I can reduce the temperature inside the tent and resume normal sleep.

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