Recovery and rebuilding

We have reached the end of April already, one third of the year has already gone by, time to look ahead and a little back.  If I look at the goals I have to achieve, I think only my weight loss will be hard to get. Sofar I lost this year “only” 6.4 kg, but summer is coming up and I know the days of inline skating will be growing. The past few weeks I had a very busy time, but luckily I found time to go out skating with my son.

I wrote in my last blog about a recovery which I needed, and so far it worked out OK. The way a human body is working is amazing! If you listen good enough and you have your health check in time you have no limits in what you can achieve (in your mind, that is ;))

My diving health check was about two weeks ago, it confirmed my weight loss. Last year my checkup was in May and my weight was 112 kg, so I lost already almost 12 kg in one year. They also did a more intense health check and everything was OK, excluding weight and fat percentage (but I already knew that J).

My max HR was also measured by a test on a ergometer, my maximum HR was 161 at 3.4 Watt/kg. My HR while resting was 50 (40/43 in the morning) and the health centre gave a good schedule for my training and HR frequency.

Zone	Min		Max		Zone
0	103	Until	114	b/m	Recovery
1	115	Until	126	b/m	Quiet/long
2	127	Until	137	b/m	Normal long
3	138	Until	143	b/m	Zone under
4	144	Until	149	b/m	Zone above
5	150	Until	161	b/m	Maximum

It might be that my max HR is a little higher, but that is something I can test with the spinning lessons. When I got these results I changed my max HR in the lessons back to 167 instead of 170/173. The next month will be a kind of rebuilding, using the table as stated above. I had the feeling last year that some exercise was a little difficult to keep up with, looking at my HR and the trainers’ whishes.

Along the new road I will find new challenges after rebuilding my confidence in HR monitoring. Yesterday Tom and I were participating in the first Friday Night Skate of Almere, my HR max reached 161 once! This summer will be great and Autumn even better!

Ed van Harmelen

April 2012

Achievements	Goals 2012	So far achieved	2011
Weight goal	87.0 kg	100.6 kg	107.0 kg
Weight loss	20.0 kg	6.4 kg	5.0 kg
Kcal burned	200,000 Kcal	76,816 Kcal	48,500 Kcal
Distance exercises	3,600 km.	1.393 km.	1,600 km.
Best time half marathon (skeelers)	50:00	0:55:54	1:04:04
Best time marathon (skeelers)	1:50:00	2:07:06	2:37:36

Losing it?

For the first time this year I suffered of a fallback in my muscle power, expecially in my legs.
I had been skating on saturday (28 km) and Sunday (20 km), spinning on Monday (1 hour) and tried to skate again on Tuesday. I got out to do a marathon but started too fast, after that my legs felt like it was heavy. I couldn't get my rythm and pace and struggled the first 10/11 km, after that I was worn out.

So I decided to turn around and go home, hoping for the better days to come again. Only on character I could get some speed but everytime there was a crossing my speed fell back again and I had to fight to get it back.

I tried to go spinning on Wednesday, but that also wasn't a good workout. After about 20 minutes or so i couldn't push myself again to the limits and decided to stop trying. So I finished the spinning class in a recovery workout to give my muscles the time to rest.

I even stopped my normal routine on Thursday and Friday, finally i found myself on Saturday back in the Gym. Running, Crosstraining and Rowing on a more appropriate level for recovery. It worked out well and I found myself feeling better again although i haven't tried skating again.

One thing is for sure, it cannot be the material: my BONT skates are great, I have cleaned the bearings and have a brake now... WHAT? A brake on BONT skates????? And what is even worse: the brake is made by Powerslide!!!

Yes, a break... I found myself not secure enough to make a T-stop yet and noticed that this changed my feeling on skating at high speed, always stopping in time to prevent accidents and far away from the crossing we have to pass during our tours.

When we went for the tour last Saturday I asked the guys after returning to the shop to put on a break and it helped me to gain more speed afterward. I still can practice the T-stop and still have faith in using the break when necessary.

So I think I am not losing it, but found a way for this simple thing to return on the right path for Duluth. There is still a long way to go for me to achieve my goals, but I am back on the road again.

As promised in my last blog I wanted to revise my goals for this season, so in this blog I finish with my new goals for this year. I have some work to do.....

Ed van Harmelen
7th April 2012 

Achievements	Goals 2012	Sofar achieved	2011
Weight goal	87 kg	101.9 kg	107.0 kg
Weight loss	20.0 kg	5.1 kg	5.0 kg
Kcal burned	200,000 Kcal	65,696 Kcal	48,500 Kcal
Distance exercises	3,600 km.	1.040 km.	1,600 km.
Best time half marathon (skeelers)	50:00	0:55:54	1:04:04
Best time marathon (skeelers)	1:50:00	2:07:06	2:37:36