Running

But if I could, I'd assume there'd be a lengthy lag before you start noticing - a month doesn't seem long enough.

My lag tends to be about 6 weeks. In that time my body shape is changing but weight stays roughly the same. I'm adding muscle and losing fat but muscle is more dense than fat so it looks like I've got a bit slimmer. Once the muscle addition starts to slow down then the weight starts to comes down.

I've done 95kg -> 75kg (and back up again obviously) a few times. Hoping to make it stick this time once I get back down there.

3 runs a week at the moment (long, steady, steady). Tue/Thu/Sat. Steady = 5k at 6:00/km, sometimes more gently at 6:30/km. Long run has gone 6km, 7km and the next weeks will be 8km, 9km and then 10km (where I'll hold it for a while).

Mon/Wed/Fri is 100 pushup challenge (just restarted so on W1D2 today). And leg blasters: https://sawback.com/blog/leg-blasters/ (ouch)

Sunday is enjoying not doing anything specific, or gentle weeping in a corner trying to ignore my lead-like legs.

Once my weight is below 90kg one of the runs will become intervals. That means I'll be doing (long/gentle, intervals, 5k/steady). The intervals start at 5x800 (90s walk between each), 4x1000 (100s) and 3x1600 (120s). 800m intervals at 5k race pace, longer intervals a bit slower than that. I rotate through the three interval distances over a 3 week cycle, with a 4th week as an "easy" week so that my body has a chance to recover. The interval run on this 4th week just becomes a suitable length "easy" run. The intervals build up in distance until I'm doing 10x800 at 5k pace (ouch), 8x1000 and 6x1600m.

At some point in all of this I may add a 4th and/or 5th run to the week, but they'll almost always be gentle/easy runs. Or, if parkrun was back on, I'd use a Saturday parkrun as my ongoing benchmark and I'd add in a 4th "easy" run somewhere in the week.

When I was working in the office I used to do a 11.5km run commute once a week which neatly ticked off one of the runs, but Coronabollocks has stopped that.

There's an old adage along the lines of "Most people do their slow runs too fast and their fast runs too slow."

Right now, in my relatively unfit state, my Garmin (Forerunner 945) is taunting me that absolutely all of my running is in the "high aerobic" level (which for me is HR > 158bpm). Even if I do a gentle run at 6:30/km. I despise running slower than 6:30/km, it just feels useless (even though it's probably what I should be doing), but I know that if I stick with the "just running" phase I'll soon improve and 6:30/km running will drop into the "low aerobic" category and my training status charts will start to make a lot more sense. I can then start to push the faster runs towards 5:00/km and below and when the intervals start (or I restart 5-a-side football) it should start to give me some time in the anaerobic category.

(I am not a qualified coach or trainer, I've just built this up from years or reading around and looking at the plans that others use. I don't get injuries but I still don't end up controlling my weight or getting to some form of new stability so take this all with a large pinch of salt.)