Week 10: 3/22/2018

I let myself go during spring break both in terms of exercise and diet. After seven cheat days, I gained some weight as well as had my body turn off my exercise mode. I have resorted to telling myself that I am easing off to focus on the upcoming table tennis tournament to make myself feel better. I plan on finally going into some bike shops and walmart in person to look at bikes this weekend.

Anyways, this week I did a 40 minute bike alternating between high rpm and high resistance work. It ended up being a bit more than 10 miles. At this point, the high-resistance work is the tougher half. I did a twenty minute bike focusing on high resistance yesterday after I woke up late from my nap too close to pool closing time. I put in a 50 lap swim today instead of a full workout since I was getting some shoulder and hip pain. 

Table tennis wise, I feel like I am generally ready for the upcoming tournament. I hope to have a decent shot in doing well in the U1900 event as well as coaching three of my classmates to victory in their respective events. I really do wish two of them would practice more...but I understand that everyone is behind on schoolwork due to spring break blues.

I am planning on playing intramural flag football and 3v3 basketball (this Saturday!). I am not particularly skilled in either of those sports although I can throw a football a little bit and shoot a little bit. I went into the gym before my swim today and did some dribbling drills to try to regain some feel of the basketball as well as shoot around. Ended the day with 15/20 free throws and (luckily) 4/5 three-pointers. Not bad...but the bigger issue is whether I can do that in a game situation.

Note to self: This is Week 11.

Week 9: 3/15/2018

This is technically Week 10 but having four exams at school made finding opportunities to exercise difficult. Getting back into biking with a twenty-min stationary bike alternating between high rpm and high resistance training. I am planning on upping that to hopefully eighty-mins by the end of the month before transitioning to biking outdoors. I am unsure how to go about it so hopefully I can get some advice on outdoor riding and etiquette. Meanwhile, the search is on for a used bike. Currently, I am scouring Facebook sale groups but I may move to Craigslist if nothing seems worth spending money on.

Swimming is progessing...swimmingly. I am getting through 10x100s much more strongly. Although my speed has not increased, the amount of time I am slowing down during longer swims is decreasing. I swam at the Tom Muehlenbeck Center yesterday. The pool was nice, tasted slightly salty, and had an electronic clock which really helps since I am nearsighted. I am hoping to get a second swim somewhere before the end of the week - maybe with a 1200 test swim for time.

Also yesterday, I went to the Plano Table Tennis Club to play TT. I played three matches - against a leftie who served with decent deception and good placement (1-3), a double long-pips chop-block/attacker (0-3), and a tall Korean guy who played pretty standard (0-3). It was insightful, playing people who I understand to be my weak points or people who took advantage of a weak point I did not know about (last guy...). I have a month to work on these things before the Joplin city tournament coming up in mid-April!

Week 8: March 4, 2018

And...we are in March now. The weather is beginning to warm up although it is raining again today. I had a productive workout week doing two runs and two swims. I completed a 3-mile treadmill run at 1.5 incline and a 5-mile run today. I began to feel quite fatigued after about two miles and took a five-minute walk break  at the 3-mile mark before finishing the run. I feel that I am starting to hit a wall that I won't be able to fully address in this following swim/bike training month.

For the first swim, I did 4x200, 2x100 for my main set. For the following swim, it was separated into 10x50, 10x100, 10x25 on a interval that really pushed my stamina. I ended up getting about 8-15 seconds rest doing the 100s on 1:45. Speaking with someone, I learned about spotting which is seeing your swimming direction during an open water swim. I am going to start practicing working on that in a pool this next swim.

The local club is hosting an unsanctioned table tennis tournament in mid-April. Three of my classmates will be doing it with me. We aim to win the U1000, U1300, and either U1600 or U1900 depending on what event I register for. One of them still needs to buy his own paddle but I have high hopes for all of them as they step into the world of competitive table tennis. For this first week, I mainly discussed working on consistency, some basic technique work, and how to read spin.

Time to begin my study grind for this 3-exam hell week before spring break.

Week 7: 2/24/18

Well, my triathlon training did not exactly go as planned. I did get my weekly two workouts in though so I will still need to make up a swim next week. It has been raining this whole week with two of the days being icy rain days resulting in the pool being closed early. I finally got to swim yesterday when it 'only' thunderstormed. Overall, I am doing the yardage (2400 at the moment) although my stamina leaves a lot to be desired. I did several 50s and 100s interval training and my speed dramatically drops after about 200 yards each set. For running, I will be doing a five miler next week. It feels good to almost be at the 10k mark.

Every time a new block starts (this time it is our repro block), work always piles up regardless of my good intentions of staying ahead. I think this is due to a combination of having too many resources, lack of urgency with the exam being a couple weeks away, and trying to take care of errands that were not completed during the few days before the previous exam.

I am playing a table tennis tournament tomorrow. I invited a friend from school whose skill was surprisingly good. It will be interesting to see how he does in gameplay situations, especially playing people with strange styles and unconventional spin. I hope this will be a good experience to motivate him to improve. I am aiming to play doubles with him for the city tournament in April.

Week 6: 2/14/2018

Happy Valentine's Day! Unfortunately, its been a busy week so I am behind on my New Year's Resolution cardio goals. I did a 2.5mile run on 1.5 incline on the treadmill at 7.0 speed. I both did not find time to swim and still have not gotten a gym membership with a pool. The current plan is to do my Week 6 swim on Friday, do the Week 7- 5mile run on Sunday, do my Week 7 swim on Tuesday.

There's not much to report on with table tennis. I am doing some multi-ball and attempting to improve how I play against long pip players and service return. We had a visitor from Springfield this past Monday who I went 0-3 against (10-12, 8-11, 14-16). To sum it up, I had trouble with his backhand serve. I plan to try being more aggressive instead of pushing when I can't read the spin. I will also try to give more spinny pushes instead of dead pushes and see if it is effective.

Back to studying for my endocrinology exam! Godspeed

Week 5: 2/7/2018

Late post this week. I have been feeling a bit under the weather since Sunday. I took a nap that day and ended up not waking up until halftime! Anyways, I had a decent first swim and four-mile run this past week. I forget if I mentioned it in a previous post but about two weeks ago I began to run a post-workout mile after my strength workouts. So, roughly 4 miles/wk. This week, I will do some sort of inclined-run on the treadmill. I feel that this idea of alternating between distance weeks and incline(strength?) weeks is helpful, at least where I am in the infancy of my running training.

Swimming-wise, I did a 1000 test swim with my 100-splits being 1:15, 1:22, with the last 8 100s being between 1:28-1:33. I am happy with the results. The immediate goal is to being able to hold a pace faster than 1:30 and the long-term goal is to be able to hold 1:20 pace for a whole mile. My workout consisted of a 300 warmup, test swim, 400 pull, 400 kick, 200 front crawl drills. I will be repeating the workout with a goal of holding 1:30 pace for the test swim. Unfortunately, my free trial pass to the ymca has run out. I will have to try to see if I can negotiate some sort of low-cost student membership at the YMCA or get a membership to a neighboring university's pool.

For table tennis, I am preparing to get myself into tournament shape again. After spending the past month playing matches with clubmates, I am doing this mainly through multiball to really try to make my common shots be reliable in matches. The secondary aim is to get my legs/body into being able to hold a lower position to increase stability in my movement and shots.

Well, now that this blog post is done it's time to get back to the medical school grind. A tough week seems to be ahead with a quiz coming up tomorrow and a practical exam on Friday and two exams next week. Looking forward (something I try really hard not to do...it stresses me out :x), theres a lull week followed by a mid-semester hell week - 2 exams, 1 quiz, and 1 practical all within a week. Some combination of hard work and luck will probably be necessary here!

Week 4: 1/29/17

I survived the GI mid-term with some trusty help from the curve. The class average was a not-so-surprisingly low 73%. I made a pact with a friend to aim for an 80% on this next exam, so I have been going full-steam ahead with studying. I feel like I am starting to lose motivation but hopefully I can make it past the bump. The main difference I am doing for this next exam is to start doing practice questions tomorrow (exam on Friday). Hopefully, this change will be effective.

One more week of playing table tennis matches before I go back to doing multiball. I am getting used to the new rubber and am able to hit my shots more confidently with each game. I had a disappointing 4-3 win against a pips player that I feel that I am better than and hope to redeem myself this week.

Workout-wise, I am spending more time at the gym due to finding a workout crew that, at least for now, is pretty motivated. This week, I did a 3-mile run, 2-mile run, and three 1-mile runs along with a 45 minute bike with varying resistance from 6 to 8. Biking on the stationary bike is pretty tough since, in contrast to a treadmill, my RPM will decrease when my mind wanders. I would rate the difficulty of the bike about 3/5 and running 4/5 (with 5/5 for anything over 3.5 miles currently). I would consider myself a lot more 'in-shape' than when the month started. Making progress feels good.

Swimming starts this week. I am aiming to do about 3000 in yardage with a 1000 being timed. Ideally, I would like to hold 1:30 per 100 yards but I have no idea how out of shape I am. I have managed to dig my swimming gear out of the box it was packed in when I moved so at least I am somewhat prepared.