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.