Concurrent Strength Training & Running 2015: Eight-Week Workout Cycle I

sorry, i can't resist a content free post. stolen from someone else (twitter feed of ross tucker on the side of http://sportsscientists.com/), described as the "best thread on the internet", here is an enlightened discussion of exactly how many days there are in a week and the implications for scheduling your workouts. ahhh, the joys of cultural convention. like how money is a merely useful shared illusion/delusion or whatever they try to teach kids in "econ 101".

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=107926751

meanwhile, back at the ranch, the bent over rows produce a strange sensation around the bottom of my shoulder blades that feels like my hair brushing across them. except my hair is tied up. maybe it is just massive muscles interfering with each other. not. or rather small muscles getting crowded in new and unfamiliar ways during the motion.
Yah, a good chunk of anthropology is dedicated to explaining how cultural conventions are naturalized as objective fact. You wanna piss someone off, just tell them their cultural beliefs are arbitrary, and worse, often flimsy excuses for exploitation.

That said, the length of the week--seven days--is a quarter of the moon cycle, so that does have a basis in nature. Seems like the week should begin when the moon is full, empty, or halfway to waxing or waning. The ancient Hebrew god rested on the Sabbath, the seventh day, which is Saturday, right? Although, due to my Christian upbringing, I tend to associate the rest day with Sunday, so that should be the end of the week, except all the calendars begin the week with Sunday, so I go along.

Of course, all this is just a provocation to Sid to chime in with his secret society coding.

Interesting about the bentover rows. The back is a complex of muscles, and the shoulder blades themselves aren't really attached to the rest of the skeleton very well, so it kinda makes sense to have a few odd sensations as you get used to doing rows. Are you doing them strict or cheating style? I like to do them both ways.
 
ha! i am lucky enough to have both a christian upbringing and a respect for the whole seventh day thing. :) thus, i get (unjustly, as described in your second sentence) annoyed at the "undue" attention given to sunday. it's that subversive influence of the pagans and persecution (and economics and coordination and whatever else) trying to draw us away from the one true path...

for the barbell rows, i think i'm doing a strict style. as in, i'm not throwing myself around and letting the weight go semi-ballistic through some phase of the lift and then catching it again. i am just maintaining tension throughout since i don't want to rip anything. this is based on a naive approach to maximum risk aversion which is, again, grounded in my personal opinions rather than some other more suitable epistemological approach. i think i might need a mystical experience to cut through the clutter of the self-confusion, broscience, purported "real" science, and self-promoting personal trainers.
 
ha! i am lucky enough to have both a christian upbringing and a respect for the whole seventh day thing. :) thus, i get (unjustly, as described in your second sentence) annoyed at the "undue" attention given to sunday. it's that subversive influence of the pagans and persecution (and economics and coordination and whatever else) trying to draw us away from the one true path...

for the barbell rows, i think i'm doing a strict style. as in, i'm not throwing myself around and letting the weight go semi-ballistic through some phase of the lift and then catching it again. i am just maintaining tension throughout since i don't want to rip anything. this is based on a naive approach to maximum risk aversion which is, again, grounded in my personal opinions rather than some other more suitable epistemological approach. i think i might need a mystical experience to cut through the clutter of the self-confusion, broscience, purported "real" science, and self-promoting personal trainers.
I'm a pagan epicurean evolutionist, so sue me.

A naive theory, not quite mystical, that I've come up with over the last year or so is that "cheating" is OK for certain lifts, since the whole point of working out full-body is to work out the full body. I think I first noticed this while doing biceps curls. I loaded up the bar past the point where I could keep the rest of my body immobile, and found I got a good back workout while yanking on the bar to establish initial momentum.

It may also benefit the targeted muscles to lift more weight than normal through the middle of the movement, when the muscle is at medium length and at its strongest. I don't think a cheating style has any benefit for the bench press, squat, or deadlift, but if my garage ceiling were higher, I would probably do standing push-presses with slightly heavier weights instead of strict seated presses. For the 1-DB Rows, I like to do more weight than I can lift with strict form, and allow my torso to rotate a bit to establish initial momentum. I also like overloading cable rows sometimes.

I like that typology:
self-confusion,
broscience,
purported "real" science, and
self-promoting personal trainers

What if someone said there's really only six or so movements that you really have to concern yourself with, and then just experiment with varying intensity, density, volume, and frequency?

Just like running. There's really only three paces, everything else is details only the competitors need concern themselves with, it seems to me.
 
yikes, mr. lee! (or is it "Herr Professor Doktor"?) your note on saturday's workout sounded un-fun. maybe you need to "let's start at the beginning, a very good place to start" and do everything with an empty bar, adding 5 pounds each workout to overhead and bench press and 10 pounds to deadlift and squats. :) actually, that is a semi-serious suggestion. you're currently at what, roughly a 250lb working set load? so, if you start with a 45lbs bar, you need to get up by 205lbs to get back to where you were before ripping your backside. 205lbs / 10lbs/workout = 20.5 workouts. at 3 a week, you're talking about 7 weeks? yeah, it puts you a little behind schedule, but these injuries are really dragging you down. maybe going back to way low and inexorably adding on the load would let the big hurt stuff heal while getting all the little helpers in shape. super-light loads may allow you do to 4 workouts a week in the early stages which would get you back in business with enough time to move past your current level before the end of the cycle. and remember the cliche, "if mama ain't happy, nobody ain't happy!", so keep mama happy and don't get hurt....
 
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yikes, mr. lee! (or is it "Herr Professor Doktor"?) your note on saturday's workout sounded un-fun. maybe you need to "let's start at the beginning, a very good place to start" and do everything with an empty bar, adding 5 pounds each workout to overhead and bench press and 10 pounds to deadlift and squats. :) actually, that is a semi-serious suggestion. you're currently at what, roughly a 250lb working set load? so, if you start with a 45lbs bar, you need to get up by 205lbs to get back to where you were before ripping your backside. 205lbs / 10lbs/workout = 20.5 workouts. at 3 a week, you're talking about 7 weeks? yeah, it puts you a little behind schedule, but these injuries are really dragging you down. maybe going back to way low and inexorably adding on the load would let the big hurt stuff heal while getting all the little helpers in shape. super-light loads may allow you do to 4 workouts a week in the early stages which would get you back in business with enough time to move past your current level before the end of the cycle. and remember the cliche, "if mama ain't happy, nobody ain't happy!", so keep mama happy and don't get hurt....
Thanks for the sympathies BA.

Yah, I need to rehab more slowly, but how slow is slow enough? And how do you know you're going too fast until it's too late? I did get a sign on the fourth rep, and in previous workouts I'd been pretty good about laying off at the first sign of a sign, while doing squats, but Saturday morning, for whatever reason, I didn't listen. Once I got to 215, on Monday, a point at which I'm beginning to feel decent resistance, I should've just added 10 pounds per week I think. I don't think I need to be as radical in dropping weight as you suggest, but I definitely need to go more slowly, I agree. I thought I had adopted a more longterm view with our 2015 reset, but I blew it. This thing is more serious than I thought. I had actually given myself the whole cycle to get back up to 290 as my 5RM on intensity day, but like I said, 270 just didn't feel that heavy. I wasn't straining or anything, and the first 3 or 4 reps felt fine, workaday, not easy but not hard either.

The good news is that it's still muscle tissue, not ligaments, tendons or bone, so I'm hopeful I can be close to back to normal fairly soon. I think what is happening is that something isn't quite right, and the muscle is contracting and not releasing either because it's not warmed up enough, or it's protecting some other area, maybe a slight tear, by immobilizing itself.

I am convinced that walking/running really helps. Stretching and massaging help too. I brought my straddle traction contraption copy home and used it. It really helped with the pain, but it came back soon afterwards once I stood up. I think I need a few days of just resting the muscle before I begin a more active rehab.

What I can't understand is that last summer I went from around the deadlift weight that did me in on Saturday, 275, which used to be my old max I think, to almost 100 pounds heavier over several months, to 365, without any trouble at all. This has given me a certain false confidence or bravado I guess. I know that I'm strong enough to do 340/350 singles, but something's wrong in my preparation.

So I think the solution is to de-emphasize the deadlift for several months and bring the squat up first, since the latter demands a fuller range of motion from the same muscles and so should be the limiting factor. Maybe I should link the deadlift weight to the squat weight, at a 5:4 ratio, to make sure I don't get ahead of myself with the deadlifts. Hmnn . . . yeah, I think that's a pretty good solution actually. I could even go 1:1 at first, that is, don't deadlift anything I can't squat comfortably, since I tend to feel that area in the squat first.

In any case, I'll keep all the upper body stuff the same and maybe emphasize it for a while while I'm waiting for the pulled muscle to rehab. Go OH Press! Go Pullups! Meanwhile, I'll also get more serious about the running, as soon as I can run again. Right now I can't walk for more than a minute before the pain becomes too much. It feels like someone is stabbing me with a knife, and the pain can shoot down my upper leg into my lower leg and takes my breath away a bit. But it quickly dissipates into a small, dull ache once I'm sitting again. Affected area in yellow smudge:

Glute pull.jpg

Funny how none of this was a concern up until about 5-10 years ago. Aging sucks, but I think with a little more care and attention, I'll figure this out and be able to get back to it fairly quickly. It took me a while to figure out how to maintain myself for running too.
 
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That sucks Lee, what a pain in the ass.
A lot of people only recommend deadlifting once every two weeks? Not sure if this is why. I remember back in the fall I felt a pull in that same area. It didn't seem to take too long to heal, but it definitely affected my deadlift. Hopefully yours heals fast.
Maybe you could try the sumo style for a while? Or the modified sumo style?
I like your wife's comment...
 
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That sucks Lee, what a pain in the ass.
A lot of people only recommend deadlifting once every two weeks? Not sure if this is why. I remember back in the fall I felt a pull in that same area. It didn't seem to take too long to heal, but it definitely affected my deadlift. Hopefully yours heals fast.
Maybe you could try the sumo style for a while? Or the modified sumo style?
I like your wife's comment...
Yah, a real pain in the ass if there ever was one.

I first got this while helping my brother move 15 years or so ago, from Denver to Chicago. One day packing up, one day driving cross-country for 12-14 hours, then one day unloading. It was on the third day that it hurt as bad as it does now. Apparently, everything stiffened up on the second day while sitting in the truck. At first I tried complete rest, but this didn't help. Then a doc told me nothing was structurally wrong, so try stretching and walking. Within a few days it cleared up. I wasn't lifting at the time.

This experience leads me to conclude that it's a matter of being too tight before I deadlift. The fact that my running has been sporadic during this same time period of experiencing strains and pulls while deadlifting supports that thesis. It's funny, Saturday I told myself I really should start with some light cable rows to warm-up, but I was worried my kids would wake up at any time (it was already past 9am) and cut the workout short, so I dove straight into the deadlifts, with just a few warm-up reps at 125 and 215. Before that I had been sitting at my desk for 2-3 hours. On the first 3.5 reps I felt great and niggleless.

So a bunch of potential contributing factors:
1. too much sitting
2. not enough running
3. not enough warming up (and needing to put deadlifts last in the workout order again)
4. not enough stretching/massaging
5. cold garage
6. building loads back up too quickly
7. possible imbalance in technique, lifting more on right side than left
8. gettin' old
9. maybe even dehydration? I haven't been drinking as much water as I normally do lately, I dunno why.

I'm also hopeful it will heal fast. This is worse than it was a few weeks ago, after the initial pull.

I've never tried Sumo DLs, is there a specific reason why they might help? Or is it just a matter of trying a little variety on the chance that it might make a difference?

I think doing deadlifts less frequently might also be an option, like just on intensity day. I could do lighter power cleans on Volume day, and then sub Back Extensions, Russian Twists, and Loaded Carries on Wednesday's Density/Assistance day.

I've become convinced that squats are more primary anyway, as many argue. And I'm liking the idea of making them a kind of limiter on how much I can deadlift, like at the 4:5 ratio, especially during the rehab process. If I can do 100 squat, then 125 deadlift. If I can do 200 squat, then 250 deadlift. On Wednesday, I tried 150 squat, but went back to 125 on the second set after a felt a slight hint of a niggle in the problem area. So if I had used the 4:5 ratio on Saturday, I would've capped the deadlifts at around 150-175 instead of attempting 270. If I put the squats first, and deadlifts last, I'll always have a good indicator of how much I should be deadlifting on any particular day, and I'll be plenty warmed up.

After my pull a few weeks ago, the squats seemed most affected, even though it happened while deadlifting. I think the greater range of motion and stretch in that area probably aggravates it more. On Saturday, I tried three squat reps at 85 after retearing/straining the muscle on the deadlifts, and those seemed OK. So once the pain subsides, I may start at 85 for both the squat and the deadlift, then add 10-20 pounds per week. As BA says, it doesn't take that long to build back up even if you just add a little each time or week. I would be caught up sometime in the second cycle. I would much rather do light squats and deadlifts than no squats and deadlifts at all. A workout just doesn't feel complete these days without the lower body stuff. And anyway, the only real goal is 400 by the end of the year.

My wife showed me a bunch of free weight fails on her ipad. I told her I wasn't doing anything like that, and then showed her my safety bolts for the bench press and squats. That helped assuage her a bit. But she's right, I feel downright stupid getting hurt while working out. I spent the whole weekend mad at myself for letting this happen again.
 
I've never tried Sumo DLs, is there a specific reason why they might help? Or is it just a matter of trying a little variety on the chance that it might make a difference?

Well I think they are the least glute specific of the three varieties, respectively in order for glute work, trap bar deadlifts - regular deadlifts - straight legged deadlifts - sumo deadlifts
I could be wrong but that has been my experience, the deeper initial leg dip cause greater glute activation, where as the SL and Sumo style rely more heavily on your back and hamstrings.

Other things you could do is to work high reps of unweighted or light weight hip thrusts and the bird dog for active recovery and a warm up. I would also look into stretching the area with the pigeon pose or just sit cross legged and reach forward as far as you can.

I'm not sure though if its a torn muscle if you are supposed to rest it, but I'm not a big fan of that approach.
 
OK, thanks for the suggestion.

Yeah, with my straddle traction contraption, I've been sitting spread-eagle and leaning forwards and sideways, seems to help, but then whenever I get up I have about a minute standing or walking before the sharp pain returns.

Just scheduled an appointment with an attractive Chiropractor for 8am. Hope she can help. I woke up this morning from the pain. I'm just waiting now for when the pain diminishes enough to start walking. I'm pretty sure walking is going to be the best active recovery.
 
Well, saw a chiropractor, and she said my sacroiliac joint is a little out of whack, so she whacked it back. I don't feel any relief from the pain however. I'm icing it now, and will see her again on Friday. She agreed with me that not running, which primes the postural muscles, and not warming up properly, are probably the main culprits, but she also suggested I may have weak glutes, which seems strange since I can squat pretty well. She suggested trying single leg deadlifts or squats to see if there's an imbalance. I suspect, however, that this will only reveal that my right side is more coordinated than my left side, but I'll give it a try when I'm able. I might also work the "tipping bird" exercise back in as an assistance lift. I guess running hills more often, or doing more sprints and ladder drills, might also help.

So since it's minor damage to, or inflammation of, the ligaments that hold the sacroiliac joint together, and not a muscle 'pull,' I'll probably have to work the squats and deadlifts back up more slowly than I was planning. Which is a good excuse to focus on the running more again, something I should do anyway. I'll also work a little harder on the pullups and OH Press too until I can do heavy squats and deadlifts again.

In any case, it's nice to have a professional diagnosis to work off of, instead of my layman guesswork. And the description of sacroiliitis on this web page matches my symptoms pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacroiliac_joint).
 
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Yeah if it's ligament related take your time. It's odd how things break differently in all of us.

Still trying to get my groove down, life at home hasn't allowed my normal biking routine yet. Hopefully tomorrow I can get my run commute in and then bike the rest of the week.

I need to start racking up some more miles running and biking. Still waiting to hear about the lottery for the 100 I signed up for. Not sure what to do if I don't get in? Find another one?
 
Slept pretty well last night, so I guess the Chiro helped. And this morning it seems like I can stay on my feet twice as long before it starts to hurt, so hopefully I'm on the mend. I'm really anxious to get walking again, and then slowly convert the walking steps into running steps. Probably won't squat or deadlift for 2-4 weeks at least, and then I'll keep it light for another month or two, using the 1:1 or 4:5 ratio, in order to use the squats as a limiter on how much I may deadlift. When I was rehabbing the last few weeks, I could always feel a niggle in the area at much lighter weight on the squats than the deadlift. Last Wednesday I felt a faint hint at something wrong at 150 on the squats, and so reduced to 125, even though I didn't feel anything wrong at 240 on the deadlift. If I would've kept the deadlift in the 150-175 range, I probably would've been fine.

Still can't understand why anyone would want to run 100 miles at a slow pace, but I can understand wanting to challenge oneself. Good luck on winning the lottery.

I'll try to get in an upper body workout this aft.
 
dammit Lee, stop trying to talk sense... I don't know I have always felt the way you do too until more recently. Waldeinsamkeit? That's probably it for me I think. It seems if I don't make a race of it I don't force myself to enjoy it to the extent I would in the race. You know the whole living in the moment concept, on a regular day other than a few short jaunts with exercise and family time its difficult to let things go and not think about what's coming next. Having the race gives me a sort of vacation to just be out in the woods for a specified amount of time with no real agenda other than moving forward? Cheesy I guess.

So have you thought about the squats possibly being a cause? I think that is a good plan, take 2 weeks off for sure and then do a two week rebuild like some higher reps of the DL at 135lbs? Also be careful for the bench if you are using your leg drive its a very glute driven lift. Put your feet up on the bench or something?
 
dammit Lee, stop trying to talk sense... I don't know I have always felt the way you do too until more recently. Waldeinsamkeit? That's probably it for me I think. It seems if I don't make a race of it I don't force myself to enjoy it to the extent I would in the race. You know the whole living in the moment concept, on a regular day other than a few short jaunts with exercise and family time its difficult to let things go and not think about what's coming next. Having the race gives me a sort of vacation to just be out in the woods for a specified amount of time with no real agenda other than moving forward? Cheesy I guess.

So have you thought about the squats possibly being a cause? I think that is a good plan, take 2 weeks off for sure and then do a two week rebuild like some higher reps of the DL at 135lbs? Also be careful for the bench if you are using your leg drive its a very glute driven lift. Put your feet up on the bench or something?
Ha, sorry to be a buzz-kill. I can definitely relate to your Waldeinsamkeit, and it's something I miss in my current, center-of-a-metropolis, lifestyle. I'm a nature-boy at heart, but with the little ones, picnics at parks is about the best I can do at the moment, although my wife says she wants to try a weekend camping trip in a tent this summer, so that's great. Hopefully I can convert her to a more outdoorsy, active lifestyle.

The problem with ultras, for me, is that I just don't enjoy running in a fatigued state. I think my favorite run is a 3-to-6-mile tempo run in the 8-8:30mm pace range. I was starting to do that two summers ago, then I got caught up in pushing the distance a bit fall of 2013. I got up to 16 miles, and it feels great to get that feel for urban geography, to look at a map and see how much ground you covered, but the last four miles weren't much fun. It's definitely more satisfying than biking the same distance. For cycling, I got to be out in the countryside.

I think the cause was not being warmed up enough, both in the sense of the immediate workout in a cold garage, doing the deadlifts first with just a few warm-up reps, and more generally by not moving enough outside of the workouts. I mean, last summer I deadlifted 355-365, and squated 275, without any complaint from my joints. I think the supporting postural muscles were cold or stiff, and so the sacroiliac joint got out of whack. They say strength training helps prevent running injuries, but I think the converse is true too. And in my case, I simply don't stretch and massage as much when I'm not running, so that's a contributing factor as well.

The reason I feel it more on squats than deadlifts, at an equivalent weight, is the greater ROM and/or stress on that area, I think. But it was definitely the deadlifts that caused the injury. I felt it right away.

So I don't have any longterm concerns, I just have to make sure I give the rehab and reloading a little more time this time around, and, most importantly, get consistent with the running. The reason it's so painful is because it's putting pressure on the huge sacral/sciatic nerve running down into the leg, but the damage is minimal.
 
Its definitely different in the winter lifting, you have much colder extremes to deal with. I should follow suit and take a bit longer to warmup. Maybe add a 10 minute jog or something? I'm really trying to get consistent again on all aspects of exercise, my worst nightmare came true on the training front from vacation.

Anyway speaking of warming up I think I have my training plan down, the only part I am still on the fence about is the increases? I really need to drop some weight, 20-30lbs worth, hopefully by August so I think that needs to be a focus. But I do want to work some small general increases on my lifts. So the rep ranges and weights will be:
1 set warmup light weight
Deadlift
1 x 5 x 100kg
1 set of a medium heavy weight around 75%
1 x 5 x 120kg
1 set of a heavier weight 85-95%
1 x 5 x 140kg

The loads are based off the 87 of my 1RM still so the 95% lift is 95% of my calculated 5RM.
This will be the same for all lifts except squats which I am going to keep doing the 5 x 2 straight weight scheme and build linearly each week.
The goal will be to hit the high end goal for that lift at least twice and have a mini back off day if needed.

So when do I increase weight? 2% per week? 5% per month or 10% per cycle?

Hey no problem about the comment, I don't mind differing views at all and mostly agree with you. Mine views have changed back and forth over the years about running and this may be the first time I have considered a longer race. By the way I will find out later this afternoon if I get in. If I don't I probably wont be that disappointed though...

So 100 miler and 1000 total by the end of the year?
 
Its definitely different in the winter lifting, you have much colder extremes to deal with. I should follow suit and take a bit longer to warmup. Maybe add a 10 minute jog or something? I'm really trying to get consistent again on all aspects of exercise, my worst nightmare came true on the training front from vacation.

Anyway speaking of warming up I think I have my training plan down, the only part I am still on the fence about is the increases? I really need to drop some weight, 20-30lbs worth, hopefully by August so I think that needs to be a focus. But I do want to work some small general increases on my lifts. So the rep ranges and weights will be:
1 set warmup light weight
Deadlift
1 x 5 x 100kg
1 set of a medium heavy weight around 75%
1 x 5 x 120kg
1 set of a heavier weight 85-95%
1 x 5 x 140kg

The loads are based off the 87 of my 1RM still so the 95% lift is 95% of my calculated 5RM.
This will be the same for all lifts except squats which I am going to keep doing the 5 x 2 straight weight scheme and build linearly each week.
The goal will be to hit the high end goal for that lift at least twice and have a mini back off day if needed.

So when do I increase weight? 2% per week? 5% per month or 10% per cycle?

Hey no problem about the comment, I don't mind differing views at all and mostly agree with you. Mine views have changed back and forth over the years about running and this may be the first time I have considered a longer race. By the way I will find out later this afternoon if I get in. If I don't I probably wont be that disappointed though...

So 100 miler and 1000 total by the end of the year?
That's the real question: how much to increase without getting yourself in trouble? This injury kind of has me spooked. I mean, dealing with a little knee strain is one thing, but potentially screwing up your back is on a whole 'nother level. The Chiro agreed with me that it's a pretty minor injury, but the pain is pretty bad at times, so it's put the fear of god in me. I might end up sticking to a sub-300-pound range permanently. I know the initial injury was a lack of warm-up and/or stiffness from putzing around prior to lifting, and the weight was just medium effort, but now how will I know when it's safe to go heavy again? I guess I'll adopt the idea of letting squats be the limiter as I rehab, and then once I get up above 200, I'll see how it goes.

In the past, I simply lifted up to a certain max weight, and then pyramided down, and then increased weight when it began to feel easier. No set reps or sets. But the only heavy lift I did was the bench press. I don't know if that would work for deadlifts and squats. There's much greater risk involved it seems to me, so we need some kind of protocol to protect ourselves from our enthusiasm.

Anyhow, my plan for this year was very conservative. I was just going to add ten pounds per cycle to the deadlift and squat, and five pounds to everything else. I may still end up doing something like that once I've fully recovered, but for now, the goal is to start walking as soon as possible, and then start running. Maybe I shouldn't do any deadlifts until my running is sub-9mm pace again, and my squats have felt good for a while?

I was just giving you crap about the ultras. I'm not one of those who thinks everyone needs to do things my way. If ultras are your thing, or it's something you want to try at least once, I totally respect that urge. Maybe I satisfied that urge with my bicycle travels and high-altitude hiking, I don't know, but I do know that I don't enjoy running fatigued at this point. I could always change my mind of course.

Were those percentages for within a workout or for each of three weekly workouts? The ratios look similar to a Texas Method load variation.
 
Oh sorry all within a workout, idk maybe I'll shoot for 95% mon / 90% wed / 85% Fri? Let me look at the numbers and I will edit this with a visual.

I'm gonna pull the exrx numbers again for the lifts to look at too, I would assume at a intermediate to advanced stage linear progression will not happen so is adding generically 5 or 10lbs reasonable? I guess maybe building a couple of progressions might be best, because we should likely be lifting to feel for the day or week. I am just trying to get the thinking out of the gym, have a plan, get in and out, and stay healthy.

Ahh yeah that bike trip probably was enough slow endurance for a couple of lifetimes.
Fill me in on the high altitude stuff? See something like that would not be my cup of tea. However this is something I am adding to my bucket list http://www.adventurecycling.org/rou...ute-network/great-divide-mountain-bike-route/
 
concerning injury prevention, i think that if you implement your character-building patience plan, you will maximize your chances of being fine. i am pretty paranoid about getting hurt myself. it has something to do with my workout area having hardwood floors (but has the advantage of being heated) and not having someone to rescue me from under a twisted pile of iron and bones. so i have been trying to go slow. and since no-one is paying us based on our sporting prowess and, lord willing, there are a few more years left before the grave, i think you can afford to take your time. perhaps, you need to make sure that your "household fitness safety co-chairwoman" continues to dispense a small but meaningful amount of opprobrium to keep the process well regulated. as to a quantitative recommendation, i know nothing, but i'd say use the tiniest bumps you can, which is usually about 5 or 10 pounds. if it is going well, you can always bump it up again in the next session.

concerning ultras, abide, go for it! :) i have designs on attempting a hundred this year, but i don't know if the logistics of temporal and monetary budgeting will work out or not. still, i can try to be supportive in whatever manner you think would be helpful. you'll have to tell me how since i can't read minds... and lee, i realize that ultras involve fatigued running at some point, but the idea is to go slow enough at first that the real fatigue doesn't set in until way late. :) oh wait, i guess i'll never win that way. but, at least i'll have fun and avoid most of the misery.
 

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