Training Update

Test Event recap and final ramp preview.

Those of you who joined me last week are aware that my plans for last Saturday were to conduct a Test Event in training to assess both my game day timetable and my specific fitness. For those who are new here I ought to provide a little context. My big goal is a 300kg deadlift and Sub 3 hour marathon on the same day. Towards that end my more immediate target is a TBD deadlift (270-290kg) followed by a Sub 90 minutes half marathon.

Full Dress Rehearsal

Beyond the inherent non-complementary nature of these dual ambitions, the other challenge of note is that all of the half and full marathons that make the most sense (ie. are local) have a start time somewhere between 6am and 6:15am. Thus, with consideration for sufficient time to wake-up, commute, warm-up, deadlift, commute, and warm-up before running, I need to wake up at 3am and deadlift at 4:30/4:45am. None of these, not even the 6:15 start time, come naturally to me. Additionally, deadlifting a near-max single 90 minutes before a longer-distance flat-out run doesn’t make a lot of sense unless it’s the actual goal.

All of which is to say that not only does the training process for this goal require being able to deadlift and run well, it also requires that the performances occur on a certain timeline, which is mostly pre-dawn. Because I don’t believe in guess work and aim to eliminate any reliance on hope, I am tactically hunting this goal with targeted preparation in my training and in specific Test Events.

Last Saturday was one of these Test Events. A moderately heavy deadlift followed by a 15km run with a rehearsal of likely timeline for race day (half mara) in 5.5 weeks. The granular function of certain aspects was as follows.