Same, I play football 3 times a week and at other times I train for football (stamina drills, plyometrics, speed training which is weight training and actual sprinting).
I’ve completely given up steady state cardio as it wasn’t doing the job, I want to progress my fitness, not just burn calories.
Sleep is of paramount importance. If I am tired and the choice is between catching up on sleep or working out, I will choose sleep. Working out while tired will be of little overall benefit. Without good sleep, the brain craves carbs to function and I also get big hunger pangs
100% I’ve become little obsessed with it to be honest because it makes a huge difference to how I feel. Not being the best “sleeper” doesn’t help but I’m better than I was. Still a bit of work on it but we’re getting there. I’m also trying a little bit of Tulsi (Holy Basil) supplementation at the moment to see if that helps.
Cardio wise I dont think I’m that bad but I wish I could figure out some of my “performance” issues. Being a bit asthmatic doesn’t help but I feel I’ve hit a ceiling which is way below others my age etc. and I do mean way below. The strength, speed and stamina are just not there, even compared to the guys at work. While they’re a pretty active bunch they aren’t exactly athletes etc.
Still, generally happy with everything at the moment.
For context 1:29 for a half is pretty damn good. It’s unlikely to win you a local race but there wont be more than a handful of people who will beat that, and they will be serious athletes putting in a lot of time to run those times. Pretty much everyone who gets that that level will have at least one crisis of asking themselves WTF am I doing this for? The work required to even maintain that is a LOT and you’ll still be pretty good relatively speaking for a good while even if you just stop training it altogether. If you;re not competing, fuck, if you’re not earning money competing (because I know several athletes who compete at the international level who even question the value of going on year after year), its common to hit a point where the effort to keep improving just isnt worth it.
Yes.
Managed a sub 2 hour half marathon when I was about 56.
Was raising money for a cause very close to me, so it was quite an emotional achievement too.
However, I cant motivate myself to run at all, never mind try to better my former achievement.
Got my “standard” running route down to 24min 40 sec this morning. 24hrs after leg day in the gym. Happy with that as I’ve nt been concentrating on running to be honest. Much prefer the bike at the moment.
I think that’s my fastest time for the 4.2 - 4.3km route. I’m not breaking any records soon but it’s going in the right direction.
Paying for it now as the kitchen / coffee in work feels a long long way away.