Test & Record your Health Status (Monthly)
1. Weight
2. Blood Pressure
3. A1c Blood Glucose/ Blood Ketones (Fats) Ratio
4. (Forced) Lung Capacity
1. (Scale) Weight
Usually, over time, you'll drift naturally towards your ideal race weight. Providing you're matching your training with fitting food choices; again, naturally, you'll turn up on race day holding your ideal power to weight ratio.
If you could lose some unnecessary kilos, and your weekly weight suggests otherwise, this should lead to investigate, firstly, your food choices, and or secondly, your metabolic efficiency - e.g. are you burning stored fat or sugar. Fat is, of course, most ideal for long-enduring events.
Finally, sometimes, runners will drift on the wrong side of their ideal weight. Racing underweight can lead to functional injuries, almost always towards upper respiratory illness, and mentally caving at the 80% of the race. Your coach can help you define your ideal weight.
2. Blood Pressure
With the right training dose, usually, blood pressure, at rest, will lower. This is a good sign.
Often if lifestyle (emotional) stress rides unbalanced for an extended period, it will affect athletic performance, and, commonly lead to illness and injury.
Testing BP regularly gives an immediate position of your emotional & physical health balance.
3. A1c Blood Glucose/ Ketone Blood fats ratio
Put simply; endurance runners function best when naturally favouring stored fat as their preferred fuel source. We can test the fuel source you favour; fat or sugar.
Ideally, you want the blood sugar down, or about 4.5-5.5mmol/L and the blood ketones up, well, between 0.3-0.7mmol/L. You don't want ketones too high, but high enough indicating efficient fat burning.
Burning fat efficiently will fuel your race physically & mentally from start to finish. This is good.
4. Lung Capacity
The more you train, and the more you practice nasal breathing (at easier training intensities), the greater your total lung capacity.
Ultimately, the greater your total lung capacity, the easier you’ll perceive ‘increasing’ work. This, again, is a good sign.