I was unequivocally enjoying Juneathon until my injury hit last week and since then I’ve been quietly fuming, doing my sit-ups (100 this morning) until I could get back into the rhythm of it. Cycling (standard 11k there and back today) has resumed, and am going to try a run again tomorrow, but the novelty of daily posts has started to wear thin.
My daily exercise isn’t particularly interesting at the moment – just routine – but that may change once I set my mind, feet and knees to breaking personal bests and ramping up the training for the New Forest half marathon.
That said, my blogging schedule is going to diminish post-Juneathon, you may be relieved to hear -Â down from 7 to 3-4 max posts per week – and will actually be about stuff, like, y’know, barefoot running, running buggies, juggling running training, a commute and a baby (not literally), and the ongoing quest to cut my BMI down to size. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep it interesting and will think up as captivating headlines as possible on my early morning runs, I promise.
180 sit-ups. Knee feeling back to where it was, slightly excessive tendon popping notwithstanding, so assuming the hayfever isn’t too awful I might venture a light run tomorrow morning. Will be going GPS free for a few days, so no Runkeeper data, but will keep logging my stats on there.
Also doing a Google Doc with stats including non-RunKeeper tracked data so will have final stats for the month come the 30th. Stag do next weekend I’ll need to make it through, too, so might be a bit of a painful run for the finish, but bring it on…
Topped off day 17 of Juneathon with another 80 sit-ups/crunches, and kicked off day 18 with 90. I’m not sure the Juneathonjudges will be that impressed.
Knee still tentative so no running or cycling. Stir-crazy-ness is killing me – I want to run! – but Sensei Paul says it is sensible to rest and recover, so I will remain calm. Hoping that runs can resume next week. May need to limit myself to a max of 20 miles per week rather than the 30 I did before this injury kicked in – doc seemed to think it was a bit much to go from running 0 miles per week to 30 miles per week in 3 months, but hey – I was really enjoying it! Damnit.
Speaking of which, visit Sensei Paul’s mini-guest post in this comment, in which he reports on his 5k attempt (did he make it in sub-17 minutes?) and talks about his latest garden produce – garlic scape!
I finished off day 16 of Juneathon with another 60 crunches and a few push-ups not even worth counting. A pretty depressing day on the exercise front, and the knee not feeling substantially better – and no material change this morning, so didn’t even attempt cycling. This morning’s effort was another 60 crunches which I’ll top up with some more this evening; see if I can do a thousand or so crunches in the next five days of enforced no running – adding deep stretching and push-ups as the week progresses.
But as to the subject line; people who’ve known me for a while (say, more than 18 months) will know that I was a little tubby up to Apr 09 or thereabouts. In the run-up to the wedding I lost about 19kg, dropping my BMI from 29 (on the verge of obese) to 25 (on the threshold of normal), which I was pretty pleased about. When I saw the Doc yesterday about my knee, whilst he did congratulate me on “turning my life around”, he did make clear that as a man of South Asian origin my propensity for type 2 diabetes (the type caused by having too much fat in your system) is much higher and I should be aiming for a BMI of 23. This is going to mean another 5-7kg (the best part of a stone!) needs to be lost. Whilst this was the long term plan anyway, it was a bit frustrating – I thought I’d met the ‘healthy’ goalpost and was just aiming for ‘fit’ whereas it now feels like I’m still in the fat camp fighting my way out.
But I will do it, damnit. I’ll kick the crap out of my genes by any means I have available, even if it means I become a calorie counting nark once again. Bring it on.
1 week’s rest prescribed for my knee; fortunately ligaments OK and no swelling. Bags of frozen peas, ibuprofen may also help. Diagnosis: overuse. Cycling may be OK as long as it doesn’t hurt when I cycle and I don’t cycle in too low a gear (i.e. need to cycle with low resistance – I never know if that’s “high” or “low” gear).
In a bit of a funk about it. Don’t think my Juneathon efforts will be that interesting for the next 7 days, will mostly involve crunches.
Getting the willpower up to run today was HARD. Yesterday’s 10 miler was the longest run I’d done in about 3 weeks and, given the high mileage last week, I had pretty sore knees. Having iced them (HAH to commercially sold ice-gel-packs, hoorah to a bag of frozen peas) last night and again this morning, however, and topping it off with the anti-inflammatory ibuprofen (treating the swelling and therefore the pain, not just dulling the pain – I hope!), the worst of it was done and I forced myself out for another 30-minute 5k – which was a speedy way to start the week (my personal best for this route/distance is 29.06).
I still don’t know whether I’m doing myself real damage – it feels like the knees are strengthening and I’m still between zero and one on any meaningful pain threshold…
That said, I am really enjoying Juneathon, but beginning to get pretty tired. Hoping that I sleep a bit better next week and the pre-work runs don’t hurt quite so much…
Well, it wasn’t that long (10 miles), but long for someone training for a half-marathon I guess, and it wasn’t that slow by my standards – must have crossed the 10 mile mark around 1h44, which for me is pretty good – although still a way to go before I make my sub-2-hour-marathon-goal (would need to be hitting 1h30ish for the 10 milers – yikes!). Still, the first long run since my return from India (for me long = more than 10k) and it feels good to have it under the belt. Was patient with the stretching so hopefully won’t be too stiff and be able to manage a mid-length run tomorow too.
It does mean that my second week of Juneathon has seen me do another weekathon – and then some – topping out at 32.9 miles run this week (plus 20.2 miles cycled). Will be hard to sustain this pace, but am well on track to top out my 85 miles run in May…
Run log here, for the curious. Didn’t quite manage negative splits, but my best miles were 8 and 9, so am on the right sort of track, maybe, in terms of pacing myself. Just need to go faster the whole way through…
I’ve started thinking differently in terms of timing my runs – basically estimating run time+10% for stretching. So where I allocate 30-ish minutes for a 5k, I now allow about 33-35 (allotting for variances in my pace etc) to give me a minimum of three minutes to get through my stretching routine. I give myself about 5-6 minutes on a 10k, and probably not long enough on the longer runs…
…but its already made a huge difference. The tightness in my shins is not a problem at all any more (although I’m still a bit worried about sore knees) and stiffness post-run is rarely a problem. I’m feeling much more flexible in general… and, even amidst all the other Juneathon madness, I’ve run two pre-work 10ks this week (the second this morning as my Juneathon day 11 activity, another 60 minute 10k! w00t!) and am barely hobbling about at all.
I’m raring to go for longer runs tomorrow and/or Sunday, so will see if the “10%” rule applies – although I’m not sure I’ll have the patience to stretch for 12 minutes after a 2 hour run!
How do you plan your stretching?
Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.
