Tag Archives: training

Running

First run in a while – aka the anti-Juneathon

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I finally made it back out last week, after slightly more than a month spent avoiding running at all due to a combination of laziness, lack of motivation and busy-ness. Last year I ran practically every day for the first two weeks of June, so quite a difference this time around…

It was quite hard work,and although my timings weren’t woeful (31.30 and 32.30 for two successive 5ks), they weren’t great, either.

It’s amazing how quickly at my age the fitness deteriorates. A few months ago a 5k run was an effortless thing, and now I’m stiff the next day.

Ah well, more practice and more stretching and a bit more focus. Much as I hate to contemplate it, at current rates of training and improvement, the Basingstoke half is not looking like a good idea. But there’s a couple of months of summer left – I will do what I can!

Running

10k time – improvements in a week

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OK, so instead of running my third 10k of the week yesterday I assembled my study from Ikea flatpack crates and went to the playground with my wife and daughter, but still… it was a good week for running training.

The last three 10ks I did (SunWeds/Sat of last week) saw a pretty dramatic improvement – 68 mins, then 64, then 61. I attribute some of it to improved fitness from the regularity of the runs, but most of it I’d say was down to my attempt do make the ITB rolling part of my daily routine. Which means I have five minutes before my shower rolling around on the ground with a large polystyrene roller. And whilst I’m down there, I’m trying to restart the ‘100 push ups’ challenge, which I flatly gave up on a couple of years ago and have since lost all tone from the requisite muscles.

Perhaps the activated core and the stretched ITB will let me achieve my target time of 2hrs for the half marathon when I face it in October? We’ll see…

Running

Running update

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I resolved, at the start of this year, to manage the relatively modest target of 10k per week run – a minimum of two 3 mile runs or so a weekend. Before the sabbatical, I was struggling a bit with that; despite a good january (65k run), February had seen me slow to a miserly 40k. Maybe just on target, but not much more than that.

The sabbatical saw a bit of a refresh; 53.5km in March and 60k in April. Progress, or so it would seem – but I continued eating at sabbatical rates, so my weight hasn’t gone down and that’s contributing to my persisting slowness.

May, to date, has also been a bit better – 30km run so far and its not even midway through the month yet. I’m trying to stick to a routine of two-three 10k runs a week, which is non-trivial as I’m not as limber, fit or light as I was when I was last doing this distance, but the only way to get there is to push along!

So, YTD I’m actually ahead of my target, modestly – 270km odd run. I’m hoping that the newly revised target, as well as the more regimented ITB rolling and stretching routine will see my overall distance rise more significantly. My speed is still poor; the weight affects everything and whilst I’m not ludicrously heavy the extra few kilos feels significant on me at the moment. I haven’t found the will to start the obsessive compulsive diet tracking yet – maybe that should be on my agenda? {sigh}.

Race plans remain thin on the ground. I’ve entered the the Basingstoke half-marathon but I’m still hopeful Ill do a second one at some point this year. Maybe a Northern summer half marathon? We’ll see…

Personal

Baby training academy

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Emily is *so* close to rolling over. Amanda and I have taken to giving her a bit of extra training – more tummy time and some assisted rolls. It’s a matter of days, we think!

One of the many highlights of recent days has been seeing her start to be even more responsive and interactive during activities like this. She smiles during tummy time, gazing around the room to see the smiling relatives looking on adoringly. She even lifts her head up so she can get a good chomp on Sophie the Teething Giraffe (a favourite toy).

The other recent fantastic experience is seeing her react to her buggy – in the UK she wasn’t quite big enough to sit in the buggy chassis for her Silver Cross Surf pram, but the relatively cheap and cheerful Hauck three wheeler we’ve acquired over here (something like this) is better suited to her current size – and she sits in it literally trembling with excitement as she zooms around shopping malls, leaning forward (she’s in a permanent state of crunch) to grab the bar and lift herself up for an even better view. She giggles joyously when we play with her in it.

Huge fun. Being a dad is *awesome*.

Update

New running blog

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Sorry for the dearth of posts. I’ve slightly exhausted the ‘new soup’ supply, and have been busy with a combination of personal projects and work.

One of the personal projects, my running/fitness programme, now has its own blog (with a colleague from work, @jimbocoyle) – you can find over on WordPress.com – it’s the Long Slow Run, a reference to the longer Sunday run people do as part of their running training routine. It’s just kicked off but as my current obssession it will see quite a few posts ahead of my running the New Forest Marathon with Rach, Sensei Paul & others in September. Donate money to the World Cancer Research Fund if you fancy supporting my efforts (Thanks to Jimjamjebobo & the nice people at WCRF for organizing my donations page)…

Technology

iPhone fitness training

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Letting my iPhone dictate a chunk of my life right now.

Twohundredsitups tells me what I’m doing on Tues, Thurs & Sat mornings
hundredpushups tells me what I’m doing Mon, Weds, Fri mornings
Couch25k tells me when to run and walk three days a week
Dailyburn’s new iPhone app tells me how much I can eat

Anything else I should be doing?

Last night an iPhone saved my life…

(Amanda’s not impressed at how much time I spend listening to the iPhone. Ah well, no binary solo just yet…)