Post # 250 Hooray! - Positive and Negative in one race

Month - 5 k
YTD - 105 k

Well it's been a week and I mentioned that last Monday was a rest day and to an extent it was. That was until I decided to do a 5km run around the neighbourhood. Just a run of a mill session completed in about 23 mins.

Tuesday afternoon I conducted a training session for my wife, Mother-in-Law and their friend. I planned a session where they used 3 pieces of equipment. The equipment was the treadmill, rowing machine and elliptical trainer. The session comprised of 4 mins on each machine as fast as they can and then a short rest before tackling 3 mins and so forth until they completed the 4th set of 1 min per machine. 30 mins in total which seemed to exhaust them quite a bit.

Wednesday we conducted a very sedate PT session comprised of very slow running push-ups sit-ups and a couple of runs up a steep hill. In all honesty it was a pathetic session with little thought. Slightly ashamed that this is what we have come to at work.

Thursday and Friday saw the First cyclone of the year in Townsville. Plenty of rain and wind initially then it died down to nothing as it moved further south. A non event for us but this hampered my training due to the initial weather and then subsequent house preparations that come with living in NQ.

Saturday was the 3rd Parkrun for me this year and after last weeks disappointing run of 21.11 I felt a little more refreshed. I took off and as soon as I left I found myself in the lead. That's where I stayed however it wasn't all smooth sailing. I felt good and fast for the first 3k but yet again the wheels fell off. I have found I cannot pace myself properly and that I have lost what I believed to be one of my strengths and that is consistent running. Anyway I hope given my extended break of not competing that this will return with some further events.

I managed a course PB of 20.22 which meant I lowered my age group record aswell. Disappointed because I was well below 20 min pace and then I let it slip away. This proves that I need more km in the legs and to build a base up. It also shows that my speed is still good and I just need to be able to sustain it. Anyway if running was easy then what's the point in committing to it hey.

My splits were 3.39, 3.49, 4.12, 4.36, 4.07......horrible!

Drained

I continued to do some solid exercise sessions at work since my last post. I completed a Hill interval session followed by a push and heave (chin up) circuit on Friday. Saturday was my second Park Run and I must say that the week had taken a lot of my energy out of my legs. I started well with the first 2 km run in 7.40, 3 km in 11.50 but after that the combination of the humidity / heat and fatigue took it's toll. I felt really drained and just plugged away pretty slowly crossing the line in 21.11 for 5 km. I don't think I have ran that slow in a race type situation for at least a decade so a little disappointing I still managed to come second overall and again 1st in my age group.

This morning I planned to attack Castle Hill goat track. I have ran this numerous times but have always had a little walk to catch my breathe or stop the legs from burning so much up the last 100+ stairs at the end. This time I got the pace right and managed to conquer this without stopping to walk and finished the climb in 10.40.

I will be having a day off tomorrow just to recover a little. Not from the running but the body weight exercises do fatigue you quite a bit.

Anyway that's all for now. Happy Australia Day!

Cass, Sammy and I at the top of Castle Hill

Surrounded by Motivation

Well I have started back at work this and have found that many people had let their fitness slide over the Xmas period and are now trying to get it back. This means that there is quite a bit of motivation around which makes it easy to think about my own training.

I completed an adhoc interval session yesterday afternoon of 4 x 800m with a 400m walking recovery between each of them. Felt really good for the first one and completed that in 2.42. Beyond this however they became a struggle although my times didn't reflect it they were all pretty tough I must say. The remaining ones were finished in 2.39, 2.45, and 2.48.

This morning I arranged for my workplace to run a 6km run. What we term LSD (Long Slow Distance) Although 6km is not long it was extremely humid this morning and I must say after the intervals 12 hrs prior I did feel quite fatigued. The pace was not fast and was completed in 28.50 or thereabouts.

Tomorrow I have a Tabata session planned, just a body weight circuit to get the legs fresh again for another hit out later in the week.

2014 - A change is hopefully in the wind

Lets try this again, over the past 8 years his blog has been on a steady decline of approximately half the amount of posts from the previous year. Given that I only posted once last year I would find it difficult to write half a post for 2014. Therefore I aim to get this up and running again so to speak. If I can manage a post a week then that would be a good result.

This month my wife, her mother and a friend have vowed to undertake a fitness activity every day and so far this has occurred. I have been conducting fitness sessions for them everyday in an attempt to get a regular routine instilled in their daily activities.

They have been doing very well with a combination of circuits, walking, interval training and obstacles courses. My wife entered her first ever event after never really running at all and achieved a sub 44 min 5 km time. After 18 days of continuous training this is an outstanding result.

Anyway in regards to my training I have completed quite a few regular training sessions in addition to what I have been running for my wife and counterparts. More recently I have done two 10 k runs and a couple of shorter jaunts around the local area. Today I also entered my first Parkrun at Riverway Townsville and achieved a 2nd place on time and scored an age group record. I ran pretty comfortably aswell so the 20.35 I recorded was quite a bit slower than what I am capable of at the moment. I will try and slowly bring this down over the next few months. Pending work I hope to keep this intensity up throughout the year and enter my first paid running event since Melbourne Marathon in 2010.

A new beginning

MTH - 13 k
YTD - 13 k

Well it has been quite sometime since I last posted. I have had many things going on with my life over the past 12 - 24 mths that has taken priority over most aspects of my training. Many of which were and are out of my control but I feel it is now time to begin what was once my addiction.

Without going into all reasons for my prolonged absence I did sustain my first tibia stress fracture in February 2012 and it wasn't until September 2012 that I began to train again. Although it didn't take that long to heal the 7 mths that I dealt with this was due to my complacency about treatment / rest and it was until May that I was properly diagnosed with the injury.

Over the past 4 mths I have taken training very steady. To that end I am in a sad state of affairs, my fitness is abysmal, I am struggling to run beyond 5 km and I can't even imagine running this anywhere near or under 20 mins. The funny thing is and I might add my wife and family are finding this equally amusing is that I have even put on weight. My weight hadn't changed for 10 years and although it's not much I have gained over 5 kg.

Anyway I am not sure if I will ever have the dedication or passion that I used to have but I have decided to dedicate more time in getting the legs ticking over once again. If I can achieve 30 to 50 k per week over the next few months then I can begin to assess if there are any races that I would like to tackle.

Anyway I hope to continue blogging to assist in motivating me and hopefully in 6 - 8 mths time I can even write about a race I have entered.

Baby Steps......Happy Training!!