Aug 13 2014

Two Timing My Training

I’ve signed up for two training plans on my RunKeeper. One is running for fat loss and the other is training to run a 10km race in under 55 minutes. The first plan started immediately and the second didn’t start until last week and even then I skipped the initial runs as they were the same or easier than the first plan. My thinking was that I could just skip the runs that doubled up for the couple of weeks that the plans overlapped.

If only I had 4 legs, then I could do two runs at once!

But now, I’ve reached the point that I’m in the middle of both plans. There is a lot of intervals or tempo runs that I don’t want to skip but I also want to space them with longer, easier runs too. Finding the time to fit them all in is becoming tricky but I don’t want to stop using one of the plans because then I’d feel a bit like a non-finisher. I’m supposed to take a rest day in between some of the runs but often now, I have two runs scheduled for the same day so I do the second one on the rest day. This isn’t working well for me.

Yesterday I went for an easy 5 km with a few 20 second intervals at the end and it nearly killed me. I think I’ve got shin splints. So despite there being two runs scheduled for today, I’m taking the day off!

Image Credit: cc licensed ( BY-SA 2.0 ) flickr photo shared by Photophilde

Aug 10 2014

Fartlek Fatalities

Last night I was running a fartlek (just typing the word makes me giggle) run. I was running as fast as I could to the end of the block. Coming towards me on the path, were a group of young people, plugged in with their noses in their phones. I realised they weren’t going to see me so I started yelling and clapping my hands as I raced toward them.

They didn’t look up. I yelled louder. I was going to reach them in seconds. It was at this moment I knew I had two choices. I could either slow down and ruin my interval or I could just run straight through them. I chose to complete the interval.

I don’t think anyone got hurt, but to be honest, I didn’t look back to check.

Jul 31 2014

Terrible Timing and a New Toy

Tonight’s run was gruesome. I’m starting interval training and I was excited too because it was my first run with my new toy – a heart rate monitor that syncs perfectly with my Runkeeper. The run consisted of a five minute slow warm-up, followed by ten minutes fast, five minutes slow (walking pace) and then ten minutes fast again.

Yamashita Park – a great place to run and an even greater place to sit!

The first fast interval nearly killed me. I figured that ten minutes would take me around Yamashita Park about one and a half times. My new heart rate monitor was telling me through my headphones that my heart rate was in the 80-90% zone which I looked up when I got home, and this turns out to be spot on for a fast interval.

Needless to say, I couldn’t talk. Then my phone rings. I pick up with a quick squeeze of the control on my headphones and I attempt to say something.

“I’m running. Can’t talk.”

I hung up. The phone rings again.

“Seriously! I’m running. Later!”

The five minutes of walking in between the two fast intervals was glorious. It seemed to last forever and I had a beautiful view of Yokohama to enjoy.

The second interval was worse than the first although at least I didn’t get interrupted by phone calls. I still managed to hold my heart rate up in the 80-90% zone for the whole ten minutes which wasn’t easy for me. And at the end of the interval, I felt a bit nauseous for a few minutes and I was worried I might lose my lunch, especially since I’d spent a lot of time and effort making that homemade pesto from my home grown basil!

My favourite part of tonight’s run though, as always, was sitting on the bench at the park afterwards with my Procari Sweat. Once I had rested enough to be able to talk again, I called mum back.

Image credit: cc licensed (BY NC SA) Flickr photo shared by Vincent Van den Storme

Jul 27 2014

Avoiding The Runs

I doubt my experience tomorrow will be any more dignified than this!

I’m following a training schedule on Runkeeper as I find that if I leave it up to myself, I’ll just do the least amount of effort possible. This usually means a 20 minute run only every second day. Today was supposed to be a rest day and I was supposed to do my interval run tomorrow, but I’ll be at the hospital all day tomorrow having my ‘anal probe’ as my sister calls it so I knew I had to do it today.

It is hot and humid in Yokers at the moment, so I’ve been doing my runs in the evening. The optimal time seems to be 7pm. I couldn’t do that today though, as I have to take the medicine to prepare me for tomorrow’s colonoscopy at precisely 7pm. I didn’t fancy getting caught short half way around Yamashita Park, although it may have helped spur me on during the fast intervals!

Instead I got up at 5:15 am only to find that the temperature was already 27°C and sunny! I completed the run despite feeling a bit sick halfway through the run. I’ll be sticking to after 7pm for my future runs!

Image Credit: cc licensed ( BY-SA 2.0 ) flickr photo shared by Rollan Budi

Jul 20 2014

The Fat Cat is Back

Fat and Furry!

It is summer and it is time to check on my health and start to improve my lifestyle a bit! This means getting back into the running habit and trying to eat a bit more healthily. I’ve just returned from Ghana and I knew there would be no point in starting whilst I was there as it is too hot to run and I knew I would be eating a lot of goat and drinking even more pito on all my social visits!

So I decided to start when I got back yesterday. The first day of any new eating plan, involves eating all the stuff that you shouldn’t be eating so it is no longer in your house! On top of that, I was recovering from a cold and everyone knows it is best to feed a cold and starve a fever. I didn’t have a fever.

The upshot of all this is that I’ve started today. So I am tracking food on MyFitnessPal which combines nicely with my RunKeeper to track my exercise. I’ve signed up to follow a running program designed to burn fat. It involves interval running which will be good for my training anyway. I’m going to continue with workout videos on off days and I might even see if I can’t find a running club in Yokohama that I can join. And, to keep me motivated, I’m going to blog about my progress which really helped me keep on track when training for the half marathon.

So, here goes nothing…

Image credit: cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Yukari

Mar 2 2014

Complete half marathon – tick!

Question: What do you get at the Miura International half-marathon as your special gift?

There could be a number of answers to this question. A bad case of chafe. Blisters. Very sore legs. All of these are possibilities but are in the end, wrong.

The answer is an enormous radish.

Me, Simon and an enormous radish – otherwise known as daikon.

Thanks to @LorimerSimon for being a great running mentor, race organiser and supporter on the day. Also thanks to everyone who ran with me, gave advice, cheered me on etc. You know who you are.

And finally, thanks to Elaine who called me on the telephone to congratulate me on the race, 500 m before I had reached the finish line. Your timing as always was impeccable but somehow those last few metres were much easier after having talked to you!

Mar 1 2014

12 Hours to Go!

Tomorrow morning is race day.

I had a semi-successful test on Thursday of my Runkeeper Live. In order to view the real time race map, you need to have a Runkeeper account yourself. This is free and you can sign up at runkeeper.com.

If you don’t want to do that though, you can still see my race except you will have to refresh the page to see my little blue dot move! My Runkeeper page can be found here.

A link is supposed to appear on my Facebook page when I start the race, but this didn’t work during my test run on Thursday. Instead a link appeared after I’d finished and declared that I had run a paltry 0.48 km instead of the 8 km that I had actually run! So I think the safest thing to do if you wish to check on my progress is just go straight to my Runkeeper page itself.

The race begins at 9:37 am JST. This is 8:37 am Perth time. As for anywhere else, I’ll let you work it out yourselves!

You will have plenty of time to check in as I suspect it will take me at least two and a half hours to complete! My goal is just to finish the bugger.

This evening I have spent the day sticking to my normal routine. I had gnocchi for dinner which I also intend to have for breakfast in the morning and one glass of red wine. I made sure I was at the end of the bottle yesterday so that I wouldn’t be tempted to have a second glass tonight! It is all about preparation!

Feb 24 2014

6 Days to Go

RunKeeper Live

I’ve finally worked out how to do this. If you want to follow my race on Sunday, here is how to do it.

Firstly, people who have a RunKeeper account will be able to see much more detail and an automatically refreshing map of my position. If you don’t have a RunKeeper account, you will see a static page that you will have to refresh to see changes in my position.

RunKeeper is free. I love it for tracking everything in one place. You should get it!

When I start running, RunKeeper will post a link on my FaceBook page. Clicking that, will take you to my RunKeeper page where you will be able to see the race by clicking on the live fee link on the left. I have three more training runs this week and I’m going to test the live feature by broadcasting each of those. Fingers crossed, it works!

Feb 17 2014

13 Days to Go

I’m bored of my playlist for running. I’ve been listening to basically the same 1000 songs for the last 14 weeks of my training plan. Now it is time to get some new tunes to inspire me to the end.

So I’m looking for good running songs and I want your best picks. They need to be uptempo and I like it when they have some loose connection to running to help inspire me. That connection can be very vague. Here are a couple of songs I like to run to already so you can get an idea of what I’m looking for.

Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine
Great lyrics to run to – “Run fast for your mother or fast for your father. Run for your children or your sisters or your brother. etc”

Breathe by The Prodigy
Reminds me of something I need to do whilst running!

Here it Goes Again by OK Go
Entire video is shot on a series of treadmills.

So I think you get the idea. Now I want your suggestions for your favourite running songs. You can enter them on the google doc underneath by clicking on this link.

Thanks for your help! 🙂

Feb 16 2014

14 Days to Go

Training is beginning to get in the way of my social life! Last week I only ran once. I was away skiing in Niseko for five days and missed my weekly long run and a short run. I also over indulged a bit whilst I was away so for the first week since the Christmas break, I put on weight.

The ski break actually began with a very shaky start as I discovered on the first day skiing, that my trusty hip flask which I keep in my ski jacket pocket for a quick confidence booster during the chair lift ride, had sprung a leak and needed to be retired. Luckily, I found a replacement at a store in town and although it has a less-than-classic design, it does have a more generous capacity so it all balances out. I nearly lost it though when going through security at the airport because I had forgotten that it was in my backpack. Luckily security was satisfied with me sculling the contents at the check point and didn’t confiscate it! I’ve never felt more confident on boarding a plane.

Turns out skiing doesn’t replace training runs.

We got back last Tuesday night (another missed run) and I decided that from Wednesday on I would be serious with the training, even to the point of giving up alcohol until the race. This plan collapsed entirely the very next day when that evening at Sushi Club, the waitress was so shocked with my refusal of my usual hot sake, that she served me a bottle anyway. Since I had had the one, I didn’t see much point in not having a second, so I did.

When I got home later that evening, I checked my SmartCoach for the run for the next day only to discover that I was supposed to have run that day too. So on my first day of serious training, I failed in every way possible!

Thursday I ran. I was unable to complete the run however and had to finish a kilometre short of my goal distance for the day. The last couple of k’s were really hard and I ended up basically hobbling! This shocked me a bit because I had been finding the runs challenging but manageable and I had done this distance before. So again, I refocused and decided to get serious with my training again.

My next run was just 5 km and scheduled for Friday but it snowed all day so I couldn’t run. I was going to do it yesterday but after falling off my bike when riding to the shops because of all the snow, slush and ice on the roads and footpaths, I decided against it. Today I finally ran. I did my weekly long run and although I was quite tired at the end and my feet were soaked because I couldn’t avoid all of the snow melt, I did manage to finish the full 18 kilometres. I was quite pleased with myself until I checked my SmartCoach and discovered I was supposed to run 19 kilometres.

Still not serious.