Doesn't sound too scary but my challenge for this month - to run a minimum of 10km EVERY DAY.
That's no rest days/days off.
Each day can be more than 10km but no less. I still hope to run long on the weekends and mid week with some speed work sessions so nothing too out of the plan. Just that I want to see how the body and mind holds up with running every day no matter what the challenge of family, work or racing holds.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
BRRC - 5km
Just another lazy Sunday.
After a big week there was no way I was signing up for the 15km that most others were doing. Tesso was doing the 10km and if I didn't hate that distance I would have contemplated running with her but decided I needed to run hard and not long.
Felt great to be out there today. My heart wasn't in it initially but once I was half way through I started to feel great.
My heart rate was no doubt through the roof and my legs had a weariness to them that comes from high mileage (high for me) but they were still turning over. I was glad that in just a short 5km I was able to run each km faster than the one before.
Finish time was 22:05 certainly not a PB but I'm wrapped with the result regardless. Average 4:22min/km. Now for a rest day before getting into the half mara program for Canberra.
Oh and stay tuned to hear about my February Challenge. It's going to be fun!! (NOT!)
After a big week there was no way I was signing up for the 15km that most others were doing. Tesso was doing the 10km and if I didn't hate that distance I would have contemplated running with her but decided I needed to run hard and not long.
Felt great to be out there today. My heart wasn't in it initially but once I was half way through I started to feel great.
My heart rate was no doubt through the roof and my legs had a weariness to them that comes from high mileage (high for me) but they were still turning over. I was glad that in just a short 5km I was able to run each km faster than the one before.
Finish time was 22:05 certainly not a PB but I'm wrapped with the result regardless. Average 4:22min/km. Now for a rest day before getting into the half mara program for Canberra.
Oh and stay tuned to hear about my February Challenge. It's going to be fun!! (NOT!)
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday Night - the week in review
I did it. I stuck to the plan. Today I ran 30km in the horrid humidity. I was sick, I had not slept all night but I did it. I am happy I did so now and extra happy Tesso my buddy made me venture out of my bed.
My legs are very tired. I had a nanna nap.
The timing was slow. We ran flat but averaged 5:18min/km. Some were faster than others. Some were torture and others felt easy. I was all over the shop but my mind was elsewhere so it was just good to finish and be done with it.
Total for the week even with three days off - 97.5km!! woo hoo. Sounds like I might be training for a marathon.
My legs are very tired. I had a nanna nap.
The timing was slow. We ran flat but averaged 5:18min/km. Some were faster than others. Some were torture and others felt easy. I was all over the shop but my mind was elsewhere so it was just good to finish and be done with it.
Total for the week even with three days off - 97.5km!! woo hoo. Sounds like I might be training for a marathon.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Maybe I'm Chinese...the New Year starts NOW.
I’m starting to think I should never kick off training programs. It always seems to derail me from my focus and goal. As soon as I announced to the world I was starting on my half marathon campaign I fell into a heap. Work ramped up (which was great) and I found myself at home alone – ie with no babysitters as everyone was on holidays interstate or away working (which wasn’t great).
So there I was all raring to go and not able to get out of the house. The torrential rain each day meant I could not take Billy in the pram no matter how much I tried to convince myself he would only get marginally wet if I glad wrapped him up. Ho hum the week was shot.
By Saturday I had gone 4 days of no running. I was literally feeling depressed and very emotional. Wow running does good in so many areas we just take for granted. It’s not just physical fitness!
So Saturday was pleasant enough day – a bit hot but at least there was no rain. I got Billy out for 10km very easy (you try pushing 40kilos!) around Southbank and we then spent the next two hours wading around in the beach and water facilities – so it was lots of fun!
Sunday the husband had come home. YAHHHH! I was able to run solo. (I do love my baby, I do!). All my friends had run long the previous day so I choose to run with a group much slower than myself but focus rather on spending time on my feet. It was slow! I managed 30km and the garmin tells me we averaged 5:47/km. That really suprised me as it was very hilly around Mt Cootha so we must have put in some solid km when running flat. I guess the difference is we stopped (or I went ahead and then looped back) quite a bit more than I am used to. All in all – I was out there for 3 and a half hours. It was totally awesome. I didn't feel tired at all that day and no soreness the days that followed. Running slow is really good!
Monday – Wed I then had off (same as previous week). Then the big kids (aka babysitters) came home so I have been running ever since.
Thursday – 23.5km St Lucia – Lone Pines. A very very hilly run and extremely humid. I stripped off at the halfway point and ran in my bra just to wring out my singlet. It was horrid. I was very sick at the end and collapsed on the ground in the carpark. Someone put a towel under my head and after a few minutes I was fine. Very nauseated though and I didn’t (couldn’t) eat until about 11am but kept drinking plenty all day.
Friday – 14km in the rain. Was very pleasant and didn't feel like we had run far at all. Just felt like a warm up. 5:08min/km pace so not too fast but again, a few hills (bridges) and lots of chatting. A great run and one to copy again one day. Tomorrow…if I can the plan is 30km and then 10km on Sunday. I’ll rest up again on Monday and get back into the schedule of training and doing some speed work. I see you Canberra. I’m getting excited now.
So there I was all raring to go and not able to get out of the house. The torrential rain each day meant I could not take Billy in the pram no matter how much I tried to convince myself he would only get marginally wet if I glad wrapped him up. Ho hum the week was shot.
By Saturday I had gone 4 days of no running. I was literally feeling depressed and very emotional. Wow running does good in so many areas we just take for granted. It’s not just physical fitness!
So Saturday was pleasant enough day – a bit hot but at least there was no rain. I got Billy out for 10km very easy (you try pushing 40kilos!) around Southbank and we then spent the next two hours wading around in the beach and water facilities – so it was lots of fun!
Sunday the husband had come home. YAHHHH! I was able to run solo. (I do love my baby, I do!). All my friends had run long the previous day so I choose to run with a group much slower than myself but focus rather on spending time on my feet. It was slow! I managed 30km and the garmin tells me we averaged 5:47/km. That really suprised me as it was very hilly around Mt Cootha so we must have put in some solid km when running flat. I guess the difference is we stopped (or I went ahead and then looped back) quite a bit more than I am used to. All in all – I was out there for 3 and a half hours. It was totally awesome. I didn't feel tired at all that day and no soreness the days that followed. Running slow is really good!
Monday – Wed I then had off (same as previous week). Then the big kids (aka babysitters) came home so I have been running ever since.
Thursday – 23.5km St Lucia – Lone Pines. A very very hilly run and extremely humid. I stripped off at the halfway point and ran in my bra just to wring out my singlet. It was horrid. I was very sick at the end and collapsed on the ground in the carpark. Someone put a towel under my head and after a few minutes I was fine. Very nauseated though and I didn’t (couldn’t) eat until about 11am but kept drinking plenty all day.
Friday – 14km in the rain. Was very pleasant and didn't feel like we had run far at all. Just felt like a warm up. 5:08min/km pace so not too fast but again, a few hills (bridges) and lots of chatting. A great run and one to copy again one day. Tomorrow…if I can the plan is 30km and then 10km on Sunday. I’ll rest up again on Monday and get back into the schedule of training and doing some speed work. I see you Canberra. I’m getting excited now.
Monday, January 16, 2012
New Training Scheme
Talk about not raining....it's POURING! (Literally too which is really weird!)
I was at the airport this morning with my little man being all sad and sobby. When I arrived at work I logged on to do some banking and noticed a few hundred dollars gone out of my account...wooohooo New York Marathon now paid for and I'm accepted and officially in the run.
Crap. That means training!
Before that exciting news I had already been talking to Gooner about our training programs via SMART COACH. Not the most personal of touches, but a program individually prepped for each user once you have inputted your data.
I am aiming for 1:32 at Canberra Half in April. That gives me 13 weeks starting today to train. We'll see how I go and then revert to a full marathon program once the Gold Coast half pacing job is out of the way in July.
This weeks program is:
Monday -10k easy (good I need a run to get my head sorted)
Tueday - PCRG 10km
Wednesday - 10km tempo
Thursday - 10km easy run
Friday - 8km easy (Cootha)
Saturday - 19km 5:15 pace
Sunday - cross training
The program ramps up to 90km weekly mileage (for a half!!) so it suits me pretty well.Most of the time it sits around 70-80 and I'm comfortable with that.
The only thing about me and programs that I have to be aware of...I have to fit it in around Billy and finding carers. So I am fortunate that a program like this helps motivate me even if I can't get out to run with my buddies and I have to do the damn hard work on my own...at lunch or late at night. Heh it's still running right??!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
BRRC - 14KM Club Champions
Today really sucked.
I felt sick when I went to bed last night but woke up and felt fine. Thinking I was just doing an easy run I didnt think anything of it.
After warming up for 3km with Tesso we found the start line and started telling each other how slow we were going to be running - I'm pretty sure we do this before every race regardless of how hard we actually run ha ha! - The start went off without a hitch and Tess and I were running together at the back of the crowd, just cruising and chatting away.
Being 14km the course was 4km then two laps of 5km course. The first 4km we just took it easy running around 5min/km pace. I then realised I had my ipod with my Kurrawa Race playlist so I turned it up high and started to chase down the girls in my age category. Stuff the plan to run slow. I felt good. The next 5km was great, I was able to keep a steady pace and wasn't tiring like I thought I would. I got water from the table each loop but as it was quite cool/overcast I didn't need anything more than that.
The last loop I started to lag. I felt funny. Not sure if I was going to be sick or need to go to the toilet. Tesso cruised past me and I was excited at first - yah we can race each other to the finish (which we love to do as it pushes us both to do better than just running solo). However With 3km to go and having skipped the last two water stations I thought I'd best duck to the loo. There went my race.
I got back on track and ran the last few km very solidly. It was actually quite exciting to be able to just run hard and pass heaps of people. Though I got asked by a lot of people at the finish - 'didn't you pass me twice'. Bit embarressing to have to constantly tell people you needed to go to the loo.
But for me the worst thing was hopping in the shower when I got home. Clearly I need to lose some weight. For the first time in ages I got chafing on my legs WTF??!!! Stung like crazy. Time now to ramp up the training and focus on a diet to match.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Just keep moving Clairie
Since Tuesday I have been in a constant state of aching.
Tuesday night saw the introduction of a Core Fitness program (thanks for organising Tesso!!) for the next six weeks. We did heaps of squats, stretches, sit ups and skipping. Wow skipping - I haven't done that for years and have forgotten how good it is and how much I loved it. Almost fell flat on my face after tangling my feet up in the rope...but I was one of the more co-ordinated ones!
Wednesday morning was surprisingly easy to get out of bed. I felt it in my legs (my quads) but thought a run would be best anyhow to move the lactic build up. Sure was. Only problem I was running with a group of runners who all felt fresh and competitive and eager to ramp up the speed. I just hung at the back of the group and struggled my way out to the Tennyson Tennis Centre (where Serena Williams had played the day before) and back to SouthBank. 13km all up with a bit added on each way (officially the run is exactly 12km).
Wednesday night was house moving furniture night. Three hours of up and down the stairs, box after box. Chairs here...no there. Strip all the beds. Wash wash and wash. Needless to say Thursday morning I woke up and smiled. It was a rest day.
Then I went to get out of bed and realised I couldn't. Ha! Good thing it was a rest day..I wasn't going anywhere. It took me hours to get around and get moving. Not to mention a few coffees!
Thursday night was a late night. Got to bed around 11:30pm and was up again at the mercy of a promise to a friend to meet him at 5am at Mt Coot-Tha. So much for the friend - he stood me up.
Lucky I had old faithful (Toasty) and Matty O who let me follow them around the hill for the next 9.6km. We finished in a reasonable time considering and I felt much much better having finished. Later in the day though I was extremely tired and the late nights and early mornings, all the moving, all the stress at work and many other things were just all catching up.
A big day today (Friday) and I am trying to consider my options for the weekend. I have family commitments now for Saturday but am aiming for Sunday race day to still complete my 14km at BRRC. I won't be going for a PB at this race (thanks for your encouraging comments though...) I am not back to speed work yet. Just trying to practice maintaining a decent /consistent pace.
Now...I'm off to scrub another wall.
Tuesday night saw the introduction of a Core Fitness program (thanks for organising Tesso!!) for the next six weeks. We did heaps of squats, stretches, sit ups and skipping. Wow skipping - I haven't done that for years and have forgotten how good it is and how much I loved it. Almost fell flat on my face after tangling my feet up in the rope...but I was one of the more co-ordinated ones!
Wednesday morning was surprisingly easy to get out of bed. I felt it in my legs (my quads) but thought a run would be best anyhow to move the lactic build up. Sure was. Only problem I was running with a group of runners who all felt fresh and competitive and eager to ramp up the speed. I just hung at the back of the group and struggled my way out to the Tennyson Tennis Centre (where Serena Williams had played the day before) and back to SouthBank. 13km all up with a bit added on each way (officially the run is exactly 12km).
Wednesday night was house moving furniture night. Three hours of up and down the stairs, box after box. Chairs here...no there. Strip all the beds. Wash wash and wash. Needless to say Thursday morning I woke up and smiled. It was a rest day.
Then I went to get out of bed and realised I couldn't. Ha! Good thing it was a rest day..I wasn't going anywhere. It took me hours to get around and get moving. Not to mention a few coffees!
Thursday night was a late night. Got to bed around 11:30pm and was up again at the mercy of a promise to a friend to meet him at 5am at Mt Coot-Tha. So much for the friend - he stood me up.
Lucky I had old faithful (Toasty) and Matty O who let me follow them around the hill for the next 9.6km. We finished in a reasonable time considering and I felt much much better having finished. Later in the day though I was extremely tired and the late nights and early mornings, all the moving, all the stress at work and many other things were just all catching up.
A big day today (Friday) and I am trying to consider my options for the weekend. I have family commitments now for Saturday but am aiming for Sunday race day to still complete my 14km at BRRC. I won't be going for a PB at this race (thanks for your encouraging comments though...) I am not back to speed work yet. Just trying to practice maintaining a decent /consistent pace.
Now...I'm off to scrub another wall.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Mike Hansen is Slow
Ha! Well I did warn him that I would blog about it. :)
PCRG Session today - with heat, humidity and no motivation. Seemed to work out okay though. After initially being a tad late I did the 3km warm up only to find out today's session was the one I hate the most...1min/30sec efforts. I find these quite easy as they are short hence I don't feel I get the full value of a speed session as a 'marathoner' but I'm guessing any speedwork for me at the moment has to be good.
We did a few strides and got stuck into it. 5 x 1min efforts with 30sec job inbetween. Felt really good though we were doing it on hills and I was constantly getting stuck with the 30sec recovery whilst going UP the hill...which meant it wasn't much of a recovery for the lungs.
After standing still for a minute we then turned around and did 30sec fast/30sec slow till we got back to where we started from. I lost count how many it took but it was fun. The fast efforts never seemed to last long. Maybe I wasn't really working hard enough??
Finally to finish it all off we had to do some hill repeats (WTF...didn't we just do that in the session??) so up the hill we went. Up hard, down easy. 5 x times. I'm guessing the hill is between 100-200m in length with a steep incline depending on where you start from. I like this hill but today I was burnt out. In a nice "I've worked hard at speedwork" kind of way.
On the last hill I saw the fast guys at the bottom. Just what I needed - incentive to get up. HARD. I called out to Mike to move it and off he went. I tried to keep with him and just hung on his shoulder and he raced up. Just near the top I managed to accelerate and get past him and push it to the very top. I'm not going to mention once at the top I had to stop or I was going to be sick...and he just cruised past and said 'nicely done'. I walked for a few metres before forcing myself to jog down the hill and get ready for the 3km warm down.
All up a nice effort that I'm happy with.
And now I've made up my mind. I need to PB at every distance this year (excluding marathon). Thats my goal. Seeing as I haven't kept track of my PB's that could be quite difficult to work out. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and put these as rough estimates that I want to improve on:
5k - 20:20
10k - 42:30
14k - 1:01:01
10Mile - 1:09 - mmm I think this one will be tough to beat!
21.1k - 1:34:19
PCRG Session today - with heat, humidity and no motivation. Seemed to work out okay though. After initially being a tad late I did the 3km warm up only to find out today's session was the one I hate the most...1min/30sec efforts. I find these quite easy as they are short hence I don't feel I get the full value of a speed session as a 'marathoner' but I'm guessing any speedwork for me at the moment has to be good.
We did a few strides and got stuck into it. 5 x 1min efforts with 30sec job inbetween. Felt really good though we were doing it on hills and I was constantly getting stuck with the 30sec recovery whilst going UP the hill...which meant it wasn't much of a recovery for the lungs.
After standing still for a minute we then turned around and did 30sec fast/30sec slow till we got back to where we started from. I lost count how many it took but it was fun. The fast efforts never seemed to last long. Maybe I wasn't really working hard enough??
Finally to finish it all off we had to do some hill repeats (WTF...didn't we just do that in the session??) so up the hill we went. Up hard, down easy. 5 x times. I'm guessing the hill is between 100-200m in length with a steep incline depending on where you start from. I like this hill but today I was burnt out. In a nice "I've worked hard at speedwork" kind of way.
On the last hill I saw the fast guys at the bottom. Just what I needed - incentive to get up. HARD. I called out to Mike to move it and off he went. I tried to keep with him and just hung on his shoulder and he raced up. Just near the top I managed to accelerate and get past him and push it to the very top. I'm not going to mention once at the top I had to stop or I was going to be sick...and he just cruised past and said 'nicely done'. I walked for a few metres before forcing myself to jog down the hill and get ready for the 3km warm down.
All up a nice effort that I'm happy with.
And now I've made up my mind. I need to PB at every distance this year (excluding marathon). Thats my goal. Seeing as I haven't kept track of my PB's that could be quite difficult to work out. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and put these as rough estimates that I want to improve on:
5k - 20:20
10k - 42:30
14k - 1:01:01
10Mile - 1:09 - mmm I think this one will be tough to beat!
21.1k - 1:34:19
Monday, January 09, 2012
2012: A New Year
It's a new year.
New goals.
I'm just still trying to work out exactly what they are going to be.
In the meantime I think I'll just run and enjoy that I can.
New goals.
I'm just still trying to work out exactly what they are going to be.
In the meantime I think I'll just run and enjoy that I can.
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