5x50 Challenge Week 5: report from your northern correspondent

[swanscot]

Activity report

Day 29: After the hilly 10K race on Saturday I didn't wish to push it too much today so did an hour long yoga session.

Day 30: It was pouring rain in the morning and stupidly I always feel more self-conscious running in the pouring rain. So I opted to run up into our local woods where I didn't see a soul. Half an hour of running through puddles and I was soaked to the skin and I didn't care! That evening I also had my weekly Swiss Ball Class.

Day 31 Today's activity was 'only' a 6km walk, but as it was a footpath clearance work party it was in fact a 2-hour full body workout.

Day 32 A wonderful 15km trail run as blogged about here: swanscot.wordpress.com/2013...

Day 33: Due to bad weather my planned cycle was postponed and I made do with a 3km walk to the village PO and return and a Swiss Ball exercise routine at home. I think I expanded more energy in this than in the class as I tried repeatedly to get some photos with the self-timer on the camera.

Day 34: A routine tempo run, but a great run. After weeks of hill runs and off-road runs while training for the two 10Ks, I was looking forward to a fast road run. I followed one of the Podrunner podcasts and by following the beat throughout the 6 mins fast intervals and 3 mins slower recovery intervals, I managed a faster time that previously when I'd tried to keep the faster pace all the time! In fact even with the 3-min recovery period at 10 minutes into the podcast, I got a new PB for the first 5 km of the run. I went so much faster than usual that I 'ran out of road' and came to the very muddy farm track, before the final 5 minute recovery run.

Day 35: A short local cycle - only 13 km, but with 250m of ascent for the route. Naturally there was 250 m of descent too, so I enjoyed whizzing downhill at full pelt yelling "yeehaa!" The cycle included about 3 km off-road through Ruttle Wood. The track here was very muddy due to the heavy construction traffic for the (controversial) Beauly-Denny power-line. This track passes through Eilean Aigas estate, which is currently on the market for a cool 10 million pounds (reduced from 15 mil).

Photographic report: More photos added to my Flickr '5x50 Challenge 2013' album:

flickr.com/photos/swan-scot...

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For those who don't know what I'm talking about, see: 5x50.co.uk/

[greenlegs Graduate]

Love the image of you yelling yeehaa!

A busy week then! Swiss ball photos are great!

[swanscot Graduate in reply to greenlegs]

The Swiss Ball photos are terrible! I only included them since I'd set myself this silly photographic challenge. Honestly, it was so hard to set the self-timer then roil over the ball to the press-up position, all the while counting to ten and waiting for the flash and click! I think I had about 50 attempts to get the 4 pictures!

[greenlegs Graduate in reply to swanscot]

Funny! - I can just imagine it!

[Rollertoaster Graduate]

Well done swanscot, such a great mix of activities. You have such an amazing outdoor playground to have fun in

I also love the image of you yelling yeehaa as you come storming down the hill! Great stuff!

[rockchick69 Graduate]

Oh er...what you can do with a swiss ball!!!! Great pictures Swanscot and well done on all the wonderful activities you are doing....I feel so boring I'm going to plan the next challenge better so I can do some different things. My main goal this time has been to finish and graduate C25K and run as often as possible. Next time more variety. Keep up the great work and continue enjoying yourself