Hello everybody and welcome to Monday.... its a new day, a new week and a new opportunity to be determined to reach our goals... lets do this.....go!!
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Have a great week, and enjoy your runs
Ju-Ju, Rignold, and roseabi x
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ju-ju-
Marathon
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I had two runs last week, one was longer than expected, and the other was faster than expected! And then it turned super windy, so I did some windsurfing. I got myself my own harness, which allows me to hook myself onto the sail and use my back to counter-balance it with the wind. Although my strength training is definitely paying off, the back is so much stronger than the arms! Also, the harness has a cheetah-print design on it - meow 😹
Dean Karnazes uses windsurfing as cross-training for his ultramarathons, so it's pretty cool I reckon
Ooh, and another bonus (look away if sensitive), the sea water in my shoes caused my three dodgy ultramarathon toenails finally to come off!! I am reborn
Too much work! But it translates into a LONG summer holiday, so I'm putting up with it. I've generally been working til around 10pm, and since I'm doing my Apple Watch monthly challenge to complete all the rings (do as many calories as I've programmed for each day, be physically active for 30 minutes plus stand up once an hour for 12 hours), I've been getting on my indoor bike to finish off my activity requirements at the end of each day.
I volunteered at parkrun as usual on Saturday, and since I'm so busy, I decided to run - it's just over 9km. Unfortunately my phone suddenly restarted at the beginning of the run and completely messed up my readings. A bit depressing for my 1:07 run to be registered as 1.4 km in 1 hour, and only 200 calories burned!
The annual midsummer waffle race is on Friday. Considering my low mileage, I don't think there's much hope of improving on my usual last place at that event. Then again, my thighs should be strong enough to handle the hills!
I am really keen to up my weekly mileage and start doing longer runs again in the woods now my ankles are so much better. I am also starting to see a tiny bit of progress in my pull up training... one day at a time eh...
I bought a pull up bar last month. I'd never been able to do one, not that I ever really tried much. So I popped it on the kitchen door frame and did 5, I was as shocked as my better half. I then proceeded to find any horizontal bar in whatever environment I was in and do a pull up on it just to be sure. I did normal ones, reverse ones, side grab ones, and ones with my legs bent behind me like a pro. Then I hurt my bicep and I haven't done one since Serves me right I think.
Though I think I hurt my arm doing slow pushups at yoga, going from a plank to cobra really slowly (like from plank to chest on floor in 10 seconds as one continous movement), my yogi is bit evil sometimes.
Yes those Chaturanga moves can be very taxing on the arms if you have not developed your upper body strength. Maybe start with some scaled exercises and build up a bit first. Good form will always prevent injury, as tempting as it is to want to forge ahead. Same as it was with C25k though. Slow and steady.
Oh I do a fair bit of weights at they gym but have only been at it since October. I go religiously 4 times a week and do around 6 or 7 upper body exercises, I just had never actually tried to do any pull ups. I'm not very good with the names of things, but do the chest press, shoulder press, pulldown, row(low row?), pull(upper back), arm adduction(pec select?), and lat pulldown(though i shamefully miss that a lot) oh and a lot of crunches (100 at the moment with 40k), I do still feel like a gym is an alien environment for me as much as I always feel a bit of a fraud running. I do plan to try and do more free weights and incorporate more non machine based elements like squats, lunges etc but as I my current workout takes two hours and I run 3 times a week and do yoga on top it takes up about as much time as I feel I can give it currently but I do plan to hire a PT Coach to help me mix things up a bit and get me on to some more targeted goal oriented workouts.
Well it sounds like you are doing all the right things. Just be patient with it. Muscle builds very slowly. Stamina and cardiovascular endurance comes on quickly, which is why we can get from couch to 5k in inly 9 weeks, but building strength and muscle comes in much smaller increments over months rather than weeks. stay consistent and add reps or weight every time you get comfortable and you will get there.
Thanks, I am just impressed with myself after years of being a non gym goer to have been able to commit and go regularly for so long , I am seeing improvements and as a chap in his forties I don't feel the need to chase it like the young ones, so i'm happy just plugging away and increasing the weights slowly and gradually. But I would like to have a greater range of stuff I do and do some more no machine based stuff and plyometric stuff to increase balance and freedom of movement.
weekend in Italy for me... a friend got married. So we travelled on Friday and we will leave tomorrow early morning. Then I will have a long day at work (probably until 8 pm). Wednesday is race day (taper and Italian wedding with a long weekend with family... not the perfect combination!!!)
I go into the 'race simulation phase of my myasics training plan this week. Which means only one mid-week run before work for the next two weeks, but two consecutive runs at the weekend.
This week i'm contemplating training for a marathon and trying to decide between the Norfolk Coastal Trail Marathon on Sep22 or the Baxters Loch Ness Marathon on Sept 23, one is teeny and one is big, and I can't do both but probably should do neither.. ho hum.
I am on holiday. Done loads of walking , some of it more like mountaineering 😀. The first day here we went for a walk round the cliffs Crikey it was steep 😱. We were starving to death by the time we found civilisation 😁. Repeat yesterday By the time we got back to the hotel food was over so we got a few sarnies that were left over. I went for a run after that 🏃♀️
Same 3 run weekly schedule for me. Been having fun with the speed challenge. On the last Saturday run we had donuts at the end to undo all our hard work. Timbits actually (a Canadian thing I think)🙂. The run leader left us midway, ran to the donut store, lined up and still beat most of the group back to the end point.
This week I was persuaded to enter a 10 mile run harryhawkes10.com/ this coming Sunday despite not having run any sort of distance since the Manchester half marathon last month. I was walking in Yorkshire last week so I really haven't done much running for a while so it will be interesting to see how that goes!
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Serves me right I think.
