Well I’m going to post something at least, its been a pretty crappy week, well fortnight in fact. It’s been rainy and cold, not like rainy and kinda warm like when i was running during Spring, its been absolute crap
I was actually thinking about renewing my gym membership just so i would have somewhere to run hahaha
so yeh, that lets you know how bad it was
hopefully i’ll have something better for you next week, or at least ill buy a track suit hahaha
Adios!
Guess who’s back, back a-gain
Mark is back, tell your friends….
Yep I’m now officially back into it, and (it appears)
cheesier than ever!!!!
Diet, Check. Running, Check!!
OK so I’ve not gone all out and run every day this week, or
played volleyball (beyond my control, it rained and it got called off). But I did
head out running twice at lunch last week, 7km each time so not a bad effort…I think.
The first run was a killer, coming back into it and I was
STUFFED. Sure enough though, I pulled through it and got through the 7km, in
the crappy time of 55min
The second run I did was a little better, 7km down. 5km
solid running and kicked it in 50min. so took 5min off in two days hahaha
Now I got on the kinda healthy living train this week. I totally
blew out on the weekend, but now I’m back to bringing in lunches in the form of
salads I’ve been making at home. I’ve been eating more regularly too, smaller
portions but every few hours to try boost my metabolism, and turns out I’m maintaining
a constant state of hungry. Suzie tells me not to go too far with the hungry
through cause then the body goes into fat storing mode. Whether she is telling
me this to sabotage me and win the bet, well I don’t know. So what are some
suggestions dear readers? What’s the best way to boost your metabolism? I guess
I could Google it but, heck, I’m trying to make this baby a little more
interactive.
So I’m back on track! Now to get back into running about 3 times
a week and eat much healthier…
I was also checking out this sugar free(ish) diet I saw on
TV a while ago, essentially it’s just a matter of cutting out sugar from your
diet. They go into the good sugars that you can have, but I get bored of all that
stuff, I need someone to just give me a list, like Toffee Apples…NO …..
________ ….yes!!! And then I’ll be good to go hahaha
Anyways, onwards and upwards people, revised aim, lose some
weight by the holiday in August, then come back and start working on the mile
time and bring it down. I’m thinking about 6 and ½ min by the end of the year….seems
pretty achievable……doesn’t it…
MOTIVATION FIVE!!!!
*high five*
Well well, looks who has decided to crawl back onto the face of the Earth, yep…ME!!! Welcome back to me I guess, where have I been?
Was it injury?
Was it internet disconnection?
Was it simply a test to see if anyone is reading my blog by not posting for a while to see if I commented (yes I am that much of a smarta$$ – and thanks Ross)
Nope, it was mainly just laziness. I had a sore foot for the last week if that counts, but, well, mostly just laziness.
I’ve been up to quite a bit over the last month or so, helping the wonderful Suzie with her new website and eBook. Don’t worry I’ve been running too hahahah
I went to the Sydney Fitness Expo as well, I went with Suzie last year and picked up a SPI Belt (these things are so awesome and now I can’t run without it, they fit EVERYTHING!) so thought I’d go back and see what I would find this year. It was good but nothing really stood out, bummer, upside is I got free tickets so nothing lost hahaha. I did get to see the guy who invented Zumba…..yeh ladies how cool am i?!?!?!
I also done the Mother’s Day Classic and beat my time from last year completing the 8km course in 55min. it was great to take 5min off my time from last year.
I like to pick an “enemy” when I run any race, and I’m afraid that this time it was actually one of my friends. O.k. what do I mean by an “enemy?” what I do is a size up a few people at the start line that look like they will be about my pace (or a little) better and then through the whole race I concentrate on beating that person (yeh, that’s right fuzzy haired lady from Coast Trek, KICKED YOUR A$$!!!). The great thing about this is that if that person gets overtaken early on you can always pick another person along the way, so you are always pushing yourself. Anyways, a friend of mine (I’ve shy’d away from using her name here) has been training pretty hard and really giving me some competition lately, so for this race IT WAS ON!!! Glad to say I won, but only by a small margin.
What else did I do?? Oh yeh I had the SMH Sydney Half Marathon. I done this last year and was really looking forward to it this year because it was a new course and I had been doing a little more training so I was looking forward to kicking a$$ time wise…
But I slept right through the race, yep, set my alarm for the morning to give me enough time to get in for the 6:45am start…….woke up at about 10am. So there is $100 well spent hahaha
So whets next? I’m excited….IT CITY 2 SURF TIME!! Well in August it is, but this year I’m doing some serious training for it, I don’t want to beat my time from last year, I want to SMASH it!
The City 2 Surf is definitely my favorite race of the year! 14km from Sydney city to Bondi Beach, one of the best routes in the world (baseless claim, but I’m confident). I signed up today, and yeh, excited for it, and then I go on holiday the day after, so a good payoff at the end!!
And ahhh, the holiday. Suzie made a pretty good bet with me for this one. Essentially she has motivated me to get off my a$$ (I’ve said a$$ a lot in this post haven’t I?? woops just said it again…) and loose some of this weight that I’ve wanted to lose before we head off on holiday. Advantage here is that it’s a beach holiday, it won’t be abs like Jersey Shore, but still an improvement hahaha and if I win, there is a pretty good prize in it (I’m still shooting for a stand up Jet Ski Suzie!!). She pretty much told me when we decided to do it that she is taking advantage of my stubbornness to make me achieve something….how sweet J
Ok, so I’ve got some pretty big diet and exercise weeks coming up. So far I’m working on my metabolism by eating smaller meals more frequently during that day, and only having a can of soft drink (and the diet stuff at that, a consolation even if it is still pretty bad for you hahaha) a day with dinner. So let’s combine the healthy meals and exercise and see how I go hey. I’ll keep you posted (hahaha pun intended)
Well, I’m off to find a healthy bean salad recipe for tomorrow. So until next week (and I mean next week, I won’t slack off again, and I should have quite a bit to whine about)
*high five*
Oh yeh and I’ve started playing volleyball now to!!
Wow it’s been a lazy few weeks!!
I’ve been sick and then I’ve been lazy. I’ve not run AT ALL in the last 2 weeks and boy did I pay for it today. I done a 5.5km run at lunch and I felt like I was about to die. So I don’t think I’ll go a week without running EVER AGAIN if it makes me feel like this when I get back into it haha
Well the last few weeks have also made me think about me next short term goal. I realized that part of the laziness I’ve been going through if the fact that I have not set myself anything to aim for. So I’ve registered for a few races, that’s right people you heard it here first. I’ll be doing the:
Then from there on to the City2 Surf and a few others later in the year, my yearly running calendar is now set and I have about 7 races to do this year.
The SMH Half Marathon is the big one at the moment, I know, running distance is a lot different training wise to running a 4min mile, but cut me some slack, it’s all part of the plan. I done this race last year and finished in 2hr 42min, not a bad time considering that I didn’t do any training and didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. This year I’m actually going to train for it and want to knock at least 15min off my finishing time. I will, of course, keep you updated.
I also set myself some new goals for the next 3 months (starting April 1), I mention in a previous post that I was going to concentrate on power to weight this time and I’m sticking to that, so….
So there it is, three simple goals for the next few months. I’m hoping that this will not only help me with the races but I also want to try taking a full min off my mile time (current unofficial record is 8min flat – on a treadmill). So there we have it, make sure that you keep checking back so you can kick my a$$ if I’m not training (that’s why I started this blog, and let’s face it, it’s fun for you). And check out the Facebook page too, it’s good for photos and you can post on the message board and stuff (I’m on there pretty regularly).
Until next week, where I will most probably have a big whinge post about how sore I am. Stay cool and try something new.
*high five*
Yeh I know, I’m getting a bit slack with the posts. But here is the thing; I don’t really have the material to really account for a decent blog post every week. That being said, here is the good news, I’m back! And I’m training!!! Well starting after I recover from this fortnight hahaha
I got a few extra kms onto the new shoes this fortnight; the only thing is it wasn’t running, I know BBBOOOOO!!! But hell, it was a 50km trek….here’s how it panned out.
Starting a 6:17am was one of the things I really wasn’t looking forward to; luckily I didn’t have to travel from my place to Palm Beach (which is about a 1.5hour drive) because one of the team was kind enough to let me take her spare room! It was still dark at the start line when the gun went off, but that was only the first odd thing about the start, the gun went off and everyone started walking…..I’m used to being at a start line and everyone running when the starters gun sounds.
Now I’ll save you the drawn out stories of sand in the shoes, and stairs in the national parks that never seems to end, but by the midway point I was still feeling pretty good
We really hit our stride after lunch and were able to push through until the 40km mark (which was around Manly), we kept looking at the maps to find a shortcut and see if we can skip the headland and just go through the Corso….but nope, there was a checkpoint there so off we went. We also met Fred Hollow’s wife in Manly, she was there thanking all the people doing the trek personally as they came past, again cementing my though that everyone at the Fred Hollows is a VERY nice person (I used to work for a company that dealt with the Foundation quite often).
Maybe we thought we would finish earlier, maybe we were just grossly unprepared, but as we got towards Balmoral Beach I got really dark….. and we had only 1 flashlight for 7 people, out came the phones and we done the 500 odd meters through bush land track to the beach, the word that pops into my head here is “STAIRS” – what the person with the light would scream out so no one fell down the stairs in the dark hahaha that would have been a bad way to end, and so close to the finish.
By this time, my feet are burning, it feels like I have blisters all up the soles of my feet and I can barely walk, but the end is in sight, up the OTHER SIDE of the beach… “Ok guys, regroup, there it is, LET’S DO THIS!!”… I’d like to say we had a glorious run up the beach to the finish line, but it was more of a crawl than anything, we were 7 tired people, one of which we almost had to carry over the line due to a knee and ankle injury he walked on for the last 10kms (champion!) but we made it! At around 8:30pm, just over 14 hours and 7 min after we started we went over that finish line!
It’s funny though, I was telling the wonderful Suzie (who came to pick me up and drive me home – I could just barely walk up the stairs to my house when I got home) on the way home that it was the worst thing I ever done to myself, and I’d never do something like that again, then at a party the next night I was telling people how awesome it was and I’ll sign up next year for sure!!
The good news, my body has an insanely stupid recovery time, the next day, no blisters, calves were a little tight, BUT THAT WAS IT!! I thought I wouldn’t be able to walk, and judging by how I was walking when I got home the night before, that would have been an understatement!!
So that was my big thing, I didn’t want to do any major training to make sure I wasn’t injured for this, it’s a charity I really support and wanted to make sure I could do the trek.
Where to from here? Well this week (now I’ve recovered a bit) I’m getting into a few runs, next week will mark the next phase of training, plus ill have a few other races coming up to train for. It should be fun trying to find that balance between distance running and speed running, but I’ll try and try and try till I get that happy middle ground hahaha until then….
*high five*
