As expected yesterday's trip to my parents did involve alcohol and large amounts of food. After a quick constitutional walk I found my eye lids drooping. Needless to say I didn't make it to the gym.
Today has been another day off work. Hooray. I pity I spent most of the day waiting around for a mattress to arrive and spending large amounts of money on bedding. Still getting the old bed up stairs to the study can certainly be counted as exercise and sort of made up for the fact I was a bit dehydrated this morning to go for a run. Building the bed my manager gave me was also interesting as was re-stringing the washing line and doing all my ironing. And then came the horror. My MP3 player's arm band broke as I tried to wash it. NOOO! No music when exercising. No music at the gym. Where they play either KISS FM or MTV adverts and all. I don't think so. So it was off on my bike to town to spend more cash. It was a good ride though. I needed the arm band before I'd go running and a quick 4 mile hop into town wouldn't take too long. I started out at the large tescoes which is on route in the hopes they would stock one but they came up wanting. I guess they can't stock everything even in the largest Tescoes in the UK. With that little detour out of the way I had no choice but to brave the last day of the school holidays and enter the town centre full of adolecents and they're perambulating parental cash machines.
Right music has been restored and back home for a quick drink small mess about then out on the run. The reason I've gone on this long and twisted tale is to try and justify my running time. An appalling 57:12. I'd like to blame the traffic at the two set of lights but I pretty much got through scot free. Must have been hauling the mattress up the stairs or the 30mins spent pulling washing line through the poles who knows but it wasn't a good run.
I'd decided I was going to the gym to get the swim under way and had the choice of how to get there. By bike of course. We're not in this for the look of the thing don't ca know. So once back at the house it was another quick drink and on with the SPDs. Lights attached and thirty minutes later I was in the pool. The run might not have gone well but the swim did. It was pretty much clear in there. Just two other bods doing breast stroke in the training lane. I managed to do 16 lengths straight and followed up with a further 14 to make the grand total of 30 lengths making 750m. Or the swim distance in he sprint triathlon.
Riding home in the dark was nice but the wind was behind me and the battery was still going strong in my armbanded MP3.
Made it back and started cooking well it was 20:45 I'd picked up a sugary drink from the CO-OP on the way back so I recovered something as the chicken Kievs hissed away. I also cooked up some pasta bake to take with me tommorrow. I'll have to start thinking about food more now as all this exercise is going to need fuelling. Protein and complex carbohydrates. Or chicken and pasta as its better known.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Monday, 30 August 2010
Back ache and Bread crumbs
Right another run in the bag and a new personal best of 53.51. I missed the fist cp last time and guessed it at 5 mins but was actually under 3! not bad and I was on a high after that so kept pushing. I think I lost a bit of time on the return leg. Day dreaming a bit too much and then my back started to cramp up on me. I think this is because of the bed I'm using at the moment is a bit too soft for me and is causing me grief. I'm getting nice new mattress tomorrow and my boss has very kindly given me his old bedstead so I'm really hoping that will help.
But I can't take all the credit for this. Oh no. When I set off this morning I had blood in my eye. My housemate had come down this morning and imperialistly told me that I had left the kitchen in a mess last night. I looked around the kitchen. There was some clean washing up on the draining board and a small splatter of breadcrumbs on the side. "I spent hours cleaning this up on Saturday and now it looks a mess." I was told. This coming from a woman who the previous evening had decided to do her own washing up and after pouring out the dirty water hadn't bothered to clean up the huge amount of waste that had ended up in the sink. Which I cleaned up for her! A few breadcrumbs versus 2 day old soggy meat and pasta. Well alright "Jack" you want the kitchen sparkling you got it.... grr. Ok threats of domestic violence aside it did help with the run time.
And it wasn't just blood in my eye I ended up with. One of my toenails seems to have dug in a cut my middle toe. No serious damage but the first of many new scars no doubt.
Now it being a Monday should mean that I go to the gym this evening and start getting back into the swim of things but it is also a bank holiday and the parents have invite my sister and I over for lunch. Which could mean alcohol and heavy food. So might not be the best start to my new gym line up.....
But I can't take all the credit for this. Oh no. When I set off this morning I had blood in my eye. My housemate had come down this morning and imperialistly told me that I had left the kitchen in a mess last night. I looked around the kitchen. There was some clean washing up on the draining board and a small splatter of breadcrumbs on the side. "I spent hours cleaning this up on Saturday and now it looks a mess." I was told. This coming from a woman who the previous evening had decided to do her own washing up and after pouring out the dirty water hadn't bothered to clean up the huge amount of waste that had ended up in the sink. Which I cleaned up for her! A few breadcrumbs versus 2 day old soggy meat and pasta. Well alright "Jack" you want the kitchen sparkling you got it.... grr. Ok threats of domestic violence aside it did help with the run time.
And it wasn't just blood in my eye I ended up with. One of my toenails seems to have dug in a cut my middle toe. No serious damage but the first of many new scars no doubt.
Now it being a Monday should mean that I go to the gym this evening and start getting back into the swim of things but it is also a bank holiday and the parents have invite my sister and I over for lunch. Which could mean alcohol and heavy food. So might not be the best start to my new gym line up.....
Sunday, 29 August 2010
And they're out of the gate.....
Right so thats the first run of what I think will be my morning standard. I left the house and headed west towards Peterborough through the back roads of Yaxley turning right before the Co-op at around 5mins (I missed the cp) down through the fields but turned left back onto the footpaths. This brought me out on the traffic lights on the north side of the A15 as it goes through Yaxley. It was then towards the Hampton traffic lights crossing the road at 14mins to head over the bird reserve and fields to get to the farmsteads at the Haddon road (30mins) I then started to head home turning towards the priemer inn. As I was coming up the hill I could see three cyclists heading towards me. tucked into the right and got ready to leap onto the verge but they swung out to avoid me, when I was greeted. "Hello, mate". It was only the bloody fireman from sawtry I'd had a bit of a conversation with the other week on the way to work. Small world eh? But I had no time to spend time discussing the weather so with a gruff good morning and a wave I headed back to the A15 and through Yaxley. The turn into Yxley will be about 45mins and I arrived home at 54.12.
Now those of you who know me will know what the next stage is.Yes thats right. Spreadsheet.
Now those of you who know me will know what the next stage is.Yes thats right. Spreadsheet.
Sunday the 29th of August 2010 - A New Dawn
Well here it is. The first Blog I've ever done. To anyone reading this I will do my best to keep it entertaining but I wanted to do this to keep a record of how I'm doing with my training. I've been running distance since I was about 16 and have trashed a pair of trainer every year since.
Now at 28 and fast approaching 29 I thought I should start taking it all a bit more seriously. What made me take it seriously you ask. It was a T-shirt. The slogan said something like
"You ran 26.2miles? Ah thats cute. Tri athelete 140.2".
and I thought. That is a T-shirt that has to be earned. Now I'm fairly fit already I can run a 5k without really thinking about it and I cycle to work which is about 16 miles from my house on the back of my mountain bike. I've had a gym membership for about 3 years now and have a little 3 hour routine that I hit up 3 times a week. But 140.2 is a unimaginable challenge especially as I've not done a lot of swimming training since I was in school. The gym does have a pool which I use as a cool down doing a little medley of strokes but never for more than about 30 minutes or so and a recent experiment shows how much I'm lacking in that department. I managed about 6 lengths front crawl before I had to stop. Thats what? 150m. If I want to wear that T-shirt I'll have to put in 155 lengths to cover the same as a 3.86km swim!
So thats going to be a challenge. The cycling could also be fun. At the moment and for the foreseeable future I'm going to have to train on my mountain bike. Its a good one. A giant Xtc 2.5 hard back with some road tyres on when not on the mud. Like I say its a good bike but I'm always being overtaken by the lycra clad road bikers thanks to higher gear ratios and a bit more training probably. Taking it into a proper race would be interesting.
But hey. Thats a problem for the future. And I can always save for that super road bike as I go. So what I need to do is train in my three disciplines.
Running I think is my best event afterall. Its what I do. I don't think a marathon is on the cards just yet. Most of my running is in the 6-10mile range at the moment. I have therefore in line with a new program of achievable goals I've entered into Peterborough's half marathon in a months time. This might not seem like a lot given the total goal but its a start. looking at my training requirements this means I'm going to have to do a bit more road running than I've done in recent months. Most of my runs take place on the tread mill at the gym and I know its no where near as tough to do that sort of thing than out in the real world. I'm therefore instigating the MorningRunningProgram. This is exactly as it sounds. I will try to go running each and every morning. I know doing too much will actually weaken me. Having read an article in FHM when Daniel Craig was interviewed. He said that his trainner killed him during the week and he was allowed the weekend off to recover. This sounds nice. I'll put a proviso in this. I'll have the weekend off...if I don't stop during the week. If I have a day off due to weakness (Its too cold/wet/early) I'll do a long run at the weekend to make up for it.
What is the morning course going to be? I've always done about a 45min course and need to get back into that habit. That should give me enough time in the morning to go out and run around before work. Easy.
Ok that a start on the running. What about the cycling and swimming. Cycling is pretty simple. I just keep cycling to work twice a week when I don't go to the gym for my routine (Tuesday/Thursdays). I might also do the gyms spinning class. Not the same thing as on the road cycling but might push me a bit more than the usual beat the clock cycling I've been doing. I'll need to look into that. I still want to keep up my upper body workouts which should help in the swimming department too so I don't want too much overlap or I'll never get anything done.
Swimming is more tricky. With cycling and running I've not got a lot of time. Obviously the gym is the place to do it. If I remove the treadmill running from my gym sessions I could do a thirty minute swim at the end of the session aiming to do between 20 and 30 lengths. I'd like to do a little everyday though. So maybe I could do the 30 min swim everyday during the week. Cycling straight to the gym from work would be interesting. Usually the pool is rammed until about 8ish. Hmm lets give it a go if it doesn't work out we'll have to look at something else.
Now at 28 and fast approaching 29 I thought I should start taking it all a bit more seriously. What made me take it seriously you ask. It was a T-shirt. The slogan said something like
"You ran 26.2miles? Ah thats cute. Tri athelete 140.2".
and I thought. That is a T-shirt that has to be earned. Now I'm fairly fit already I can run a 5k without really thinking about it and I cycle to work which is about 16 miles from my house on the back of my mountain bike. I've had a gym membership for about 3 years now and have a little 3 hour routine that I hit up 3 times a week. But 140.2 is a unimaginable challenge especially as I've not done a lot of swimming training since I was in school. The gym does have a pool which I use as a cool down doing a little medley of strokes but never for more than about 30 minutes or so and a recent experiment shows how much I'm lacking in that department. I managed about 6 lengths front crawl before I had to stop. Thats what? 150m. If I want to wear that T-shirt I'll have to put in 155 lengths to cover the same as a 3.86km swim!
So thats going to be a challenge. The cycling could also be fun. At the moment and for the foreseeable future I'm going to have to train on my mountain bike. Its a good one. A giant Xtc 2.5 hard back with some road tyres on when not on the mud. Like I say its a good bike but I'm always being overtaken by the lycra clad road bikers thanks to higher gear ratios and a bit more training probably. Taking it into a proper race would be interesting.
But hey. Thats a problem for the future. And I can always save for that super road bike as I go. So what I need to do is train in my three disciplines.
Running I think is my best event afterall. Its what I do. I don't think a marathon is on the cards just yet. Most of my running is in the 6-10mile range at the moment. I have therefore in line with a new program of achievable goals I've entered into Peterborough's half marathon in a months time. This might not seem like a lot given the total goal but its a start. looking at my training requirements this means I'm going to have to do a bit more road running than I've done in recent months. Most of my runs take place on the tread mill at the gym and I know its no where near as tough to do that sort of thing than out in the real world. I'm therefore instigating the MorningRunningProgram. This is exactly as it sounds. I will try to go running each and every morning. I know doing too much will actually weaken me. Having read an article in FHM when Daniel Craig was interviewed. He said that his trainner killed him during the week and he was allowed the weekend off to recover. This sounds nice. I'll put a proviso in this. I'll have the weekend off...if I don't stop during the week. If I have a day off due to weakness (Its too cold/wet/early) I'll do a long run at the weekend to make up for it.
What is the morning course going to be? I've always done about a 45min course and need to get back into that habit. That should give me enough time in the morning to go out and run around before work. Easy.
Ok that a start on the running. What about the cycling and swimming. Cycling is pretty simple. I just keep cycling to work twice a week when I don't go to the gym for my routine (Tuesday/Thursdays). I might also do the gyms spinning class. Not the same thing as on the road cycling but might push me a bit more than the usual beat the clock cycling I've been doing. I'll need to look into that. I still want to keep up my upper body workouts which should help in the swimming department too so I don't want too much overlap or I'll never get anything done.
Swimming is more tricky. With cycling and running I've not got a lot of time. Obviously the gym is the place to do it. If I remove the treadmill running from my gym sessions I could do a thirty minute swim at the end of the session aiming to do between 20 and 30 lengths. I'd like to do a little everyday though. So maybe I could do the 30 min swim everyday during the week. Cycling straight to the gym from work would be interesting. Usually the pool is rammed until about 8ish. Hmm lets give it a go if it doesn't work out we'll have to look at something else.
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