Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Happy Valentines Day!

Marathon training update - Week 11 of 18

Today's session - hill repeats inc 4 x 1min, 3 x 3min repeats

Time / weather - 6am / cloudy, 15*c
Distance - 13.5km
Time taken - 1hr 16.34min

Decided against going the Cross Country race this afternoon, instead will go to yoga. So this meant getting up unbelievably early to run hill repeats - oh joy! Ran a 4km warm up and almost rolled my ankle in the first kilometre - sort of went over on my ankle but fortunately bounced back up without doing any damage *fingers crossed*!

The hill repeats went well but I did have to make things harder for myself. Instead of programming 3 x 2min hill repeats in to the Garmin, I programmed 3 x 3min hill repeats. And let me tell you, that extra minute can make all the difference between a hard hill repeat and a bloody hard and never-ending one! (note to self - read program instructions more carefully)

After this I ran another 5km as a warm down and called it a day.

Yesterday I went to the gym for an upper body weights and ab session.

Diet - Have sworn off junk food (inc lollies) for the next 8 weeks. Currently going through withdrawal symptoms - not pretty! [I am so proud of myself - at our team meeting this afternoon I selected a candy cane from the bowl and then realised that I wasn't supposed to have it so after a second or two of hesitation I put it back *sigh*]

House update - work on the foundations for the extension started yesterday - very exciting!

And no, I didn't get flowers or a card.............. (not that I was expecting anything, mind you)

Tonight - yoga

It was pretzel night tonight - flexibility is something I severely lack at the moment...and it showed. My instructor even had me doing a different type of stretch to everyone else because I could not get my leg very far above the horizontal (everyone else had their legs vertical) - very sad, considering there were people there with at least 20 years on me.

Tomorrow:
Had planned on running 20km before work but the idea of getting up at 4.30am to do this just did not appeal. So it will happen after work.

***********************************************
Looking back - Road to IM 2004

Workout - swim session, AIS swim squad
Distance - 3km
Duration - about 70mins
Workout rating - L8.5-9 (feeling tired)

Session was as follows:
2 x 500m warm up
2 x 50m pacd (15sec RI)
5 x 100m paced (20sec RI)
500m cooldown

Felt tired by the end of the sesison, especially during the cooldown so decided against swimming the 4.4km session.

11 comments:

Ewen said...

Was it Valentines Day?

Hannah said...

I keep threatening to go back to yoga too, but I'm a bit scared because I am so completely unflexible... still, I guess there's only one way to fix that, isnt there? LOL!

E-Speed said...

Happy V-Day. Good job on the hills!

Hilda said...

Putting back that candy is something to be proud of, but at the same time it sounds like sad... more in this day!?
Running makes us be very unflexible, so just keep ahead with those nice yoga sessions!
Happy Valentines, I was expecting something, but no nothing happened so it is better not to expect!

Tesso said...

Wow, swearing off junk food for 8 weeks! I'm impressed CJ. And jealous!

Katie said...

Good work CJ!!! An extra minute would be a killer :-) No lollies- go you! That will be hard! I did a dteox thing last year and the first 4 days withdrawing from evrything was Sooooo ugly! Good luck!

miners said...

Great to see last year's IM training schedules there CJ. Very interesting reading.

Also looking forward to seeing when you crack under the pressure of the no-lollies/chocolate for 8 weeks

CJ said...

I am starting to crack under the pressure now (re lolly/chocolate/junk food-free marathon diet)- and its only day 3 of week 1! Only another 7 weeks to go agter this week - help!

And Hannah, from one very inflexible person to another, do yourself a favour and go back to yoga, it does help!

Cirque said...

Isn't it amazing just how long a minute can be sometimes? Don't listen to Miner, he's just being horrible because he's giving up caffeine.

Rae said...

Happy Belated V Day!! Great job with the hills!! I can't believe you're already on Week 11!

Cliff said...

I ain't flexible either.that's why i do yoga at home...:)