Turtle News

On the whole, nothing too exciting is happening here in Turtle Land. All trends are positive-I'm running strong, enjoying yoga, and eating cleaner than I ever have in my life. Basically, I feel pretty super :)
The marathon is on my mind a lot. It's over a year away, but I still think about it all the time. I don't want to get ahead of myself, and so goal number 1 is to simply get to the starting line uninjured and as well trained as I can manage.
The most exciting thing this week has been a sudden drop in weight (actually, not that sudden, I've been watching my intake and munching on fruit and veg like there's no tomorrow) that has brought me closer to my goal weight than I've been in a long time. It may seem like a small thing, but all of a sudden instead of there being 12, or 10 kilograms to lose there's only 9, count em, 9! Something about single digits seems so easy, and I really think I can just keep powering through to my goal of 68kgs.

Sri Chinmoy Yarra Boulevard 5k

My second Sri Chinmoy event, and oh boy are they shaping up to be one of my favourites! There's the best informal, relaxed vibe about these inexpensive and friendly events.
Several co-workers and I had planned to meet for this one, but in the end only three of us showed up. I decided to run a 5k because I am still coming back after illness and was actually really excited for the fun of a short race. A 5k can be really good in a relaxed way-there's no need to worry too much about what to eat before or during, I know I'm not going to chafe up, I can go with less comfy gear and have it be no issue.
It was pretty chilly when I arrived (half an hour early, overpunctuality is my curse) so I used the loo, registered, and loitered. Some people had dogs and cute kids for me to admire, so I was more or less kept amused. When I got bored I decided to ditch my jumper, check my bag, and warm up with a couple of slow laps around the oval. I think warming up makes a lot of difference for me over shorter distances.
I eventually found one of my workies, looking bleary eyed and quite annoyed that we were the only ones there at that stage! We cruised over to the start together, selecting back of the pack positions. I had a nice chinwag with a few lovely ladies about Sri Chinmoy's philosophy, half marathon racing, marathons...nice.
In what's becoming quite a pattern for me, I quickly found a couple of guys running just a tiny bit slower than I wanted to, and drafted behind them. They were big, tall guys, cruising comfortably along at a steady clip, and I settled in just behind them happily. I was surprised to learn that while I felt like we were going very slow, we were cruising comfortably at just under 7 minutes a k, and sometimes as fast as 6.5 minutes.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I can now get to the point where I say this next bit is where I cocked up. Buoyed up by running the first 4ks non stop, I broke away from my draft dudes to fly up a hill. Going up the hill was fine, but as I rounded the top and began heading down I realised I was totally shagged out! To the point where I dry heaved a little, so I walked a little until I recovered myself, then chugged onwards to finish.
After it was all done, I sat on the grass in the sunshine to eat a pancake and a juicy mandarine, while a feeling of well being flooded my body.
My GPS said I'd done 5k in 33.52, with an average pace of 6;45, which I was pretty chuffed with....but my official time over at Sri Chinmoy was 35:06, which is five seconds over my PB, wahhhhhh! I'm not sure which time I believe.....
The only solution is to race another fun little five again soon!

I plan, God laughs

Well, hot off the heels of my triumphant August challenge and audacious goal setting for September.....I got sick. Real sick. I came down with shingles, ON MY FOOT! Who gets shingles on their foot!? Then as if the horrid life-zapping forces of the viral infection wasn't enough, the largest blister cluster became infected. Really really infected. The GP cut open the fluid and pus filled blisters to drain, and prescribed antibiotics. I had to stay off it. No work, no running, and mostly trapped on the couch. Two days later the pain was worse and my entire leg became painful. Back to the GP. Antibiotics aren't working, the infection is moving up the leg. Stronger antibiotics, more time off work....and they cut my foot open to a depth of half a centimeter, and an area about the size of a fifty cent piece. The second slice did the job, and the infection started to go away but I couldn't really walk properly on my foot at all, and so eventually after it had mostly healed the GP went in one last time to sculpt the wound bed to let me walk better. Soo, two and a half weeks later I have finally finished all my medicine, the bandages are off, and I finally felt well enough to run. I managed four K's this morning, and oh goodness it was like coming home! My legs fatigued really quickly but I'm confident that I'll be back running strongly in a week or two. I guess I am lucky that I was in great shape before I got sick! I've never been unable to run for this long, but am enjoying the feeling of strength returning to my body.
The bad news is that while I was sick I did an unprecedented amount of comfort eating, and have put on 3.3 kilograms! I can really feel it, and actually see it. *Sigh*, two steps forward, one step back.
I've reset my goals for September, and they're quite modest. I want to rein in my calories to 1800 a day, gain control of my sugar intake (the more I have it, the more I want it!) and build back up to 25 K's a week by the end of the month.

August challenge wrap-up and new goal setting

So, the August challenge is over with, and whoooee, it was a great month! A 500 cal daily burn was a very inspiring challenge for me, and overall while I didn't hit it for all 31 days, I'm pleased with how I went.
There were 6 days where I burned no calories at all! Sick, lazy, meh, whatever.
There were 15 days where I burned over my daily goal. Go me.
And there were 10 days where while I burnt some calories, I didn't make that magic 500.
I still think that 500 calories is an excellent daily goal. One of the things I learnt during the month was that it's really much harder to burn that many calories than I thought, and that I burn a lot fewer calories doing my daily walk than I thought. I got into the habit of short walks during my workday, just a kilometre here or there, and it really made a difference to me. I lost weight, my legs feel stronger, and I enjoyed the discipline involved.
I counted cals burned by both walking and running, and last month I ended up running 86.88ks, and walking 98.65ks. Super, super cool.

Which brings us to goal setting for September!
Last week I ran my very first week where I ran further than 30ks. I've been able to run a 25k week for some time now, and I'm ready to move up to 30 (and eventually, beyond!). So, in September I want to run 30ks at least three weeks out of four, and ideally over 25 in the fourth week.
I also want to see the scale drop from 77.5 to 75.7 :)

Onwards and upwards!

Clayton's marathon training

Clayton's-the drink you have when you're not having a drink-is sort of the perfect analogy for where I'm at with my running at present. I'm studying, preparing, and learning about how to build a base for a race that I am not yet running!
So what is base building, anyway? To my understanding, it's building a strong body and strong legs with a good amount of miles in them that are ready to undertake the challenges of a heavier training program.
I have more reading to do, but I think I've figured out some basic goals to work on while I work towards choosing the right race, with the right plan.
At present, my weeks are topping out at around 25k. I plan to increase this to 30k (slowly, always slowly) by adding extra distance to each run. So for example, last week I ran 7ks on Tuesday, 5.6ks on Thursday, 3ks on Friday, and 10ks on Sunday, for a total of 25 and some change. If I were to slowly increase this to 8ks Tuesday, 6.5ks Thursday, 4-5ks on Friday, and 10-12 ks on Sunday, then I can move gently through from a range of 28.5ks per week up to 31.5, and possibly even expand on that some more.
I've moved into a quite structured basic training model of weekly hillwork, a gentle speed workout, a long run, and an easy run. Sometimes the easy run is short, sometimes it's longer, I tend to swap the speed work and easy from week to week as my schedule allows.
So, for the time being, there's the plan! I figure I'll work at this level for a month or two before instituting another gradual increase. Time to raise a glass of Clayton's and drink to a stronger, faster, fitter me :)

Turtle news

Soo, rest day today, but lots of things have been happening here in turtleland.
Last week I put in my first week of good training since the half marathon, even though I was unwell in the middle of the week. The upshot of this, aside from feeling good, strong and fit, is that all of a sudden, I am getting faster! I am currently running 7:30-8:00ks rather than 8:30ks which are more the norm for me, so I'm pretty stoked! I think it's actually the racing that is making me faster, or that perhaps cracking times I thought impossible has given me the mental strength to push harder. Either way, it's something that I'm very much capitalising on and worker harder on.
I've signed up for my next race, and boy is it a goodie! I had no plans to do any mroe racing this year, instead wanting to work on speed and base building, but when I heard about this race I had to sign up.
Melbourne is getting it's very own version of Sydney's C2S! It's to be run on November 13th, and it's a 14k race from the CBD to St Kilda. I feel that it really synchronises with the kind of training I am doing just now, and is a good, fun goal.
Mmm, what else....Saunconys are going well so far, though I did get one pair rather muddy playing trail runner on Sunday :P
Also bought myself a lovely new pair of capris (fancy Nike ones, ooh la la) in a size Medium, eekkk! I would have test driven them this morning, had I managed to get out of bed, but hopefully tomorrow will be the day. I'm going to try and go to bed early so I can get a good night's sleep and knock out a 7k tempo run :)

August Challenge

I don't usually set myself challenges each month, or if I did they were very wishy-washy ones, like, 'run more' or 'run faster' or 'eat less'. Meh.
But this month I hit on the bright idea of setting myself a daily goal for the entire month, and it's a goodie!
Sooo, I'm going to burn 500 calories through exercise a day, every day, for the month of August. 500 calories works out to about eight kilometres on my feet.
To make it workable, I need to burn the bulk of those calories during my morning workout, then maybe an extra kilometre before work, and a brisk walk at lunchtime. If I have not walked far enough by the time I arrive home from work, I'll try to make up the balance on the exercise bike, or carry the unburnt over to the next day.

Rules/Exceptions
Unburnt calories can only be carried over one day, ie, if on Tuesday I only burnt 400 cals, I can burn 600 on Wednesday, but cannot make up for them on Thursday. This is to stop me getting confused about totals for the day, or cheating too much.
Walks/runs and calories are to be measured with my runmeter GPS, I know it's not totally accurate, but I also know that 500 calories is more than it normally tells me I've burnt, so it's a start!
The exception to the rule-the days before/after long run days. I tend to burn stupid amounts of calories on a long run, so will instead try to burn 250 calories on those days. I only go on long runs every two to three weeks, so I'm hoping that this won't make a big difference.

Day 1-8.93ks burning 518 cals.
Day 2-8.42ks burning 621 cals.
Day 3-8.76ks burning 550 cals.
Day 4-7.92ks burning 532 cals.
Day 5-7.38ks burning 509 cals.
Day 6-4.84ks burning 278 cals.
Day 7-Day off...unwell :(
Day 8-8.86ks burning 554 cals.
Day 9-7.08ks burning 507 cals.
Day 10-0 cals..sick again! :(
Day 11-9.81ks burning 681 cals...but I am doubting the GPS on this one.
Day 12-5.56ks burning 357 cals.
Day 13-Nada.
Day 14-10.10ks burning 755 cals.
Day 15-9.01ks burning 520 cals.
Day 16-Nada again.
Day 17-7.08ks burning 479 cals.
Day 18-9.86ks burning 556 cals.
Day 19-2.43ks burning 150 cals.
Day 20-3.27ks burning 180 cals.
Day 21-Nada.
Day 22-7.27ks burning 449 cals. So close!
Day 23-7.60ks burning 528 cals.
Day 24-8.37ks burning 484 cals.
Day 25-7.38ks burning 517 cals.
Day 26-5.83ks burning 426 cals.
Day 27-2.40ks burning 126 cals.
Day 28-12.29ks burning 850 cals.
Day 29-6.21ks burning 336 cals.
Day 30-8.32ks burning 617 cals.
Day 31-Nada.