Lots of Runs

Goodness me, this post has been in the making for over a week now, please excuse any incorrect tenses I may have missed in the edit!! Plus, I hate his keyboard, it's as if someone moved all the letters so half the stuff I type is gobbledygook... Not good!

Good news on my laptop front, my clever dad had a brainwave last night! My brother has the same laptop so we're going to swap batteries, backup all my precious pictures then send it back to Dell so they can fix it again. It breaks every few months. I will NEVER buy Dell again. My laptop is a nightmare!

I went out for my second run of 2011 last Thursday, as Mike was coming we decided to do intervals. Totally flunked it.. in my third interval I felt really dizzy again and had to stop. I was so frustrated, sometimes it feels like my body just won't play ball.. I just jogged slowly until Mike was finished.. This cold I've got has really taken it out of me. That and I guess being tired from work..

I ate a bigger breakfast before my next run to see if it could be poor fuelling... I always want to know the reasoning behind why things don't work out. I did 5 miles and the breakfast seemed to make a difference as I was still tired and the cold was still being persistent haha!

5 miles in 44.30
Mile 1 - 9.19
Mile 2 - 9.04
Mile 3 - 8.47
Mile 4 - 8.39
Mile 5 - 8.42
Avg 8.54

Score!! Comfortably in my long tempo pace of 8.48-9.01. So happy to get a run which felt successful in! And almost all negative splits, double score!

After that successful 5 mile run I set out for a 6 mile run, rather stupidly on an empty stomach. I've been struggling with a few old demons lately.. guess it's the January weight loss kick and feeling like I should be losing some too. That's a whole post in itself though..

I took Roxie out with me and started off slow.. got to the bridge to find one side was closed and the other side had big flashing lights saying 'danger high wind' I promptly wimped out and changed my route.. I don't like wind at the best of times and strong wind on a bridge... not feeling hardcore enough for that!

We ended up covering a slow 3.5 miles in 34.32... I gave up partially due to my lack of fuelling and feeling really sluggish and partially due to the rain and fogged up glasses which was making it almost impossible to see.. It didn't really feel too safe and I just wasn't in the mood I guess.. Oh well.. it's still 3.5 miles more than nothing I guess ;-)

Ahhh finally I'm starting to get up to date!

Yesterday Mike and I went out for intervals. 5 x 800m 90s RI. They were so tough!! The odd pacing is due to them being run up and down one road which had a slight incline and wind resistance on intervals 2 and 4, meaning 1, 3, and 5 had a slight decline and a little wind help!
1 - 3.18 Oh my god, I'm going to be sick, I'm definitely going to be sick.. Why did Mike want to come out so close to breakfast.. stupid Mike... bleughhhhhhhhh...
2 - 3.46 OK don't feel quite so sick but I didn't realise the wind was going to be so horrible... please hurry up and end...
3 - 3.33 Back on the slight downhill... This should feel easier surely?? Oh well, over halfway now.. keep pushing!!
4 - 3.59 Nooo dizzy again. My legs feel like they're going to give way and I hit pause and sit on the pavement for 20 seconds. Think I'm not giving up now. Not again!! (reading this back I'm such a drama queen but that's what I felt like haha) And get up. Plod along to the end and think thank f*** that's over! I took an extra 30s rest before tackling number 5, figured it's better to have a slightly longer rest and finish than do the proper rest and bail halfway through.
5 - 3.38 Still dizzy but not quite as bad.. just trying to get to the end... Finally see Mike and Roxie in the distance and try to speed up... not terribly successful but did a little! Collapse into a heap on the pavement, unable to talk for a few minutes... Successful intervals!

When we were stretching afterwards I told Mike about having to stop in the 4th. He said I was just about to tell you the same thing!! So we both struggled in the fourth, how strange.. He said at least we both finished though, better to stop and carry on than stop and give up (unless you need to, of course).

It does get me thinking though, what should you push through? Should I have pushed through? At the time I felt like I couldn't so I guess I did the right thing but I always feel bad for stopping... I'm sure I've debated this on here before anyway! I guess we have to just trust our own judgements!

Hope everyone has had a good start to the year.. I hope to get my laptop fixed ASAP and resume regular posting! I miss blogging, both reading and writing!

Resistance Training (aka intervals in the wind...)

Hope everyone's having a good week! Mine has started off well, been training at work so hours are a bit odd - 9.30-4.30. Not bad hours at all but not as good as the early or late shifts.. I don't like something that cuts right accross the middle of the day... I'm working less hours but I'm getting less done... how does that work?

I did something I very rarely do today. That was get up early to go running, before breakfast, and before coffee! A very rare occurence! I'd planned intervals today, Mike very reluctantly came along. He was trying to pursuade me to skip them but I wasn't going to budge. I feel like I lost so much fitness when I struggled to fit everything in when I was working at H&B. I'm determined not to let that happen again, even if it does mean occaisonally going without my morning coffee!

It was not a pleasant run today. I probably should have warmed up more, my legs felt like dead weights. We also had loads of out and backs to do which slowed me down more than I thought it would. The worst thing was the wind though. We're apparently going to have gale force winds by the weekend. Well that throws a spanner in my running works! Here's to hoping the weather man got it wrong!

Here's my times, the time I was supposed to run it in is in brackets so you can see how much I struggled this morning! Still, I was putting in the effort so even though it wasn't quite right it will have done me some good.. I have to remind myself to think of the positives when I don't hit a time goal!

1600m - 7.46 (7.44)
1200m - 6.12 (5.42)
800m - 4.00 (3.44)
400m - 1.52 (1.50)

I'm going to have to keep this short 'n' sweet. I hope to be able to catch up on all my blogs asap but tomorrow I'm going to be going non stop too as I have a trustee meeting til about 8

Me and Intervals aren't Friends at the Moment..

I think I've been doomed so far with my favourite interval workouts!

• The first interval workout was foiled by a school sports day,
• The second we had planned on doing on a field but dead battery garmin lead to us swapping the run with our long run with the plan on doing our intervals later in the week, cue tonsillitis getting in the way.
• Today I had the third mishap as I couldn't finish my workout, or keep pace, I just felt dizzy and breathless and decided to stop after three 800's - I think this is still naughty tonsillitis foiling my plans!

So today I was looking forward to my 5 x 800m, as much as someone could anyway ;-) On the plan this week was 5 x 800 @ 3.47 with 400m RI. Here's what I did;

1 mile warm up 9.51
800m 3.41
800m 3.48
800m 3.51
1.5 mile walked cool down

3 miles in total, excluding the walking. Well, it's better than nothing - here's to a good interval session next week!

Sunny Intervals

Did everyone have a great weekend? I have been outside most of the time enjoying the sun! We had a little heatwave, I just hope it stays hot but that's probably a bit too much to ask of England!

On Friday I had a day off so we decided to head to the track for our intervals, it's been too long since I did intervals, I forget how much I love/hate them. We went early morning and it was still sooo hot, Mike poured water over me when I was done, that's about the only time that wouldn't elicit a mad response from me haha

I did (times I was supposed to be getting are in brackets);

1 mile warm up 9.20
1200m 5.28 (5.46)
1200m 5.23 (5.46)
800m 3.43 (3.47)
800m 3.45 (3.47)
800m 3.46 (3.47)
800m 3.43(3.47)

total 4.5 miles


I got a versatile blogger award from Anne @ Asthma and the Gift of Running, thanks Anne!
Now I get to share seven things about me and pass this on to a few more bloggers!

1. I never know what to write on these things..!
   
2. I met Mike on myspace!!
   
3. My mum and dad think we met at a nightclub
   
4. Even though I love Lost I have not watched the last episodes yet... I have them recorded but I haven't watched them...
   
5. In winter I get so cold I sleep in thermals, fleece pjs, a hooded dressing gown, thick socks, slipper boots and a thick quilt and in my old flat it was two quilts and a blanket cause it was colder!
   
6. I used to HATE running, absolutely hate it, I'd do anything to get out of cross country at school
   
7. I took figure skating lessons when I was a teenager, I wish I didn't quit!
   

I'd like to give the award to everyone who comments on this post because you're all wonderful!

I also have some work news! Remember when I mentioned about them hiring me as assistant manager on one wage then lowering my position to supervisor which also came with a lower wage... Well I sent a letter to the regional manager asking her to sort it out and reimburse me otherwise I would leave and seek legal advice. Well she is coming to see me on Thursday. I hope she sorts it out, I don't really want to leave, there are quite a few parts of the job that I don't like but they aren't big enough issues that I would leave over them. The wage thing is though, I will do if they don't sort my wages out. Cross your fingers and toes for me please ;-)

I'll be back soon with my 10 mile recap from yesterday ooof it was a hot one!!

Interval Time

Mike and I went to the track to do our intervals today, when we got there there was a school PE class going on so we waited for them to finish.. They were doing 800s too, there was a really speedy kid who got a 3.01 on his last interval and was soo far ahead of the rest of the group. When they were done we got on with our training.

5 x 800m, 400m RI, prescribed pace of 3.47 per interval.

1 mile warm up @ 9.30 pace
1 - 3.38
2 - 3.43
3 - 3.45
4 - 3.47
5 - 3.43
400m cool down

After that we did some chin-ups and push-ups I did 5 chin-ups and 35 push-ups. We found a convenient bar to do our pull-ups from, glad we got them out of the way this morning... I can't see myself doing anything else tonight, I'm knackered!

Did I mention I'm on the board of trustees now for Seed? The eating disorder charity I've mentioned a few times before? Well it's the AGM tomorrow night which will be the first meeting I attend as a trustee, very exciting! I hope I can be part of lots of exciting developments with the charity.

Right I'm off to finish watching Glee... Even though it's a Madonna episode and I cannot stand her blehhh!

Workout Capacity 101 Before Breakfast...!

Remember the Natural Balance bars I reviewed, the Nakd and Trek bars? Well the lovely people at Natural Balance have put me on the news part of their website, how exciting :-) go check it out here!

Yesterday I ran intervals (no HR data as Mike was wearing his garmin.. I so want my own!!)

Warm up 1 mile @9.45
1600m (7.53) 7.31
400m RI
1600m (7.53) 7.44
400m RI
800m (3.49) 3.45
Cool Down 400m

Those intervals were tough! My legs felt so heavy in the last 800m, I think it's my own fault, I paced myself too fast for all the repeats, though I got closer each time (the time I was supposed to run is in brackets)! I couldn't believe how much harder they were than my last interval workout when I did 400m repeats. I cut the cool down short as I'm trying to save my legs so I can do all my planned workouts this week. My knees were ok but they felt a bit sore and stiff afterwards. I iced them as planned after the run but they still felt a bit stiff last night, hopefully they will be ok tomorrow for my tempo, I don't think they're injured I think they're just a bit sensitive.

When I got home from my run I had a package from pulsin with a few discs to try. It was too late to try the pre-workout snacks but I had half the protein disc after my lunch. Unfortunately all the discs contained soy so Mike couldn't try any. This was the biggest downside to them, especially as it was just soy lecithin so they could have used sunflower lecithin to allow people with soy allergies to enjoy them too, one of the discs had both in! I noticed cause I got excited thinking Mike could try it but then we saw the dreaded soya! Other than the soy the discs had good ingredients. The protein sport disc had a nice chocolatey taste and a nice texture with protein crispies similar to the trek bars. The disc had 15g of protein and just over 200 calories, not bad!

The discs they sent

We did some bodyweight strength before tea, we did core, push-ups, pull-ups and chin-ups. We did our core moves in our rest periods for the push-ups and pull-ups. I did tempo push-ups, 3 seconds going down and 2 seconds going up. For the pull-ups and chin-ups I did the 3 second hold at the top, middle and bottom. In the rest for the push-ups we did 60s isometric holds which is going to make up the core challenge sample workout 3!
10 wide hand push-ups
ab wheel hold 60s
5 normal hand push-ups
plank 60s
2 diamond push-ups
crunch hold 60s
3 knuckle push-ups
leg raise 60s
7 wide hand push-ups
L side plank 60s
4 normal hand push-ups
R side plank 60s

Then on to the pull-up/chin-up sets

normal grip chin-up
30 crunches
normal grip pull-up
30 crunches
close grip chin-up
30 crunches
close grip pull-up
30 crunches
wide grip chin-up
30 crunches
wide grip pull-up
30 crunches

And done for the day!

Sample Core Workout 3

This is a challenging workout just using isometric holds, I think all the moves are on the core work page except the ab wheel hold which is just a hold as you would be in the lower position of the ab wheel move. Choose how long you hold the exercises for, just under your max so you can finish the workout.

ab wheel hold
rest 30s
plank
rest 30s
crunch hold
rest 30s
leg raise
rest 30s
L side plank
rest 30s
R side plank
rest 2 minutes and repeat the circuit.

How is everyone's core challenge going? Let me know how you're doing :-)

I was going to publish this post last night but I was experiencing some technical difficulties with my photo editor, as in, we had to reformat the computer and lost the program and I couldn't for the life of me get it to reinstall! I asked Mike to try to make sure I wasn't doing something daft but he couldn't get it to work either so I've downloaded picasa now. I've just used it and it seems pretty good, Mike had to help me a bit, I'm pretty rubbish when it comes to figuring out technology!

Oh yeah, check out our set up to get the CD player to work on the laptop... It's not going to last much longer!


We had a mega busy day today so we got up early to get our workout in before breakfast. Let me tell you, workout capacity 101 before breakfast is very unpleasant! I felt so sick and I was a bit dizzy afterwards, tough workouts on a totally empty stomach are not good! The workout went like this (this is a modified version);

5 chair dips
10 band slams
15 burpees
20 star jumps

x 10 rounds

I finished in 16.35 - tough stuff! In hindsight I wish I'd worn the heart rate monitor to see what my heart rate actually was, it felt high!

We were busy today as we were volunteering at the university, we had to get two buses each way so it's almost 2 hours of travel even though it would be about 15-20 minutes in a car... I wish one of us drove! We experienced two bad bus drivers today, we ran for a bus and just as we got there he pulled away not letting us on and leaving us in the cold and rain to get drenched waiting 30 minutes for another bus, they are supposed to be every 10 minutes but that's English public transport for you... Another bus driver wouldn't let a man on because he'd started the engine going, he then proceeded to stay there with the engine going not moving because he couldn't back out of the bay. It would have been no problem at all to let that man get on, the mind boggles, people can be so selfish!

Whew what a long post! Hope everyone's had a great day!

01/03/10

AM
These intervals don't get any easier! Todays workout was sooo tough! But I got a new PR on my mile time!!! I could not believe it, I guess part of it must be because it was on a track and less windy than last time but still I'm pretty chuffed! The workout today called for 1 x 1600m, 2 x 800m, and 4 x 400m. It was supposed to be 400m rest intervals but I took walking time in between. 3 minutes after my mile, 90 seconds after the 800's and 60-90 after the 400's... it started off as 60 but I was so beat up by the end of this workout it just wasn't enough after some.

1 mile warm up - just under 9 minute pace, a bit faster than my normal warm up pace cause we were jogging to the track so Mike went slower than his usual pace and I went faster.. It's such a shame our paces are so far apart cause I'd love it if we could run together more often.

1600m - 7.16 wahooooooo
800m - 3.51
800m - 3.48
400m - 1.50
400m - 1.58
400m - 1.56
400m - 2.00

I got really dizzy in one of the 400's I felt like I might pass out so I went slowly until it passed, has that happened to anyone before, would you carry on, should you stop if you feel like that? Mike thought I should have stopped, and I might have if I'd been running on my own but since he was there I figured if I did pass out he could come and rescue me so I carried on and I was ok, maybe my HR was just a bit too high, wish I'd been wearing the garmin...ohh I wish I had my own garmin haha!

PM
Tempo chin-ups 5 x max (partially assisted by Mike)
Tempo push-ups 5 x max (wide, normal, close = 14 those close ones are hard!)

Right, off to get a snack before Glee! I'm hooked!

09/02/10 - Intervals from HELL!!

This is the weather I was greeted with this morning..the photo doesn't really do it justice, Mike and I really didn't want to go do our interval workout we had planned, especially when it started hail stoning on the jog there! Good old English weather! (also my garden looks awful, we moved house in October and we've had to completely do the whole house up as it was in a terrible state, believe it or not the garden looks loads better than it did when we moved in but it still needs lots of work)


AM - Intervals
1 mile jog warm up

5 x 800m intervals 90s rest between sets

1 - 3.28
2 - 3.45
3 - 4.02
4 - 4.00
5 - 3.48

5 x 60m sprint/60m walk jog -

total milage 3.9

Bit disappointed that I didn't manage to keep all my intervals under 4 minutes - that was my intention with the workout.. I know I wasn't far over but still that almost makes it more frustrating haha. I can't actually believe how horrible these intervals were, the first wasn't too bad but upon starting the second my legs felt so heavy and sore, I couldn't breath well and I felt so sick!! Around 200m in to every interval I started feeling sick, the last interval I nearly was sick!! Now that would have been embarrassing!! I know I couldn't have pushed it any harder though so even though I didn't quite acheive the pace I was hoping for I'm not too upset. My leg held out pretty well but it was hurting a lot towards the end and afterwards, it's settled down now.. I'm just not sure what to do with it it's not that bad but it's definately not right!

After Mike and I got home and had lunch I spent the afternoon baking :) I made the caramel apple spice cupcakes from Veganomicon, they're one of my favourite cupcakes. I made them with xylitol instead of sugar, wholemeal flour instead of white and applesauce instead of the oil so all in all they're pretty healthy. I also experimented with making my own icing sugar with xylitol but that was not so successful, consistency wise it worked perfectly but taste wise it was not so good, nice but it had a funny aftertaste.. it would probably be worth using normal icing sugar in future as it would taste a lot nicer

Who knew cats like cupcakes? (the cupcake isn't huge she's still a kitten)



Nice appley shot inside yummm



PM
Chin-ups - 10 x 1
Push-ups - 15, 10, 5, 15, 10, 5, 15, 10, 10, 5 = 100
Isometric punches x 4 sets Jab/Straight/L.hook/R.uppercut

P.s. check out Shut up and Run! for a great running gear giveaway :)