Just a quick update

Ok, so it’s been a while since my last post (again). I really enjoy writing this blog, the problem is just that writing involved staring at a computer screen and that is what I’m doing about 90% of the time I’m at work which, right now, is the case about 50% of my waking hours. So I’m sure you understand that the rest of the time (when I’m not at work) I prefer doing something that does not involve a computer. Like training for a triathlon, for example. So it’s those rare moments like right now when work is slowing down that I have time to write something during work hours – don’t tell my boss :)

Anyway, let me just give you an overview of what I’ve been up to lately. To say that I’m training for a triathlon right now is actually a bit exaggerated. Yes, I’m walking, biking and swimming several times every week but it doesn’t really feel like ‘training’ at the moment. OK, maybe the swimming but biking and walking feel more like hobbies than serious training. 

Running

Well, technically there is no running. My back if finally getting better and I don’t want to screw it up again right away. So I’m walking. I actually quite enjoy it. While running is very exhausting and sweaty etc. walking is much more relaxing. Especially after a long, busy day at the office I find it very relaxing to go for a walk. I’ll do that about twice a week at the moment. I might start running again in a few weeks but for now I’m good with just walking.

Biking

Another thing that is actually more relaxing that exercising right now. I go for a bike right about twice a week and really enjoy it. Usually I do about 8-10km. I just bought a new car on the weekend and it came with a bike rack so now I might actually take the bike out of the city sometime to go for a ride somewhere nice :)

Swimming

This is where it gets a bit more serious. You might remember from my previous post that I was struggling to find the right swimming style. Well, I have now decided that I’m gonna do breast stroke. It might not be the fastest or most efficient way to do it but it’s what I’m comfortable with. I tried freestyle a couple of times but I have to concentrate a lot to get the coordination right and actually end up being slower than swimming breast stroke. On the other hand, breast stroke just comes natural and I enjoy it much more. Generally I really enjoy swimming. I usually go twice a week and already notice that I’m getting better. At the moment I do a few runs of 200meters with little break in between. I think altogether I do about 700-800 meters ‘serious’ swimming each time I’m at the pool. By the end of March I want to be able to do at least 600m in one go.

Well, that’s about where I am at this stage. Oh, and did I mention that I also do three gym (weights) session per week? So you can see I’m quite active at the moment. And I’m really enjoying it (except for the getting up at 6am three times a week part).

More to come soon ….

Still no running ....

It’s been 2 ½ weeks since my half marathon and I’m still not back to running. Why? Well, because me knee is still hurting every now and then and the Physio said I should wait until I have been without pain for at least 5 days before I start running again. She said these kinds of injuries are tricky because once you have them they are really hard to get rid of permanently. And starting training too early after an injury is pretty much the safest way to ensure you will never fully recover ;-)

So right now I’m going to the gym 3 times a week in the mornings. I do strength training (taking it easy with the workouts that put stress on my knee) and I do some cardio on the bike. Apparently riding the bike is good when you have knee injuries because it trains the muscles but because you’re sitting it’s low impact – unlike running! I also try to go for walks at least 2 or 3 times a week which is actually really nice because we have been having absolutely beautiful spring weather and I walk either in One Tree Hill which is a park just a few minutes from where I live or I go somewhere to the waterfront, like Mission Bay, and walk there. So in a way I’m enjoying taking it a bit easier after all the full on marathon training. But at the same time I’m getting a little impatient and nervous.

In a way it is totally stupid. I’m still working out 3 times a week and I’m doing active stuff on weekends like walking so compared to what I used to do most of the past 26 years it’s pretty damn good. And the weight loose has continued to go well, too. I was a bit concerned that when I started reducing the amount of work outs the weight loose would slow down or I would have to change my eating habits but it all worked out really well. I’m eating a little less carbs then I did in the last weeks of marathon training but besides that my diet is still the same and I’m still losing weight at about the same rate than before. So technically it is all going well and there really is no reason to stress or be in a rush to get back to running.

But for some reason I’m very anxious about not running. It’s kind of like I’m scared to fall back into old habits. I had this really good rhythm before the half marathon, it was like a routine I didn’t have to think about. I had my running days and my gym days and a plan for how much I would do each day and all I had to do was follow that plan. Now all the sudden there is so much more flexibility and it’s so easy to trick myself into thinking it doesn’t matter if I don’t work out today, I can just do it tomorrow and what difference makes a day. You’re probably thinking I’m totally overreacting and you’re probably right ;-) I should just relax and take it easy for a while until the knee has recovered and then start running again slowly. Too bad patience is not exactly my strong suit ;-)

I love those days were I can really see the progress

Today is one of those days where I can really see the progress I'm making. Sometimes it feels like I'm not really getting any better for weeks which can be kind of frustrating, but then there are those days like today where the difference to just a few weeks ago is just huge.
It's Saturday and you all know what that means - Long run day!
However, it's also recovery week (My training plan always has two 'build' weeks followed by one week recovery). That means, I did 'only' 10km today. Only seems a funny word in this context (unless you take into account that one of my flatmates ran 30km!!!!! this morning) but after doing 12km last Saturday it's 'only' 10 this week.
The point I'm trying to make here, is that I ran 10km and I felt great the whole time. It took me about 80 minutes of which I ran 48min & 30seconds! In comparison, when I did 10.5km 2 weeks ago I only ran 41minutes and it took me almost 90 minutes.
Besides that I felt really good and was able to run for over 4minutes even towards the end before I had to walk for a little.
I've generally been having a good week. As I mentioned before my sisters was staying with me for two weeks and we did some traveling around New Zealand which was just AWESOME. However, it meant that my exercise routines got a little messed up and so did my diet. But despite that I still lost some weight during these two weeks which is just really great. I'm happy to know that I can make little exceptions every now and then, as long as I keep up a minimum of physical activity.
Nevertheless, I've been really looking froward to this weekend to get some rest as the last two weeks have been pretty full on. And given that I already know I'll be working late everyday next week AND have my 14km race next Saturday it's probably good to the rest while I can.

12km = tough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today is Saturday = Long run day!
I just came back from a 12km run, the longest I've ever gone. Actually, I can't even remember ever having walked 12km let alone run parts of it. It took me about 100minutes which is alright. It feels really good now that I'm home, had a shower and am now having coffee in bed, but I have to admit it was pretty tough along the way. The first 6-7km were OK but then I really struggled for about 2-3km before it got a bit better again towards the end. Those tough 2-3km were pretty hilly which is probably one of the reasons why it was harder then the rest. But it's good to see that I can recover from a low during my runs. It was tough for a few km but I kept going and then it got better towards the end.
Nevertheless, thinking about the fact that this run today was just a little more then half a half marathon makes me panic a little. There is no way I would have been able to run another 9km today. But luckily I still have a few weeks till the half marathon, so hopefully by then I can do it.
Next week is recovery week which means I will 'only' run about 9-10km on Saturday, but the weekend after that is my first ever race - 14km.
Otherwise things have been pretty hectic this week and I haven't trained as much as I should. My sister is still staying with me and of course I want to spent as much time with her as possible. We went on a 4 day trip last week and will be going on another trip around the country today until Monday. Besides that work is very busy at the moment especially since I'm taking some days of to travel around with my sister. That just doesn't leave much time for running and the gym. But things should be getting better after this week and as long I manage to do my long runs on Saturday plus 1 short run during the week and 2 gym sessions I should be alright.
This whole half marathon thing is extremely important to me but I also have a lot of other things that are important and sometimes I need to priorities them. But as I said the week after next I will be back to my old schedule with 3 runs and 2 gym session.

Running in the rain, breathing, and signing up for my first two races

As my last post is from Monday and it's now already Friday I thought I fill you in on what I've been up to this week.
First of all, on Wednesday I had my first run in the rain. I know that's kind of hard to believe considering that I'm in New Zealand, it's winter and I've been running at least 3 days a week for the last 3 months. But I guess the weather has been on my side. Until this Wednesday that is. It was raining quite heavily and for a few seconds I thought about not going but then I thought what if it rains on the race day. Besides, it's just water :-)
And it turns out running in the rain is really not bad at all. While I was running it kind of felt like it was only really raining a little bit. It wasn't until I got back and noticed how wet all my clothes and especially my cap were that I realized how much it must have been raining. It's good to know that running in the rain is not a problem for me :-)

As part of improving my running technique I'm working on my breathing this week. It's kind of funny cause I feel like breathing should be easy, but it's totally not. It's actually quite difficult to breath in through my nose and then out through my mouth. It works fine in the beginning, but then when I get more tiered it's really difficult and I find my self breathing through my mouth all the time. So what I'm doing it I've shortened the running intervals a little, especially in the beginning. I used the start each of my runs with running as far as I could and then starting to walk - run -walk -run. I like doing this long bit in the beginning because it makes me feel good to know that I can run a little bit longer every week - was up to 8 minutes on Monday (-: But the problem is that towards the end my running intervals get shorter and shorter. Usually I do a few 1.30-2min intervals after the first long one, but towards the end I'm struggling to keep running for 1.30min. So on Wednesday I changed the strategy and only ran 3 minutes in the beginning, followed by 1 minutes walking - 3min running- 1 min walking -... (you get the idea). I was a lot fresher towards the end and my breathing was much better, so I'm guessing this is the way to do it. Still, it's weird having to concentrate so much just to breath right (-: Overall I did the same distance as on Monday in the same time and with the same amount of running, just spread more evenly across the distance (-:

I've also signed up for my first two races. I thought it would probably be a good idea to have one or two test races before the marathon to get a feeling for this type of thing. It also is a good training as it forces me to go the distance. The first one is a 14km race at the 11th of September (when I figured out that is only 7 weeks away I almost had a panic attack) and the second one a 16km on the 2nd of October (which is only 4 weeks before the half marathon - almost another panic attack). This means that I REALLY need to get my training plan sorted now otherwise this is probably going to kill me :-) So my mission for the weekend is to plan my training. I will probably tell you about it sometime soon!

buying new running shoes

On Sunday I finally did what I probably should have done weeks ago: I bought a new pair of running shoes. When you start reading about running and especially running long distance one of the things that comes up over and over and over again is shoes. Apparently they are one of the most important thing to avoid inquiry and achieve goals. I'm thinking the 'running shoe industry' is probably employing several full time people that spend all day just spamming the internet with information about how important new shoes are. But just in case they are right, I thought it was time to get a new pair. So I went to this store on Dominion Rd. where they measure you feet and analyze your running to make sure you get the right type of shoe. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about this cause I thought they were gonna make me run like 30 minutes on a treadmill to assess my running style and I was worried that I would be totally out of breath after 10 minutes and it would all be kind of embarrassing. But turns out, as so often, I was just totally over-thinking the whole thing. All I had to do was run about 2 minutes at about 7.5km/h and that was it. I was quite happy with myself that I wasn't the least bit out of breath after that (a few months ago that would have been different). After that I was told that I have slightly inwards bending ankles and was shown a number of shoes that are best for that type of runner. I tried a few on and eventually choose a pair from Adidas just cause they felt the best. The whole procedure took maybe 20 minutes. Given that I love new shoes (probably explains why I have about 70 pairs) I was extra motivated for my first run in my new shoes yesterday and finished with a new personal best (-:

Hm, what else is new? Oh, on Saturday I want to this running seminar that was organised by the Adidas Running Clinic and the Auckland Marathon. It was specifically for people who entered the Auckland Marathon and was for free so I thought I'll check it out. I was kind of hoping to maybe meet some like-minded people. And by like-minded I mean people who look like they could never in a million years run a half marathon. Unfortunately that was not the case. Everyone looked very fit and I kind of felt like everyone was starring at me thinking I must be completely crazy (that might have been just in my head though). Anyway, it was an interesting session and I learnt some more about the actual event and how to best train for it. And I'm telling myself that there are other people out there like me they just have better things to do on a Saturday morning (-:

Quality not Quantity part 1 - relax your shoulders

So I have been reading Jon Acklands book and have also been reading quite a bit about half marathon training on the Internet (no, I don't have anything better to do). There are soooooo many training programs out there that it actually gets a bit confusing. However, there is one thing everyone seems to agree on: If you do too much too early you either get injured or you peak before the event. Both scenarios I would like to avoid. According to these so called experts I'm doing too much right now and need to slow down and built up slowly. However, that is completely against ALL my instincts which are screaming and shouting at me to run as often and as far as I possibly can (sort of in a 'your life depends on it' style).
I just feel like I'm sooooooo far away from being able to run a half marathon that if I don't train as much as possible I will never make it. Besides I feel like I have to make up for all these years without any exercise at all. So what to do? Listen to my instincts or the experts?
Well, considering that my instincts have been wrong in the past pretty much 99% of the time, especially when it comes to working out and having a healthy life-style I think I should be listening to the experts. Can't help but feel like it wouldn't be very smart to listen to the same instincts that have been telling me for the last 10 years that it's OK to be lazy and eat chocolate all the time :) Besides, if I do what the experts say and it doesn't work out in the end at least I have someone I can blame ;-)
OK so now that I've got that figured out, what do the experts actually say? According to what I've read so far it's about starting slowly then building up towards the event with regular recovery weeks in between. Furthermore, technique is extremely important. The better your running technique the easier it gets to run long distances and the lower the risk of injuries (that's what they say anyway).
So I have decided to reduce the distance of 2 out of my 3 weekly runs and only do 4km instead of 5 and work on my technique. From there I will then start to increase the distance following some training plan (haven't picked one yet).
This weeks goal: Drop and relax my shoulders! I always get really tense shoulders when I'm running, especially towards the end. Actually tense shoulders are not just a problem when I'm running. The comment I hear the most when I working out at the gym is "Lisa (yes, they do actually now my name by now) drop/relax your shoulders". And I noticed, even when I sitting at my desk in front of the computer, like now, I tend to pull up my shoulders. And then I wonder why I'm having back and neck pain (stupid me).
I read on some website that a good trick to relax your shoulders when running is to open your hands. Most runners have their hands in fists - like I do. And the harder it gets the tighter my fists get and when my fists are right my shoulders get tense and my back starts hurting so it gets even harder and I squeeze my fists even tighter (I think that's what they call a vicious circle). So yesterday I ran with open hands and fingers stretched and I feel like it's working. I think it looks a little bit weird though. Like I'm some sort of super athlete who is trying to be as faired as possible. I think people who see me might thing 'oh, girl that's hopeless' (-: but hell, if it works I risk looking a little stupid.
And it seems to work, cause I had a really good run yesterday. 4km in 30 minutes of which I ran 21. And all of that without music! I usually hate running without my ipod but couldn't find my headphones and after searching for them for 20 minutes I decided to go without. This morning on the way to work I remembered where they are - in the backpack I took hiking on Saturday. Guess this whole active lifestyle takes some getting used to, in the past I only had stuff in a backpack when I was travelling so that's about the one place I didn't search yesterday (-: