An hour in the gym (including 30 minutes of intensive cardiovascular) and 3 hours gardening yesterday. Sandwich for lunch, salad for evening meal. Result? A weight gain of 2 pounds. Explanations gratefully received. And it’d better be good… The gym has been neglected recently. The plan was, and still is-ish, that Thursdays and Sundays should be gym days. The Thursday session to follow my run, rounding off the week’s activity before the rest day and the weekend long run; and the Sunday session would be the hour of cross-training required by the programme to drag me back to life after the previous day’s exertions. But like all the best plans, this one has little to do with reality. Let’s face … …
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It was good to get out finally, late this evening, to do 7.34 miles in a reasonable time. I got round the two circuits of my usual 3.67 mile run in 01:13:51, or an average of 10:03 a mile. This isn’t the fastest I’ve run but I suspect it’s among the fastest times over this kind of distance, and that’s the crucial point. It’s easy enough to run fast (relatively speaking) for a mile or two, but sustaining it for longer distances is the constant challenge. When I first started running, last year, it was hard to run fast for more than a hundred metres, so it’s pleasing to run at around 10 minutes a mile for over 7 miles. … …
A nice run this evening. 5.55 miles at 10:30 a mile. Which was a disappointing and surprising pace, as I seemed to be bowling along like billy-o for much of the jaunt, and had convinced myself that I was on in line for a something much nearer to 10 minutes a mile. It was my usual long round-the-block run, half of the one I did so unhappily on Saturday afternoon. Tonight it was cooler and I was in a more positive frame of mind. I even took the extraordinary step of doing some stretching, followed by a half mile warm-up jog before starting the run proper. And it seemed to make a difference. I felt stronger and more confident. The … …
The diet was supposed to begin yesterday, but it didn’t. I enjoyed an Annapurna of a cooked breakfast at a Manchester hotel, followed by a large sandwich — sorry, “buttie” — and a pint of lemonade at lunchtime, then, in the evening, a large BurgerKing ‘meal’ on the motorway with a bag of lemon bon-bons for the rest of the journey home… Not a great performance. This morning I was 207.8 pounds which is actually heavier than when i started the training programme five weeks ago. I need to get down towards 182 pounds (13 stone) by the beginning of the taper, around mid-September. It means losing an average of a third of a pound a day between now and … …
A hard 11.2 miles this afternoon. I spent much of last winter trudging along frozen lanes in the dark, fantasising miserably about the promise of long hazy summer days. Like Jeffrey Archer wistfully dreaming of ice buckets loaded with Bollinger, I remembered only half the picture. Or perhaps I wasn’t thinking as a runner then. The airlessness, the raw heat, the sweat stinging your eyes, the squinting glare, the salt-encrusted lips and cheeks, the mouthfuls of flies, the deep fatigue, the heaviness of the bones, the extra effort. It’s hard. Am I saying that I preferred running in winter? No, certainly not. Just that summer is not the smart riposte to winter that I thought it would be. Perhaps the … …
It’s not been a good week for running. Monday was a rest day, intended to be a cushion between the exertions of the weekend past and the ratcheted-up exertions of the week ahead. But those future efforts didn’t happen. On Tuesday I was suddenly taken drunk, and had to be excused my athletic duties. Wednesday I felt rough and weary; unable to face anything very much, least of all running. Tonight I did get the 5.5 miler in that I should have done last night. I’d gone through today still unable to work up much enthusiasm, and had to create some. So I jumped off the train at Reading to visit Sweatshop, located conveniently just outside. Unusually for this esteemed … …
Some runs are better than others. Today’s was a bad one. It was a hot, sunny afternoon. I’d not warmed up or stretched. I was sleepy. I had just consumed a can of ginger beer (albeit the best there is: Sainsbury’s Diet version). And I expected to run 9 miles without any trouble. Silly bugger. I knew after just a few steps that I had a battle on my hands. My main problem, in truth, was yesterday’s exertions in the garden. It takes about 2 hours to mow the front garden with the petrol monster I inherited from my father, and 3 hours to do the back (it’s too bumpy to get a mower across it, so it has to … …
After the painful disappointments of the last couple of days, the run I had tonight was a great relief. It was the usual 3.67 miles but I managed a new world record for the course: 35:53, or a pace of 9:46 per mile. The first sub-10 minute mile averaged over a run. Hurrah! Watch out Khannouchi! Watch out Painter! Watch out Radcliffe! I’m coming after you! After the run came a sweaty visit to the gym, emerging 45 minutes later feeling vibrant and oh-so virtuous. I even did some proper stretching. What’s the world coming to? Next thing, I’ll be changing my underpants every day. Have made an appointment to see a podiatrist at a local sports centre on Monday … …
Why is getting up at 5.15am like a pig’s tail..? Twirly! (Apologies to Noel Coward). Another horribly early start. I was out at 0535 after a few minutes stretching. I jogged very slowly for a half mile or so in the hope that the gradual warm-up would keep these chest aches at bay, but they were always there, and have been popping back throughout the day. I think it’s some kind of pulled muscle, possibly a result of going to the gym, and perhaps aggravated by running without a thorough warm-up. In other words, I don’t really know what it is. Must visit a sports clinic. Feels like a screw has worked its way loose behind my breast-bone, and something … …
Up at 0520 this morning to get my 3.67 miles in. I went off too quickly I think, as those chest pains returned to trouble me. For anyone who didn’t follow the London campaign, this was a problem I had last time. It’s NOT a heart-related problem, I’m reasonably sure. It’s much more like a stitch, albeit in an odd place. It’s something to do with not warming up properly, or going off too quickly. Whatever it is, when it strikes I have to stop running, simple as that. Today it happened three times in 38 minutes. Each time I stopped running and walked back a few yards to catch my breath for 30 seconds or so, before continuing. Despite … …