Yume No Chikara

That about explains how I feel!! Yesterday I had a good session and was hoping that if i exhausted myself I would get a great nights sleep and wake up refreshed! Err Nope!! Anyway this is what happened yesterday. I got home a bit later than normal and almost got back in the car to collect Gnome from school but decided not to as I thought I could use the run to school and walk back as a warm up and then get straight on the tready when we got home. So that's what I did. The run to school took 5 mins and then we walked back home and I told Gnome to change have a drink and finish his lunch then watch TV/relax whilst I was on the tready then it would be homework time. Off I went. Speedwork pyramid session which today I did at 9Km pace with jogged recoveries at 6.5km. And I did it! It wasn't as hard as I expected it to be so I was really pleased. As I had told Gnome I would be 30 mins and as I had done my warm up on the school run I decided to do 5mins walk at 5% incline, then a 5 mi

Plodding along in the warmth of the sun (this is last night BTW!) and enjoying the bird song whilst composing my blog entry in my head. I'd done almost 2m and was happily running at 10-11mm pace (very happy at that!) with the occasional sniffle. I start to think "Hmmm maybe I should have taken a heyfever tablet" as I use the runners summer hanki of a sweat band and notice that it's red!! Yep I decided to have another random nose bleed! As a proper runner I looked at the GPS and time and decided it wasn't worth stopping so carried on!! I kept the blood in place with the occasional nose wipe on the sweat band and had a drink on my scheduled walk breaks. Naturally I did the head back to down a nice cool mouthful of hand hot water (!) and then I get a mouthfull of blood! Yuck!! Anyway I did slow the pace as I figured that heavy breathing and weak blood vessels may not mix and decided to take a short cut across a foot path (my planned session was 48 mins run walk and

Up this morning at a much more sensible 7:45 for a 75min LSD of 3:1 problem is my brain has decided to forget about the S bit of the LSD and instead just says "Hey Running is Fun!! Lets just run!" which is all very well and good but when you have a longer run to do it isn't so clever! Anyway Total distance was a smidge under 6m (like 5.98m!) in a time of 79mins as I walked the last bit home as a cool down once my watch had stopped bleeping at me! It was a nice run - I enjoyed it! No mad swans, no boiling temperatures, no throwing up so all in all a sucess! Only problem I did have was trying to find more ground to cover and get home in time for hubby to go to work! I had a route planned out but covered it quicker than I expected! And to round off the day nicely, Gnome has earned 5 awards at Boys Brigade.

After days of glorious sunshine when we all moaned it was too hot, we had a day of rain and storms and now it's just dark and dreary and bleurgh. Today I will be doing nowt. Well I took Gnome to the library twice and helped at Junior Club and we have the Tesco run to do but other than that nowt. Tomorrow I will have to get up early to do my long run before hubby goes to work and then Gnome has Boys Brigade to go to then more nowt! I had 10hrs sleep last night yet today I am still very tired and drained and I seem to have gained 2lb :-( Maybe last week's 2lb off was dehydration not sure. Anyway still lighter than i was and that's what counts! Next week is the last week of the Spans Plan part I and then we start Part II. Oh and Brass Monkey is On!!!! Yep Hubby has said OK and we may even make a family weekend of it as the 16th is his burpday!! So I now have a pukka race to aim for rather than the fun ones I have lined up! Just need to get a place now!!

Ok so I didn't get up as early as I wanted as I had one of those "I must get up so can't sleep" nights. Anyway 5:30 was early enough thank you! I hit the road at 5:40 and decided to take the shorter route and perhaps be a bit short on time over the longer route and be over time and pushing it to get to work on time! Anyway where I live I hit a hill within about 30 seconds of leaving the house. I started off feeling really good and managed the hill at 12-12.30 pace, the flat at 11 pace and the downhill at 10mm pace. I'm feeling good, like a real runner and do my 1st mile (including walk breaks) in 12.06! Wow! Anyway as I am taking the shorter route I divert off road to the nice flat clear trail that joins onto the Ivanhoe Way. Still going strong I turn a corner and stood in the middle of the 2ft wide path was Angry Daddy Swan hissing and spitting at me for daring to consider passing him and his family! I decided he would win and backed off, and followed a new path

Thank God I ain't running today! Came to work today and the office temperature was 29 at 9AM! Staff lunch of hot food - ate too much but no tea tonight for me anyway. Beanz is coming over to play ball in the garden which will be fun. Hopefully there will also be a nice breeze to keep us cool! Tomorrow is 45mins at5:1 so I either need to get out of bed stupidly early (I'm doing extra work ready for next week so leaving home at 7.30 which means I would need to be up at 5 to get in a 45mins run!) or do it late in the evening.

Ok so no work again as the shoulder is still niggly. Lunch was light due to the heat and diet! Then it was a case of boredom, didn't want to do anything in the garden, didn't want to read and hubby was watching the racing on TV. So 1hr after lunch and 20 mins after downing 500ml of squash I decide to go for a run and collect Gnome from school. I had a choice of 45 or 30 mins at 5:1 so left time for the 45 and set watch for the 30. Off I went .... I ran through the field and realised that the weather was hot, that the lose straw was slippery, that the weeds meant I couldn't see where I was treading and that my water bottle didn't fit my bottle belt properly! Despite all this my running felt easy and was between 11 and 12mm pace so really good! During the 4th set I was still feeling good and contemplating the 45 mins. My HR was high but hey it was hot! 5Th set - the last one for a 30 mins run. HR raising nicely err like 193 (yep that's speed work rate!) and pace stil

Sorry about the earlier essay! This afternoon I decided, as it was cooler, to do my speed work seeing as tomorrow will get hotter again! So as a warm up I jogged to school and walked back at Gnome pace (total 15-20 mins) Then on the tready for 8 sets of 3R @9Kmph and 2 walk @4kmph. The 9kmph is getting easier - yippee but by set 6 it was less easy! 7 was hard and the final one saw me concerntrating to stay at the front of the tready and not wander of the sides or slow down and fall off the back! HR was again recovering at the same pace as the weekend and topped at 193 in the last 2 sets which is good! Also today the postman bought me a NHS letter. A couple of weeks ago I saw the Dr and mentioned about my stress fracture and bone density. She said she wasn't overally worried but would check the referal guidelines and if that was a no and if I was still worried we could get BUPA to do a scan after August when my new year starts budget wise. Today's letter says I have an appointme

I can't believe I allowed my emotions to get the better of me yesterday and that I even started to think about a PI claim. Grrr very annoyed with myself for that. Anyway life goes on. So what else happened this weekend. Well not too much really. I did do a run on Sunday at 6:30AM (no silly umbrella was stopping me run! At that time I felt fine) As I was at mum's she had left the key out for me. I made up some sports drink and drank about 250ml before I left. Then promptly walked out of the house, left the key in the door and my water on the kitchen table! Oh and the door needs a key to open! Head said - it's only 80mins of 3R:2W so no problem! The first 2-3 sets where fine and the HR was topping at the 160's and dropping to 140's (or below) which is good. I did 5.5m in total and the last few sets saw the recovery rate the same but HR going up to the 180-190's which was the same as Wednesday's speedwork! The pace was a fairly steedy and consistance pace with

Yep I have a sore and damaged trapieza muscle (and I no doubt I can't spell!) But I did check if running would agrevate it (it shouldn't!) Didn't go to work today and won't tomorrow as moving my arm is sore and being my left arm changing gears hurts! So not much to report for today! Will rest today but may plod tomorrow.

No it's not a daft headline it's true. Went to the garden center yesterday and a 12ft umbrella got blown over and landed with a thud on my shoulder ;-( Now sore and stiff and off to ice it. Will see the Dr tomorrow and take a day or two off work also. Not much to say due to sore shoulder and PC not mixing - soz

Today is hot and muggy and yuck. I have a serious case of CBA but will do my run today. 40 mins of 5:2 down the canal path at lunchtime. When I get home it will be pack bags and stick them in the car as the gnome and I are off home to se me mam. Back Sunday night so he is in bed in time for school though so just a flying visit but we haven't seen them since Easter so it will be nice. Will also come home with a boot full of wine and beer from the wine shop! Sorted! Later that day ... Well lunchtime run done depite the baking heat. 3.5m of 5:2 with a few mins walking at the end total time 50mins. Which means I did 1 extra set ... doh! Anyway it was hot and I felt really good for the first mile then slowed down as I had tired legs. The last set had me pondering why I was tired, was it the heat, the diet, coming back from the injury or what. Looking at my watch when I got back my splits per mile were: 11.47, 14.38, 15.56 and the last half mile was 8.32. So could this be a bad case of g

Today, being Wednesday, seems to have become speedwork day. As I am repeating week 4 it means the same nasty session that I battled with last week! I decided to do this at work seeing as the boss is off and I thought it would do me good to have to learn some pacing myself and maintanence of pace rather than relying on the tready to pull me along. So off I went with the GPS on to help with the pacing ... 0.7m later the batteries run out! Doh!! So I continued by doing them on feel, heart rate and time. Not sure of distance covered - I think I did an extra bridge today, but time was a few seconds over 40mins. I think I kept the pace fairly even and my HR was acting similar to last week so the effort was about the same either way! Annoyed that the GPS died again, but I have now got some new batteries so Friday's run will be fine! Back to the tready next week and the following 2 weeks when I am collecting Gnome from school! This afternoon the legs are feeling well and truely worked!

Well tonights session at college was a bit "yeah knew that" to start with and then we got a demo on using a gym ball! I have one but have never been shown to use it so had only used it as a seat! The one I got was from avon, £15 and the small one e.g.55cm. It's not! It's more like 65cm! She showed me the 55cm and it is smaller! We did some work on them and I knew I was working even in the short demo session. I also noticed the weaker right hip that the fizzio said about! It also reminded me about my lack of core muscle strength and crap posture! The teach was amazing! I spent most of the 1st half thinking "That's the body I want, slim, toned and fit" then watching her do the gym ball moves with no wobbling and ease and grace even doing the advanced poses was just WOW!! She had a washboard belly and was just so toned and strong it was awesome! One day .... So anyway ... Beanz is going to see if my ball is OK for her and I am going to get a smaller, pixi

Due to my lack of running last week I decided to repeat week four. I did do lots of gardening so lots of calories burnt and muscles used just no actually running! So today I am running at lunch - unusal I know but the boss is away this week so the pixie will play! The plan says 5R:2W for 30 mins which means I will do a brisk walking warm up then 4 sets of run walk. After which time I will be a bad pixie and do a half mile time trial. This is for 2 reasons. A - because I am interested to see how I am feeling - my speedwork on the tready means I should do the half mile in about 5-5.55 mins and I want to see if that is purely the tready pulling me or if I can run that! B - Also for my course I have to do a fitness test that I can repeat at the end of the course to see the improvement, half a mile seems a good distance as it isn't too far so I won't kill myself, I can also use the canal path (easy under foot) and I can also do a flat trail half mile at home in 15 (ish) weeks at t

Did you miss me??? Well what have I been up to? Not a lot really! We now have the foundations of a rockery at home and because of all the work involved in that I didn't do any running this weekend but I think that I burnt up as many calories if not more as I spent hours digging and moving mud and large stones!! I also have lost another 2lb so things are looking up! As a result of last weekends lack of running I am repeating last weeks training plan (which means another murderous speedwork session on Wednesday!). Tomorrow night I am also going to Loughborough college to listen to a talk/lecture on Exercise and Health as part of my Get Fit For Life course. It also covers using a gym ball so I am taking mine with me to play (give it a proper use and find out if it is too large for me!) Tonight I intend to do 30mins on the tready but if I don't it won't be too bad as the boss is off all week so I can run at lunchtime!! This weekend will see me going to my mum's so I have t

I am planning an overhaul of this here site so if it disappears I won't be far away!! Try looking in the garage on the tready!! Actually this address may disappear within the next two weeks ... I'll keep you posted! Pixie

Well I have to be honest I was dreading today's speedwork! I knew that 400m was a little under 3mins at 8.5km ph so therefore this would be the longest and hardest session! Which means I opted to go for 8.5km ph instead of the 9 of last week so that I did it! 5mins warm up was a bit of walking and jogging at a sedate 6.5. After this I stopped and stretched my calves out for 2-3mins as they felt very tight which made me a little concerned that this would be hard and that I would have to pay real hard attention to any niggles. Then off I went and the calves were fine, 400m and a 2 min jog recovery at 6.5 again. Felt odd jogging and not walking but I did it. Then it was time for 600m and it's getting harder but I did it and managed to do the jog recovery. Next was the one I was dreading - 800m or approx 6mins, I knew where I had to go and went for it, talking in my head and working out how far to go. HR rose to 193 and gnome decided to join me on the exercise bike and annoy me by

Yes I got all confused! For some reason I thought I was on week 5 so off I went last night and did 30 mins at 5:1 with the running at 7.5 and the walking at 4.5 + warm up cool down giving 4.2km in 40 mins. The 7.5 is starting to feel easy as such and the good news is that 1min rest was fine, I wasn't struggling to recover. So a good run. Came in to record stats and realised it should have been 5:2! Oh well no harm done - makes up (sort off!) for missing 20mins last week! I'm really pleased with the tready and even though I am using it lat (10.45 last night) it does mean I am sleeping well and I'm not bothered about going out that late. Will rest today and then tomorrow is speedwork - and a harder session. 5min jog warm up & 5min walk warm down then pyramid session 400m, 600m, 800m. 600m, 400m with 2mins jog recovery. 400m takes a bit under 3mins so this one will be harder! Not sure if I should try for the 9 again like last week or drop to 8.5km ph. The 8.5 seems favori

Friday : I did managed to leave work a tiny bit early but only managed to get 20 mins in on the tready. This was good as I was going out for a meal, bad cos I was due to do 40 mins and OK as my legs were tired from the speedwork on Thursday (so I found out after 10 mins!). I was in bed at 10 so I must have been tired! Saturday : I Chilled! Sunday : Busy day - hovered the house, mowed the lawns and did some gardening. Cooked the roast and chilled. By 9pm I had no reason not to do those 40mins I tried to fit in Friday. I changed then had a nose bleed. So I sat down and sulked with a blood splatter GSR tee really annoyed I hadn't done my run instead of mowing the lawns. Tee now soaking in vanish and pixie now off to sulk in bed. Feel like taking tomorrow off work as I feel yucky, with a belly ache from where I swallowed some blood (well I didn't have a belly ache before!) but what would that achieve. I'm also seeing the Dr tomorrow morning (so will be late in anyway!) about my

I am so glad I got my tready! Again home from work, tea done and hubby off to work and I'm alone to go play on my tready! Intervals tonight @10.30PM: 2mins walking @4.5 5 mins @7.5 pyramid intervals 1Hard 1walk 2Hard 1walk 3Hard 1walk 2Hard 1walk 1Hard 1walk The walk was my normal 4.5 and the hard was 9km ph!! My best yet, hard but good! Won't increase next week, will stick to 8.5-9km ph! Then, as The Count has said 40 mins exercise is optimum, I walked at 4.5 for the remaining 20 mins on hills, max 9.5%. Final score 40mins 3.9km. Considering I never ventured above 7km in my past treadmill life and claimed they were horrid things and I couldn't run on them, just tripped over my feet the whole time etc etc I don't think I am doing badly!! Tomorrow I collect Gnome, meeting the in-laws and gnome at a pub near Lichfield at 7.30PM. If I get to leave work early I might do my 40mins tomorrow and rest all weekend, otherwise it will be rest tomorrow and Saturday and 40 mins Sun

{sniffle} Today I went for my Bod Pod assesment for the start of my Get Fit For Life course. I had a rough idea of my body fat (31% ish max 34% I guessed) so wasn't too worried. I know I have 2-3st to lose so anything she said wouldn't be a shock. MAJOR mistake. HUGE understatement. 39.7% fat that's approx 30kg of fat or 66lbs of fat or 4.5st of fat that's a lot by any stretch of the imagination. the lady was very nice and said she sees a lot of peeps over 50% fat but it didn't help really. The Facts: 23-30% <- fat level is acceptable for good health 31-40% fat is excess fat <- indicates an excess accumulation of fat over time! >40% risky/ high body fat It's a 15wk course after which the exercise will be repeated (includes taking 5 difference measurements too) and she would like to see me drop to near 30% GOAL: Drop by 5-10% getting as close to 30% as possible This is a major shock, upset me actually as I was expecting up to 34% (knowing I am fat!) bu