31/03/2013
Where has the time gone? I meant to get this posted last week but time and circumstances have conspired to pile things up to such a degree my to-do list has it’s own to-do list! Not good!
So five weeks in and the initial euphoria was starting to wear off as I mentioned previously, and as is often the case, when you’re experiencing difficulties with one thing, then many others will very often appear to turn to crap as well… sod’s law or whatever you want to call it, this was the week that Hell decided to come calling at my door… and what a doozy it was… I don’t think one area of life was unaffected!
And then, just to add to the delights of the week, I had to slightly extend my longer run… 70 minutes along the freezing seafront… when it was attempting to rain/sleet/snow… into a nasty headwind that not only saw my baseball cap flying off (gave up on that in the end) and freeze my hands within 5 minutes but one that meant I couldn’t actually breathe when facing straight ahead. 35 minutes of that before I could turn around… there was a saving grace however… the weather was so crap and cold that it meant there was virtually no-one out… and therefore no-one to see the grimaces I pulled, the language I muttered… or the colour I turned!
It’s at times like these that finding positivity and maintaining focus is especially hard… time to be pleased with the small gains… health results that came back positive (or rather negative LOL), college work that went well, loving supportive friends and family, a fantastic personal trainer who on seeing the state of me on the Wednesday not only boosted my confidence but took the time out to give me a hug… and even of being grateful that I got to finish the cholera vaccinations (seriously… it does not taste like raspberry Andrews salts like they tell you it will!) which had been sitting in my fridge for a week. Probably a very good deterrent if anyone had wanted to raid it for chocolate…
Training for Week 6 included:
***lunchtime treadmill run of 30 minutes x 1
***PT session with Activate Plus PT x 1
***lunchtime outdoor run of 40 minutes x 1
***lunchtime treadmill run of 40 minutes x 1
***weekend run of 70 minutes x 1
***2 hour karate session
Total overall running: 19.45 miles / 180 minutes (3 hours)
Unfortunately the yoga had to get sacrificed yet again due to needing to leave the office early to get to the hospital, and much as I would have loved to do it afterwards, that was Tuesday and the worst day of Hell week and I had to go straight from hospital to college! A very long and hard day indeed. My Friday treadmill pace also was a bit slower but I put that down to the Cholera as I had the same reaction as the previous week… it’s obviously not something that agrees with me 😀
Overall, I was pleased with how the running progressed, how my hip handled the increase in exercise… and it held a valuable lesson in learning where and who I do and can learn on when I need some extra motivation to get me through the tougher times and just where my psychological challenges lie! I wonder how many other runners encounter weeks like this…
But it got done which is what matters… so to quote one of my Texan twitter friends (who happens to be in sports himself)… “I GOT THIS” 😉
Links:
My fundraising page: MichellePayne13
Street Child
Sierra Leone Marathon 2013
© 2013 Michelle Payne
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Sierra Leone Marathon 2013 - #SLM13 | Tagged: 9 min mile, achievement, ActivatePlusPT, alive, bodies, celebration, choice, cholera, college, consequences, family, friends, goals, gojukai, growing, gym, half marathon, health, Hell, hospital, inspiring, joy, karate, learning, life, love, marathon, motivation, nature, nausea, personal trainer, running, self-awareness, Sierra Leone, SLM13, Street Child, strong, support, treadmill, twitter, vaccinations, weather, yoga | 
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Posted by Dreamweaver Consulting
17/03/2013
And so the initial euphoria has started to wear off, aches and pains getting ramped up a bit… people actually enjoy this?
Just joking… well not the first two bits, they’re definitely true… but I am strangely getting a bit hooked. Before, I would have begged to stay on the treadmill, in the nice warm gym, with all the equipment and most especially the foam rollers that I have to use on my legs afterwards due to past issues. But now… now I’d really rather be outside… even if it’s raining a bit… not if the heavens have opened obviously… or if it’s icy, I have no wish to stack it and end up on crutches… been down that road already and it was not pleasant.
So this week’s training had to be adjusted slightly! Vaccination time! Which meant leaving the office early therefore working through a lunch break instead of running. Doesn’t this look like fun!
Training has included:
***lunchtime treadmill run of 30 minutes x 1
***PT session with Activate Plus PT x 1
***lunchtime outdoor run of 40 minutes x 1
***lunchtime treadmill run of 40 minutes x 1
***weekend run of 60 minutes x 1
Total overall running: 18.43 miles / 170 minutes (2 hour 50 minutes)
To ensure I got my 4 runs in this week, that meant I had to sacrifice something else… so the yoga got kicked to the kerb. Not ideal given I love it and it’s vital for me to keep in so as to stay running healthy (according to my Coach who knows more than a bit about this kind of stuff!). And I had a wee bit of a reaction to some of the vaccinations: the usual very sore arms, a bit of a flu-like reaction and also some lovely nausea thanks to a wonderful one you had to drink, although that didn’t compare to the feeling of almost meeting the floor… I believe the term is Orthostatic Hypotension… sounds kinda cool, but doesn’t feel it. It’s basically that dizziness, where you stand up too quickly and can be attributable to many things such as low blood sugar or over-exertion like running too far too fast (I blame the vaccinations personally rather than running too fast although I did manage to get my first 2 miles that day done in just under a 9 minute mile average *happy days*). And since I was due to go do some karate training, I figured it wise to kick that to the kerb as well. There’s pushing through with a train hard attitude and then there’s pushing through with a stupidity attitude. Having done both in the past, I know which one I choose these days. Saturday thankfully was a full rest day from exercise with the longer run being done on Sunday.
Overall, I’m pleased with how I’ve managed to bring my average pace down especially since I’m new to training in running, and was a bit disappointed that I didn’t improve my pace on today’s run. Still, dropping the pace a bit to work on breathing was probably a very good lesson for me to learn. Looking forward to next week where I get to increase my longer run again.
Getting addicted? Nahhhhh, of course not 😉
Links:
My fundraising page: MichellePayne13
Street Child
Sierra Leone Marathon 2013
© 2013 Michelle Payne
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Posted by Dreamweaver Consulting
Dreamweaver Consulting 