September 2005 Archives

Yesterday afternoon's run was quite relaxing - taking some stress off my shoulders and clearing my head after a really rough day at work - I didn't have much time to myself over lunch and working on as many things at once makes you wonder if you did the right thing with each one.

The run was good though - Andy joined me on the Cloud trail, although he was on a mountain bike, riding alongside me while I was puffing and panting, trying to keep a relatively good pace for the whole 29'00". I did manage to keep a roughly steady pace, which made me completely and utterly satisfied with the run.

Something I've noticed is the darkness that arrives so early at night now - when we started running the sun only set at around 8:00 PM. Now it goes under before 7:00 PM and since I only leave the house after 6, it sometimes feels like its a race against the sunset.

This morning I printed out some entry forms for the Goose Fair Gallop 5 mile which I intend to do on Sunday - mind you I need to make sure I get up nice and early to make it to the start! It'll serve as a nice long run with lots of people around me and Andy is considering doing it with me. If he doesn't, I'll ask him to take a picture or two :)

Now it is time to take lunch :)

224?!?! My heartrate went up to 224bpm? I suspect not, but that it is a slight glitch on my Forerunner's part. Or rather, I hope so. It wasn't for long, just 5 or 6 seconds, but ... that isn't supposed to be able to happen, is it?

In any case....

The run itself went pretty smoothly. I enjoyed it; running in the strong winds of autumn reminded me of home and the fact that in 11 weeks I'll be in sunny South Africa while the rest of the UK and Europe will be in the midst of winter.

I found a race that we can run while we're there - a half marathon that'll hopefully be as much fun as our training at the moment.

The weekend was good - I managed to do a few chores around the house and discovered that gardening is a great cross training exercise that should be approached with caution and gloves. My hands are still sore after the amount of pruning I did around the house - the upside being that we now get sun on the house in the afternoon since I snipped a few trees too short. We ended up having to take 14 bags full of garden refuse to the tip yesterday morning. Fun fun fun :)

I have one hard week left before I get a "resting week". :)

I just had the most fabulous run! I think I've picked up some speed somewhere and it really feels great when I run without thinking and manage to get a time like this.

Tonight I ran from home and Andy was on the bike next to me. Before I started I decided that I'd only run 4km and after that cool down and walk home. The course we went out on is about 7km in total.

The first km I thought I was going to die. My legs felt really heavy - the time after 1km : 6'02". I carried on running, working my way up a hill and just relaxing, listening to the sound of the bike on the road. After the second km I looked at my watch and was pretty satisfied to see that my pace have picked up.

1km further - my legs felt really light and I knew that things were going a lot faster than it normally did.

When I finished I just HAD to look at what the time was, not to mention the splits.

1km : 6'02"
2km : 5'21" (11'23")
3km : 4'52" (16'15")
4km : 4'38" (20'54")

I was so excited I nearly forgot that I was supposed to cool down! Andy must've thought I was crazy because I had a huge smile on my face and no-one could wipe it off :)

My bike ride on Tuesday really took a lot out of me - the course isn't of the flattest, and there are a lot of hills in the course (if I can train on this, hills won't be a problem in the future!) since wherever you may want to go from our village, you will hit a hill. My legs were incredibly sore by the end of the ride and it took a walk and a good massage from Andy to give me back the feeling in my legs.

So yesterday was a "rest day". I took an easy 20 minutes of running on grass and mixed it with an easy 20 minutes of swimming after that. My legs were feeling a lot better by last night and I managed to get some energy back. Tonight I'll be running as per normal, but at least my legs won't be falling off anymore. The swim last night was also surprisingly quiet - there were almost no people in the pool - lane swimming finished just before we arrived - and kids weren't splashing around.

Andy's been put on rest until further notice, which leaves me without a training partner for running. His hip started hurting on Sunday during our run and last night he jogged for 15 minutes until it hurt again and he had to stop. Running without a partner is always a little harder since when you don't feel like running, you tend to just stop and rather take a rest. When I run with him though, we end up being race horses to each other - one goes faster and the other feels that they should keep up. I have fun training with him, I'm just hoping he recovers soon and then I'll do my easy runs with him until he can join me for the longer ones.

On October the 1st, the entries open for Ironman UK. I'll probably need a reminder to enter :) I've been sitting, looking at the recommended training for Ironman and my knees started shaking just a little. I'm not sure whether what I feel is fear or excitement. Although I'm sure I'll be fine, it is still quite a daunting idea to do swimming, cycling and running for 12 hours or more. On one day.

Trying to swim in a pool where there are other people splashing around is amusing. More so because some people expect other to give way to their kids (who will, without a second thought, swim right over/ into you) all the time. This was the case last night. One child went as far as to watch me approach, stepping in front of me and walking towards me. It must've have frustrated him slightly when I changed my course and swam around him. He then turned around and as if intentional, made sure that this time he stayed in my path, so that I would have to stop. I stopped. I gave him an earful. His mom gave me an earful. I couldn't help myself and informed her that he obviously takes after her. If she approves of his disregard and disrespect for other peoplek I wonder why she took such an offense to my statement.

By all means, I don't expect anyone to keep out of my way when I swim at a pool during non-lane swimming times, but don't go out of your way to make someone else's swimming experience an unpleasant one. The last few lengths of the swim was fun, I swam around the poeple playing in the pool and some kids dove under me while I swam and waved at me. From tomorrow though, I think I'll be doing my swimming during lane swimming times only until I join some club sessions.

Then this morning I woke up and my legs made it clear that they were in no mood to run. A slight stiffness in them made me feel sluggish. A decision of will was made and with a promise to myself to take it easy, I went out.

The first 5 minutes went by without me noticing. The second 5 minutes I felt a little heavy, but the run still felt easy. The third 5 minutes I ran across wet clay; my legs didn't want to do that. Then I got off the clay and the next 9 minutes went okay, although I could feel that I was still tired from the weekend and yesterday.

Tonight I have a bike ride scheduled and tomorrow morning a short run. I think I'll see how I feel before I tackle those and if I do it, rather take it a little easier than I intended in the first place. No use in over-doing it :)

Waking up on a morning when it is cold is hard. Waking up and going for a run on a cold morning is harder. That is, however, what I did this morning. Andy woke me up with a cup of coffee and left the house with a 'Enjoy your run!' coming up the stairs before he closed the door. When I considered not going for a run then, a twinge of guilt kicked me out of bed and dragged me outside.

The run was quiet - apart from my breathing and footsteps on the road. Even though it was after 7 already, there were not a single car around to disturb me. I ran past a woman and her dog. She smiled at me. I ran past someone that was out for a walk. He nodded at me. There were no birds, no animals, nothing else that made a sound.

When I finished, I was out of breath and completely happy. It was a good run. It might have been hard to get out, but in the end, it felt like it was worth it.

Going to Healing was a spur of the moment decision on Friday. Once I got home, I went inside for a cup of coffee and Andy started packing the bikes. At 20h00 we were on our way towards Grimsby and shortly after 22h00 we were there.

Andy's dad was slightly surprised to see that we brought bikes along, but he didn't say much, just helped us unpack.

Saturday morning we took the bikes and explored the area around his parents house, before managing to get slightly lost and thus increasing the time we were away from home. Andy's mom wanted to go see Pride and Prejudice with me, and we had to be home before 13h00 in order to leave on time.

We got home after a rather long extra bit, but it was an absolutely lovely outing.

Then we thought that we'd go for our run this morning, but discovered that some clothing was left behind... it interfered with our plans ever so slightly. We left his parents' two hours early and made our way back to our house.

On arrival I don't think even 10 minutes was spent before we were out of the door and pounding the road. I felt really good and the pace didn't feel that fast as we made our way to the Lount footpath.

The previous time that we ran on this particular footpath, we lost the path and ended up in restricted area - we had to go through security to get OUT - leaving them to wonder how we ever got in.

This time we managed to find the missing path, but once on it, it became clear that we wouldn't stay on it for long. 100m after we got onto it, the grass became a little wobbly. A tractor must've been on there recently and the danger of our ankles getting twisted was too high, so we turned around and went back on the way we came. On my way out of this field of doom, a few nettles stung me - the burning has yet to leave my legs.

We ran towards the Cloud trail and it was at that stage that I realised we were going much faster than we normally do.

We normally run around 5'55"/km, but today we had the following splits :

1 km 5'41"
2 km 5'49"
3 km 5'49"
4 km 5'52"
5 km 5'17"
6 km 4'49" - 33'17" total!

It didn't feel that fast, but it was not what I expected. I expected to run at around 6'00"/km and after 6km I wanted to slow down and run the last 4 minutes slowly in order to cool down somewhat.

After 6km I started running slowly... REALLY slowly. Andy's hip was sore; I walked a bit with him, before jogging the remaining few minutes for a total of 6.76km.

I love surprises like that :)

On another note - my ankle feels absolutely fine. I think the 2 days rest definitely did it some good :)

My ankle feels a little stiff today, but it doesn't hurt - I take this as a good sign, but try to move it around and warm it up during the day. Luckily there is nothing planned in the way of running today, which means I can rest it until tomorrow and see how it feels then. I'm sure its fine though.

The plan for next week :

Running was... interesting tonight.

On my way home, the rain came pouring down by the bucket, almost bringing traffic to a halt, but an hour and a half after I left work, I got home. Andy had a mug of hot chocolate waiting for me - always a good thing.

While he was making supper we were contemplating just staying in tonight. We were going to go for our run once my hot chocolate were finished, but it seemed more and more likely we weren't going to go at all - the rain seemed to get worse, and with the wind blowing like it did, we just didn't want to face the weather.

After supper our minds changed. The wind had stopped and the rain was only drizzling now. We put on a few layers of clothes and out of the door we went.

1km later we hit our first hiccup. I stepped into a hole covered by water and twisted my ankle slightly. Half a minute later I felt okay though, so we were on our way again. We jogged a little slower, but as I didn't feel any pain, we picked up the pace gently. Our aim never was to run fast tonight, just to run.

Another half a kilometer passed before the rain once again tooks its place around us. We were soaked. We did however finish the 32'00" run and managed to run in around less than 6'00"/km, so we were happy.

Now I'm just waiting to see if my ankle got hurt badly - at the moment I'm icing it and then keeping it warm. We'll see tomorrow.

On another note - thanks for importing my mileage Jeff! Now I can start putting in more!

I love winter time. It reminds me of when I was younger and doing cross-country. I loved XC more than track and my mom (at that time my coach) wouldn't let me do road races until I was 16. I loved the fact that every race we ran had a different course - things didn't get boring.

This may also explain why I enjoy running around our village as well. The trail I run on have so many different routes that I can take, and the area around our village are really runner-friendly. There aren't a lot of cars racing from point A to point B and if I feel like it I can always disappear on the National Cycle Network trails which have areas where cars aren't allowed.

Yesterday evening we went for a mountain bike ride around the area - we took a few turns that we haven't thought of before, and ended up getting onto one of the busier roads in the area on our way home. My butt got slightly sore from the ride, but I figure that's because I'm not quite used to it just yet. The road bike doesn't seem to hurt me as much as the mountain bike does though. Andy mentioned that his quads were really feeling a bit stiff - I just nodded.

This morning I planned to go for a bike ride, but because of the rain decided against it. There's something about rain and roads with cars on it that scares me. Methinks an investment in a trainer is called for... Tonight we're going for a run - about 32'00

The ride yesterday was great. I only went for a 35 minute minute cycle, but the feeling was wonderful. When I finished, I was out of breath, excited, and my legs felt a little wobbly - to be expected. It was just great. Andy and myself meant to go for a run afterwards, but he wanted to eat (it was already close to 19h00) and since the run was actually scheduled for today, we decided to rather give it a skip.

I got to bed at midnight (I'm going to be a little tired today!) and when I woke up this morning my legs felt completely dead. I didn't stretch and cool down properly, meaning that my legs got that strange stiffness that you sometimes get after a hard session.

I've rethought my goals for the next year. I've decided that I'd rather hope for an entry into the London Marathon, follow that up with Ironman UK and then in 2007 attempt Comrades. We're not planning a trip to South Africa next year, so rather than taking a week off without Andy, I'll rather stay and then we can plan a trip to SA in 2007.

I need something to drink. You all have a wonderful day now.

Friday afternoon we went for a 20km ride along the Cloud Trail. The mountain bikes seem to have gotten used to us and no longer make our bums ache when we go out on it, although at times you do feel a little uncomfy - I guess it all takes getting used to. The ride was quite relaxing, playful and in a sense we were just exploring the route, as the furthest we've gone down it previously was 5km. It turns out that it is quite lovely and relaxing, and it didn't go onto a road until the point that we turned around. Then again, I didn't expect it to, since I looked it up on the internet. We turned around just as it merges with a road - not because we didn't want to get onto the road, but because we planned to turn around after 6 miles and that's where the 6 mile point was.

Saturday morning we went to a shop and I got a new road bike to play with whenever Andy doesn't go out for a ride with me. As it happens, I couldn't even try it out on Saturday because of the pouring rain. Sunday however was a different story. Sunday afternoon I took the road bike and Andy took the mountain bike and we headed out for a ride - hardly fair since he wouldn't have been able to keep up. I did a few accelarations and then slowed down and waited for him. He was peddling his little heart out, bless him. By the time we got home I was still relatively okay, but he was in his words : dead.

This week I want to start doing proper training again. Andy will be coming with me for the runs and we'll go out for a few mountain bike rides, but the swimming part I have to do on my own mostly. Unless I cycle in the morning and go swimming in the afternoon. Not a problem though, I'm looking forward to it :)

Since we live out in the country and the village is surrounded by farms, sometimes you walk out the door into a rather horrible smell. You can't always just stand the smell either, which was the case last night. I climbed out of my car, trying not to gag until I got in the door and then shut every window and door tightly.

The stench was horrible. How do you possibly run in that? Sometimes it doesn't smell quite as bad and you run in a direction that will at some stage lead you out of the offensive area. Last night we had supper, and after supper Andy dared to go outside and see if there was any improvement. Luckily there was.

We put on our gear and for about 25 minutes jogged, trying to get used to just running together and having some fun. Andy had a stitch (for most of the way), but kept up until the last 10 minutes. I left him behind (he asked me to) for 5 minutes, then turned around and once I got back to him, jogged the rest of the way home with him.

Then we took out those bikes and went for a short ride. Our bottoms felt a little tender after the previous evening's ride, which probably means we should either get other seats, harden up, or get gel seats. Whichever would be our choice.

Tonight we're going to go watch a cricket match, so I doubt there'll be any running happening, but tomorrow we'll take the bikes out for a ride on one of the trails and I'll probably end up running a few miles over the weekend as well. From next week normality will return and everything will be as it should.

Last night when I got home, I realised that I had gotten my tax refund and the one thing that I said I'd do was to get us some mountain bikes so we can go riding together. Road bikes are fun, but they're fiddly and if you go riding on the terrain we're bound to hit, they'd be in pieces after our first ride.

So off to Decathlon we went to have a look at what they've got and ran into two very nice mountain bikes that are now situated in our dining room - we were too tired to look for a space at 22h00 in the evening. Once we got home, we felt we needed to test them out, so we took a 2 mile ride to Adas and Celine's place. It was absolutely wonderful. My legs ached like it hadn't in ages.

After a mug of tea, we went back home along the same route - but believe me, the hills are much worse on the way home. It was great fun to ride; when we got home we were sweaty and out of breath. It was great.

We want to go riding over weekends - want to spend less time inside on weekends and more outside, and now we don't have much of an excuse to not go. Those bikes are bound to get a fair share of riding in the next few years.

Well, for the past week I haven't really run. My mom has come to visit and since we walk in excess of 6 miles a day, at the end of the day I'm generally just too sore and tired to even attempt going for a run.

Last week myself and Andy sent in our ballot entries for the London Marathon. We were joking about the fact that only one of us might get an entry. It'd be slightly amusing if he was the one that got it since he hasn't run a marathon before and plans on that one being his first. He's quite sure that if he's the only one that gets an entry, he won't attempt running. I somehow don't see him not running after all the training.

My Garmin Forerunner 301 arrived, and I'm quite happy with it. It seems like a bit of a waste, but to get a feel for it, we went for a walk around the lake at Clumber Park. When we got home I managed to see how "well" it works and I think I'm really going to enjoy the new gadget - it is yet another thing that I have to put on before my run, but hopefully it'll help a little.

Adas last week asked if he could start running with us again. If you remember, a few months ago I wrote about him. He stopped running with us - because we run too little - and he was going to rather get on a treadmill in the gym. Well, it is about 3 months later and he's been in the gym about 5 times since then. He's gained about a stone and obviously now feels that we run a sufficient amount for him to start running with us again.

I don't have a problem with him running with us. The only thing I fear is that since myself and Andy run about 4 days a week, and he'll only run about twice weekly, he'll end up a significant amount unfitter than us and if Andy feels sorry for him, might end up destroying our training sessions. I know that I should probably then schedule our easier training sessions for when Ad runs with us, but then that's not exactly good for his training either.

I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Its early. I should go and switch on the kettle and make everyone some coffee, served with rusks and other breakfast treats.

Hope everyone is still having a wonderful time training. I'll be back on Monday!