Not "a walk in the park"

Last night was the first time I did a run in the light for ages. I took advantage by going for a run through the parks, which I remembered from the summer as being a pleasant run. A typical case of your memory having a bias towards only remembering the good aspects of things...

After 4 minutes (in particular, at the top of Meersbrook Park) I felt like my heart was trying to wriggle up through my throat. This in turn caused my breathing to sound like I was in some gas attack or at least lying on my death bed. Oh yeah, and there was a distinct blood-like taste in my mouth!

It's a hard run because it just carries on going up for another 15 minutes after this point so you end up trying to recover going up hill. At the top I wished that someone could put me on a skateboard and roll me back down the road. Though, to be honest, after 5 minutes of running down the road I felt a lot better.

My chest feels delicate today - I must have run particularly hard yesterday. Looking back on it, I do remember thinking when I've done this run in the past, "why am I doing this? - it's horrible."

I have an idea for my 5k course which I'll have look at tomorrow morning.

Dale Winton Challenge

Did a run called the Dale Winton Challenge last night. It's the longest of the routes I do (passing 4 supermarkets) and I did it because I've played 2 football matches this week and thought I should do some running without stopping all the time.

I found the run dragged a bit last night - all the roads seemed to have been made longer since last time I did it!

What I haven't done yet, which I promised I would do is find 5k and run it to find out what my current time is. I'll try to find a route on a map later.

Further Goals

In addition to running the 5k in 16 minutes there are some other goals that I will be keeping in mind over the next few months.

In June I will be a member of a strong team in the Mountain Mayhem 24 hour mountain bike race. I've not ridden my bike hard for over a year so I will need to put in some hard work between now and then to make sure I'm up to the standard. I will be picking up the turbo trainer from home in a couple of weeks and in addition to the running I am doing I will do bike training 2 or three times week.

With all this biking and running I think I should be in good form to do a Duathlon (run/bike/run) so am entering one in the middle of July.

Two weeks before the 5k I am running the Stratford Half Marathon. I'm confident that I'll be able to finish this in a reasonable time but I'll need to do a few long runs in April to make sure I'm properly prepared.

I start my new job in two weeks and will be able to leave for work later. At the moment I leave around 6:30-6:45am and in future I will be able to leave aroun 8:30am. This will mean that I can do a run in the morning (even though I HATE running in the mornings) and biking in the evening. Even doing this, I think I'll have plenty of time to do other things as I'll be able to get the biking finished by 7pm.

I'll see how it all works out anyway.

Varied Weekend

Although there was no dedicated running involved, I had a good, active weekend.

It started on Friday night (when I felt in no shape to do anything due to either my squash game or the fast Grand Old Duke of York - probably the squash) when Elly asked me to do the cycle challenge. This has nothing to do with bikes. Instead you hav to lie on your back and then put Same Old Stuff by The Feeling on. As soon as the music starts you have to cycle your legs in the air. This sounds easy but the angle you have your legs from the floor is closer to 20 degrees than 90 degrees. You also have to extend your legs fully for each cycle. All in all it's exhausting. Same Old Stuff goes on for ages too. The challenge is to cycle your legs all the way through Same Old Stuff and then see how many seconds you can do into the next track.

On Saturday I went for a long walk in the Peaks which was really needed as by this stage (after the cycle challenge) my legs felt terrible! The walk was generally tiring for me as my legs hurt so much and it was so hilly and windy. Having said that it was very enjoyable and did the trick sorting out my legs; on Sunday they felt fine.

Sunday morning I went for a blast for an hour on my mountain bike round some woods a couple of miles from my house. Then I went to play football and felt great all the way through.

I've got a busy week this week but will need to find time to dedicate to running.

Grand Old Duke of York 2

I was curious to see how fast I could do the Grand Old Duke of York after I felt I had run within what I felt I could do last week.

I started off down the road and thought my attempt was going to be pathetic due to a stern headwind that was trying to slow me down all the way up the hill. The wind seemed to find some extra gusto as I turned up the final 400m of the hill where the gradient steepens slightly and by the time I had got the top I felt pretty wasted. I looked at my watch - 15.21 to the top of the hill (I was hoping to be quicker than that but the wind made things difficult). I turned round and ran down the hill with my legs feeling like jelly. Going down the hill I tried to stride out as much as I could and half way down I felt well recovered so put a good effort in all the way to the end.

I finished the run at 28.43, around 9 minutes faster than I did it last Thursday.

I didn't warm down properly, though, and today I'm aching so much I found it difficult to get out of the car.

Tonight, I think I'll go for a walk to stretch my aching legs as I always find that this makes me recover better. Probably something to do with getting rid of crystals of lactic acid or something.

Squash

It was difficult for me to get out on Monday and Tuesday this week due to a band photoshoot, practice and gig in Nottingham.

I was going to go running last night but a friend invited me for a game of squash, which I thought would still be good exercise - especially as one of things I'm trying to work on is running faster, rather than longer. It was pretty hard work anyway!

On a side note, I did manage to get some running in yesterday anyway. I was late to the squash game and couldn't get a parking space anywhere near the place so I had to run some distance down the road. I was just running down the road thinking that I was enjoying this little warm-up and the next thing I know I'm flying through the air as I slipped on some ice and lost contact with ground only to find it again with the heel of my right hand. Ouch!

Tired legs

Went to stay in High Wycombe over the weekend. On Saturday morning Iwent for a run before breakfast. I intended to go out for around 35 minutes and as I didn't know the area I just did an out and back (out for 17 and a bit minutes then turn around and go back).

I'm not used to running in the mornings and ater 7 minutes 34 seconds I felt terrible. I felt tired, sick and dizzy - and I hadn't even been out the night before! I carried on going though and continued to feel awful. Then, suddenly around 23 or 24 minutes into the run I started to feel a lot better. I was able to pick up my pace a bit and stride out for the last 10 or 15 minutes of the run. I got back to base camp after 38 minutes of running.

The next day I was woken up by Elly's mum saying, "I'm putting on some breakfast if you want any?" followed immediately by Elly's dad saying, "are you coming for a run before breakfast?" I reckon at 7:55am I was deep in sleep, dreaming happily and at 7:58am I was running along a frosty path with Elly's dad. Again, unsurprisingly, I felt terrible. The run was hard and every so often Elly's dad would say, "right you run up there and sprint over to that point and I'll meet you over there" and "right, here's a good hill - I'll just run up here then you do a couple of loops." We were out for over an hour and by the time I we got back I was sure that Elly's dad had been trying to kill me!

We went for a walk in the afternoon which nice as it let me stretch my tired legs.

Fortunately, football was cancelled.

Grand Old Duke of York

Did a run I call the Grand Old Duke of York last night (goes 2 miles to the top of a hill than back down the same way). Took just under 38 minutes for the whole thing. I can do it a lot faster but I was running well within myself last night.

I'm away this weekend so it might be difficult for me to find a 5k route to do my first time on. I'll see what I can manage. I've got my running shoes with me though so I'll make sure I get out for a run either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Then I've got 5-a-side football on Sunday evening so that'll be a good active weekend.

The first step of me blowing away the field at the Stratford Triatholon

Here's my first post. Once I've run away with the victory on the run stage of the Stratford Triathlon I will be look back on this and think, "ah, this is where it all started. One day people will fall upon this place as a monument of inspiration, a symbol of hope that all is not lost and that with just a few small steps (running round the block in he evenings) just about anything can be achieved..." Perhaps a tear will drizzle down my cheek. Or perhaps I'll be raining sweat.

What I'm doing here is procrastinating. I'm about to go out on a run and due to my 6am start yesterday, a drive from Solihull to Nottingham, a full day at work training a new member of staff (which I found very tiring), a drive from Nottingham to Manchester to do a gig, a drive from Manchester to Sheffield (the long way round because the main road was closed due to subsidence) and a 1am bedtime, I am very tired.

Still, sitting around feeling tired (I'm mentally tired - not physically tired - driving's hardly tough on the old sticks (legs)) won't make me run any faster. There's plenty of time for sitting around later. And I'll be able to be smug about it then too!

Right, I'm off to get changed...