Fat man leading the way by digby8

I have no excuses for not blogging and I'm not sure why I haven't made the time.....

But here goes. 

My last blog was before Christmas and the Rudolph run and I will admit to being very low about my running, it was hard and painful.  Christmas came with a bang, very long hours, loads of junk food and maybe just a little of the Christmas spirit.  Somehow I kept going thanks to my running partner and my personal trainer both making me plan to exercise and to keep goals in mind.  I peaked at about 15 stone 3 but now I am seeing 14 stone 8 on the scales on a good day.

I have not had a proper run (with medals and stuff) since the last blog but am well into my training for the Livepool half marathon in 2 weeks and will (fingers crossed) be trashing my PB of 2 hours 8.  Over the last few weeks I have started to find a decent pace over 8/9 miles that should get me in under 2:03!!  I am running between 20 and 25 miles a week + cross training and feel relatively good about training and running again which took some time. 

Anyone going to Edinburgh on the 31st?

10 days to Christmas and 6 until I put on fancy dress to run in the Rudpolph Red Nose fun run.  I think I need a little silliness to remind me of the fun days - last year there were some great costumes so I will be making more of an effort this time.

On the plus side I will be running this all the way as well so I won't have the moment last year when covering an exposed hill at minus 2 without a hat, shivering wondering WHY WHY WHY!!!

Don't care about times, just care about the run and my friends.  Christmas parties will no doubt chunk me out and slow me down, but that just gives me something to aim to change!

Happy holidays

Sometimes I do wonder if it is possible to plan for the future.  I can't even keep to a scheduled run at the moment, and certainly can't seem to even get time to log on and do recreational blogging..

Apparently its nearly two weeks since my last chance to sit down and reflect, mostly because of work and the stresses that's causing - a symptom of which was that I got the date wrong for the Wesham 10K I was supposed to run last weekend - I was only 23 hours late, why didn't they wait?  Anyway, it was -4C and driving there was like a picture postcard and not having to run was a blessing - that was until I still put the shoes on and ran 8 miles locally as penance.

I am now 6 months from the Edinburgh Marathon and have decided to do a 26 week training plan and it looks soooo scary!  I'm in week 1 and should have ran 3 x 3miles by now - instead I will have ran 4.5 and did 1 90 minute gym session (sounds close enough to  me!)  However, how I will manage to keep the 6 days a week schedule going later on I just don't know.  I would like to think I will get into an early morning ritual, but without the running partner there I'm not so sure..... 

Anyway....  Hats on, gloves on and out we go!

Its been a wierd week, we've lost the MD in my company for him to "pursue other interests" - now there's a phrase!  The interim manager has been round meeting everyone to mixed response so work has been very forced.  I am in an am-dram society and our play has been on all this week so I have been supporting the cast and joining them for a post performance snifter most nights.... Play great, lack of sleep and decent eating habits bad.......  Oh well, I'm still around the 14-9 marker so 5 pounds lost since Dublin.

This week has seen 2 runs and a gym session, the first run proving that the legs are still slow only just squeezing under 50 mins for five miles due to a half mile sprint finish - and we felt like we were running fast.  The second run I did on my own and decided to fartlek a bit to try it out. 

• first quarter mile 10 min pace,
• next 0.75 8 min pace. 
• next mile 10 min,
• next mile 9 min,
• next 0.25 8.30 min pace,
• next 0.5 9.30 pace,
• last 0.25 flat out (7 min pace).  

felt good, felt stretched but not battered so fingers crossed using this will improve my speed.

The gym session was a killer, due to laziness Kristian decided that he could give me a beasting.  I had come in 30 mins earlier and had already done 15 on the cross trainer and 15 mins treadmill at 11 kph.  Lets do "a bit" of cardio after checking my plans and recent run.  For the record, 40 minutes of sprint training is NOT "a bit".  The worst was sprint to other end of the hall, turn then catch a tennis ball - failure = 5 press ups at the end (then sprint back pass ball and sprint out again x 5).  The last 4 sets saw me doing 50 penalty push ups......  Then he took me to the grappler to kill me off (seated rope climbing machine), but I survived and staggered 20 mins on the treadmill to cool down - Boy have I ached since.  Well, next post will be after the Wesham 10K where I am hoping to get close to a PB!