2 More Days

running/ramblings

I did 50minutes of cardio at the gym yesterday and now I am having two days rest before R4K.  It has felt really weird not running since last Sunday and it actually grates on your confidence a bit I think.  I almost feel like running down to the end of the street and back just to make sure I still can 😆  My plan for the next two days is mainly do stretches as often as possible and tomorrow I will also be hydrating myself really well with water.  I had intended to have two alcohol free nights before Sunday but it is 6pm and I have a nice Cab Sav in front of me 😳 , so definitely tomorrow will be alcohol free.  

This will probably be the last time I blog until R4K is over so I really want to thank everyone who pops in and gives me motivation and support 😀  I honestly don’t know if I would have got as far as I have without your comments so thanks again.  Andrew, thanks for that cyber slap on the face, I needed that and I will listen to your order 😆  Crikey, its not the olympics, its a FUN Run so thats what I intend to do, have FUN!!  I hope to catch up with ausrunners and meet the ones I haven’t met yet.  It is going to be a blast 😀  Good luck everyone and as Frankie would say, see you at the finish line!!

Butterflies

ramblings

Had my massage on Monday and like I suspected my achilles and calves were so tight.  I had to deep breathe when she was massaging and at the end she said she so wanted to massage so much deeper.  I am glad I had it done and I will definitely need to be a little bit more organised in that department I think.

As for my sciatica, that seems to have settled for the moment.  Only a slight twinge.  On Monday after long run on the Sunday, I was completely sciatica free and I really believe it was the ice bath I had post run.  Having said that, I will also look into getting that sorted by a Oesteopath, thanks Em and Punch for suggestion.  Its always hard to know where to go for treatment as there are so many options available.  I have found a great little wholistic place in Clifton Hill, so once I get a chance I will follow up on that.

I did my Spin class yesterday and I feel like running today so bad, but I did promise myself I would only x-train this week.  I was thinking about doing Body Balance class but I haven’t done one for ages so maybe I won’t.  I want to make sure everything is in tip top shape for R4K on Sunday.  I do have a pile of house work to do so that should keep me busy.  I always try and do stretches as I busstle around, my family think I have gone stark raving mad 😆

I forgot to mention last week that I have started to count Weight Watcher (WW) points again as I had put on another 1.5kg on top of the already 3kg that I have half hearted been trying to lose for some time 🙄 , well, I am happy to report I have lost that 1.5kg so now I can concentrate on the 3kg again!!  I am going to do it this time as I am sick of being all talk and no action 😳  I am such an emotional eater it drives me insane!

Now, I have to say it I am so nervous about Sunday!  I have had butterflies in my stomach for the last 3 days it is just ridiculous.  I keep trying to remind myself it is just a Fun Run raising money for the Royal Childrens Hospital but I can’t help it.  What if I can’t make the distance and I have to walk heaps??!!  What if I go all whoozy and I faint??!!  I will be so disappointed in myself not to mention embarrassed 😳  I think I am going to be a bit of a wreck on Sunday morning.  Thankfully I only have one child (3yr old) to contend with and myself so that is really good as I am usually quite nervous before these events which then makes me a big time snappy tom.  My 9yr old is doing a sleep over at cousins which I really happy about as he knows how to push my buttons 😉

Last Training Day

running

I did my last training run for the week today and it was a beautiful morning for running.  Heaps of people out and about around the Tan.  I ended up doing 10km but in hind site I should have settled for 8km.  My body was protesting at the 8km mark, mainly my flipping sciatica but I kept on going 😳  Will I ever learn honestly???  Anyway, when I got home I decided to have a ice bath which although was pretty painful to get into 😯 it was really soothing on the legs.  I am now in my skins.  I hope I am not too sore for my massage tomorrow.  I am only going to cross train this week and rest my weary legs so no running at all.

I have decided that at the moment I am a 10km runner but only just, so, I will definitely not be attempting to run the whole way for R4K.  At this stage I think I will walk through the 6km and 12km water stations and then run remaining 3.2km.  I think I should be able to manage that although I am sure it will be slow.  I am gettting a little stressed about getting there on time as I was going to catch the train but the first one is at 7.30am, too late for me!  I thought I read somewhere that extra trains were going to be running but there is no mention on the website.  I think I will ring metlink tomorrow and find out for sure and then really start panicking!!!

ramblings

My next event will probably be Run to the G.  We have to move out of our house and find somewhere else to live so the next couple of months will be busy.  I also have to sort out my niggles as they are still here.  I have no idea why sciatica has returned as I thought that was just a dim memory.  At first I thought it was the x-trainer at gym but I haven’t been using it.  I am not sure if I should go back to Podiatrist to see if it is a orthotic issue.  Maybe they need adjustments??  My right instep rubs on the orthotics on the longer runs now and my right hip is quite sore at times.  Bladdy. bladdy, blah….do you get sick of reading about it because I get darn sick of writing about niggles, thats for sure 👿

Guess who was the dill who thought day-light saving finished next week-end 😳  I woke hubby up at 4am for work, who after 5-10mins of being up, realised it was in fact only 3am and then proceeded to growl about it for the next hour 😆 In future I think he should just get himself up without having to rely on me all the time!!  Between darling husband and children its no flipping wonder I am an exhausted zombie half the time 🙄

My Running Week

running

I had to run on Mr T on Tuesday so I did 5kms with a few speed spurts here and there to break up the monotony.  I was sweating buckets and my face was bright red when I finished, as always, but my heart rate was really good again throughout run.  It was a good session 😀

Yesterday I headed out to Princes Park at about 11am with the intention of running my 5kms.  I only managed 2.5km 😦  It was hot with the sun pounding and I was tired so as soon as I spotted car at half way mark I couldn’t envision running the rest, so I decided not to.  I have never ever done that before, usually I can push through.  I guess I should have realised the mindset I was in when I arrived at PP and circled it twice looking for the “perfect park”.  There was plenty of parking available let me tell you!  I made a deal with myself that when I got home I would do 20mins on the Spin bike but I clearly could not be trusted as I only managed 5mins.  I was truly a shocker yesteday 😳        

Today I was all set to run outdoors but hubby couldn’t look after pesky 3 year old so I ended up at the gym and had to live with the fact that it was going to be another tready run.  I have been getting all sorts of different niggles when incline of Mr T has been on 1%, even 0.5%, so I have had to alternate a bit between 0% – 0.5% to stop them.  I use to always run at 1% incline but with R4Ks to close, I just decided to do whatever I had to do to get rid of niggles!  I only did a 3km run because I ran a little bit yesterday so that is two consecutive days.  Surely it doesn’t count because of piddly distances !!

I had planned on a 12km run on Sunday but I have to say my body is feeling a little weary.  I was thinking maybe a massage might help but probably have left it a little late in regards to R4K.  I might try and book in for a gentle one on the Monday to give me plenty of time to recover from any adverse effects.  I am a little nervous though, maybe I shouldn’t.  My sciatica is back and I have a little hip discomfort which is not unusual for me but it does seem just a little more than usual.  I don’t plan to do much next week, haven’t actually got a plan but I do want to do spin on Tuesday and Body Balance on the Friday.  Runningwise, not sure what to do as I really want to feel rested and with fresh legs 😀

*Edit*  I have bitten the bullet and booked into the gym MT.  I probably would have preferred to go somewhere else that caters in Sports Massage but trying to find somewhere at short notice and tying in the time to get pesky 3 year old looked after was proving to difficult.  The girl at the gym practices TCM Remedial Massage (Traditional Chinese Medicine Remedial Massage) and her 10am appt cancelled so I snapped it up.  I am sure it will be ok for what I am after at the moment.  So I have the creche booked and my fingers crossed!   

Where did the week go????

running

My running week was a bit dismal this week and I think it was because we had the public holiday on the Monday which then threw my whole week out.  Family wise we had a really nice day on the Monday.  We took the kids to Moomba, watched the parade and then wandered around.  Then the rest of the week just seemed to fly on by 😯   I didn’t actually start my running week until the Friday and I had to settle on Mr T at the gym.  I did 6km and for the first time in a long time I wore my chest link to monitor heart rate to see where it was at these days.  I was very pleasantly surprised to find my heart rate is now in a much better range than when I first started running.  It was always sky high and it use to freak me out which is why I stopped monitoring it.  So I am really happy about that and the run was good as well.  I would rather not run on tready but the way the week was going, it was either that or miss out all together!  I actually jazzed the run up a bit and did some “speed” bouts here and there 😆  

Today I did a 11km run down the Tan and surrounding area.  I had planned to do 12km but my course that I mapped out came out at about 10km so then I had to think of how I was going to make up extra 2km.  I managed another 1km by backtracking but to make up the next km I would have had to do it again and by then I was feeling like a bit of dill!!  My legs were a bit tired as well so I canned it there.  I am still happy though as it is the longest time I have been on my legs and the longest distance to date.  Talk about “long slow distance”, it took blinking forever and then I started clock watching thinking I really had to get back home to the cavalary 😆

I think if I can get all my runs in this week and complete 12km on the week-end I will feel as ready as I can be for R4K.  I have done the best I can training wise with my family situation plus all my blinking niggles, and to be quite honest I am quite proud of the fact that I have finally reached that golden 10km distance 😀  I swear I honestly didn’t think I would ever get there, yay for me!!

Oh, I also wanted to thank Sue (hobbles) and Runmumrun for popping into my blog.  I love it when fellow runners pop in and comment 😀

10km Beat the Boat

running

Well I did it!! I ran 10km for the first time ever 😀 Have to say though, its a long blinking way 😯

I arrived in plenty of time to register and get myself organised. The original plan was that the whole family was going to come down and enjoy Moomba while I did my run but we ran out of time in getting everyone organised so I flew out the door alone.  The kids were a bit tired and I was quite nervous so it worked out ok in the end.  I turn into a snappy tom when I am nervous and would rather be by myself than inflict my behavior onto others.  

I finished my run in about 63 minutes which I am happy with considering the fact that it was not flat course as there were a few hills along the way.  Strangely I couldn’t see a start line so I just started my watch when everyone started running.  The other thing I found a bit strange was that there were no km markers, not one!!  Thankfully I had Mr Polar because if I not been able to check where I was distance wise it would have interfered badly with my head space!  Imagine running 10kms and not knowing how far you had to go 😯

When I finished I caught up with ajh which was really good.  So nice to have someone to chat to post run.  The week before when I did “We Can Walk it Out” Fun Run I didn’t see one ausrunner and that felt really strange!  R4K is going to be awesome in regards to that 😀

So I am quite proud of the fact I have done 10km and have pulled up ok, well so far!  I had a few niggles during run but nothing that is worth writing about.  My orthotics started rubbing on in-step again so I will have to do something about that I think.  I am thinking about repeating another 10km run next week-end and then doing one 12km before R4K.  Not sure at this stage, I might be ok to do 12km next week instead of 10km but I am a little scared of injuring myself.  I will assess over the week and then decide.  It would be great to just bite the bullet and do the two 12km runs as I would then feel really confident about the 15.2km R4K 😀  

Chugging Along……Noicely

running/ramblings

I have been going quite good this week and have stuck right on schedule.  Although I haven’t been blogging, I have been running 🙂

I have done my two 5km runs around Edwardes Lake and been to the gym twice.  On Tuesday I did  a spin class, core and lower resistance, and on the Thursday I did 45 minutes cardio, core and upper resistance.  I have to say I am quite knackered today after my run but that is because I had a really broken sleep last night , the kids 🙄   An early night is scheduled for tonight, fingers crossed.  To complete my running week I am hoping to do the 10km “Beat the Boat” Fun Run as my long run.

I feel as though I am quite on track and if I can complete this 10km on Sunday, I think I will then move on to 12km for the following two weeks before R4K.  Not sure where I will do those though as so far I have been able to key in my long runs with events which in the group setting has been a real bonus for me.  Not quite sure how I will go doing 12km by myself 😯

8km

running

Headed down to the Tan today to do my scheduled 8km run.  I had a few options up my sleeve to enable me to run this 8km with a group.  My first option was to try and make it to the Saturday R4K training session and the second option was to do the Federation Square session on the Monday if I couldn’t make the Saturday one.  I just felt I needed to do this run  with a group as I wasn’t feeling very confident and I thought a group would push me along.  For some reason the “We Can Walk it Out” Fun Run popped into my head which I actually did last year, the 4km walk/run.  I decided to look it up on the net to find out when it was going to be on this year and coincidently it was on today.  This is a really low key Fun Run and the money raised goes towards Womens Cancer Foundation, ovarian in this case, so it is for a really worthy cause.  I was really happy to do it and it suited me that it isn’t a full-on race as I wanted to run slow 🙄

I actually ended up completing it a couple of more minutes longer than the Zoo Run, so I think I probably need to slow pace a little more. I must admit I am getting a little confused with different runs and the pace they should be run at.  I am gathering info left right and centre to help me with my running 😉

The run was in the opposite direction that you usually run , perve laps 😆 , and I have to say it felt really weird.  I was a little disappointed as I did want to run up the Anderson Street hill, it was still challenging though.  My orthotics started rubbing on the right instep towards the end which was a bit painful but I conquered on.  The other niggle, yawn, I have had is slight sciatica pain and I am wondering if the x-trainer has brought that on again.  All in all though a good run.  I did think at some stage early on “I am not going to be able to do this”, but by the 5km mark I felt great.

I just have to decide now whether to do one more 8km run next week-end or increase to 10km and then repeat distance the following  week-end.  I figure I should be able to get up to 12km before R4K if “all goes to plan” 🙄

Edwardes Lake

running

I ventured out today for my 5km run today down at Edwardes Lake around 1pm.  It was about 27 degree’s with a breeze.  I decided to run today because I wanted to give myself the option to either run on the Saturday or Sunday depending on whats going on around the household.  I would love to try and get down to the Tan to do 2 laps. I am secretly hoping to be able to swing the Nike group on the Saturday morning but I am not counting on it.  As long as I get down there at some stage over the week-end to do 8kms, I will be happy 😀

I wasn’t sure if I should have run really because I am sore from last two days exercise so I am thinking I will probably be flat on my back recovering the next two days 😆  I feel ok though just a little niggly in the achilles.  If I get a chance later I am going to have a look on the net for some achille and calf stretches to add to what I do.  I am hoping the more I do it might just help!

ramblings

My 9 year old is so excited at the moment as he is participating in the Auskick game at half time tomorrow night.  It is the Brisbane and Western Bulldogs game which is being played at the Telsta Dome.  His Dad is going to take him and I get to have a nice quiet night at home.  If I can get the pesky 3year old to bed at a reasonable hour, I am going to watch a flick and I do believe I feel some chocky and a nice bottle of Four Sisters coming on 🙂

*Edit*  It was a good run with no walk breaks so I feel as though I am back to “normal”.  I finished in 33mins and have to say it is now 4pm and I feel great 🙂