People are always talking about making lists of adventurous things they'd like to accomplish during their lifetime. Here's my list, and what follows are notes about what I'm currently up to.
Running updateJanuary 20, 2007
Last Sunday turned out to be a bit harder on my body than I thought. I felt great when I got home, but waking up the next morning sure felt otherwise. It took five full days for my legs to recover. Wow! Each night when I'd fall asleep I was a brick, not waking up until the morning, and then not having any motivation to pull myself out of bed. I find it suprising that getting some exercise on a given day can so drastically affect your sleep cycles for the next week.
This week I'm going to shoot for two 5k runs and keep my heartrate to 75% max, which is 150. That's going to make it some very slow running, but the literature seems to suggest it's better to start your training in this range than to be doing 85-90% max, which my more typical jog elicits. It's a bit depressing that my heart has to work so hard to even jog slowly at this point, but on the other hand, that gives me a lot of physiological room to improve.
Yesterday I played an hour of light hockey and today we spent an hour and a half doing some easy cross country skiing, which I think has been some good cross training. So far so good!
10 kmJanuary 14, 2007
This week has gone fairly well. I started the week off by doing some running back and forth from work. It's 2.8 km to work, so it's a nice distance. On Wednesday evening I ran home from downtown Kitchener which was 4.5 km.
Today was my first time since last weekend doing a longer run... I set out mid afternoon feeling a little lazy, but once I got going things felt good. I ran south to William St., west to Westmount, south to Victoria, east to King, and then north back home. The route was about 10 km and took 57 minutes. Not bad! A quarter marathon. I walked for a minute every ten minutes as the Running Room suggests, which I think is a great idea for training. I'm amazed that after only a week my body has gone from a slowish 7 km run giving me a headache for two days, to being able to run a noticeably faster 10 km and feeling good afterwards. I'm sure my progress will slow, but it's encouraging!
The sorest part of my body is the arches of my feet, followed by my lower calf muscles (achilles tendon and some higher). My quads are tired but feeling good, and my abs are also a bit tired but feeling fine.
I'm concerned at this point about overtraining my sore feet and calf muscles... so I'll have to give myself at least two days to rest and perhaps do some cross training before I head out again next weekend.
Running
January 9, 2007
Well, I've committed myself this year to attempt a half marathon. It would have been convenient to just train for a marathon right off the bat, but doing a half marathon first is probably smarter. I've signed up for the half marathon clinic at the Running Room, which looks like it will be a huge help. The clinic includes a lot of learning via a clinic manual, and it sounds like there are classes as well. The clinic starts in February.
Saturday was my first time outside for a run. The rediculously warm January weather is perfect for being outside, so hopefully it keeps up. My poor body didn't know what hit it... my legs were doing ok, but I had a pounding headache for a day or two.
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