So, weigh-in - I lost 1.2lbs this week, taking the 15 week total to 30.6 lbs (or 13.9kgs in old money). Really pleased with that - I started the week with a bit of a cake binge, and a little less exercise than I've been doing of late, so I can't be surprised it's not the 2lbs I've been averaging, and it's given me a nice little kick back into focus at just the right time. :-) I picked up a 14kg kettlebell in the gym this morning, and that's quite eye-opening, when you feel the weight of something like that and know that just 3½ months ago you were carrying that around permanently!
Tuesday I went to the gym before work, did an unstructured 45 minutes or so of work, and went to work feeling a little blah in general. Things at work and so on have been getting to me a little, and I really needed to catch up on myself - so in the evening, I was in bed by 7:45pm!! I got a great night's sleep, and felt a tonne better by Wednesday (yesterday). So, yesterday, I decided to run after work, and took my kit with me to run straight from work, before getting home and sitting down could destroy any motivation to go, haha. Only problem is I live 1 mile away from my office, so because my rough plan was to cover 4-5 miles, it meant having to basically run past my flat, and keep going!! Now that's a tough challenge, huh?
Well, I'm pleased to say I met the challenge, and then some! I ran past my flat, kept going, and kept going, and kept going!! Before I knew what was happening, I had continuously ran for about 40 minutes or so, and realised I was feeling okay to keep running, and aim for the 1 hour mark again - to see if I could achieve this for just the second time ever in my life. This would be different to last week, as that route was pancake flat, and last night's had a few small inclines to cover, so I was actually quite excited to be doing it again (maybe more excited after finishing with the actual running, to be fair, haha). Like I said afterwards, proving that last week's run was no fluke. :-)I wondered after a while whether I could hit 5 miles during the hour this time, and tried to speed up a little without pushing myself, but I kept an eye on my heart rate and tried to keep it around 170 as much as I could, and that kind of kept my pace relatively steady. In the end, I managed 7.78kms, like I said, falling a little short of 5 miles - but that will be my next milestone! My heart rate got a bit high in the first mile or so, reaching around 188-190 as I crested a very small incline, but I purposely slowed my pace a little and tried to breathe much slower and deeper, to bring it down, and did pretty well after that - the chart shows how it went. :-)
Robert advises a lot about heart rate training, and there's definitely something in it that could work well for me, but at the moment it's more around awareness and seeing what my body is doing as my weight drops and my fitness starts to improve. I was listening to a discussion on the Talk Ultra podcast around Maffetone training too - as well as a great explanation from Robert on the WHW Race podcast he did with John Kynaston recently. It's something I will continue to look into, as my training develops and my weight continues to come down.
Felt pretty pleased with my run when I was finished last night, it really feels like I'm making progress in a few different areas, and that spills over into my general mood and motivation. This morning I went to the gym for my personal training session, and started with a 1km time trial on the treadmill - I did it in 6:30 (from a standing start) which is 40 seconds faster than I ran it 14 weeks ago, and while that's great, I can probably do better.... Anyway, I went on to have a good session in the gym, with some core work, incline press-ups, weighted lunges, and shoulder press, etc. Plus, the dreaded battle ropes - my shoulders will never forgive me, haha. Finished with some foam rolling - owwwwwwwwww!! WHY do people foam roll out of CHOICE??!!!!!
Anyway, to close, I spoke to Johnny Fling last night about my role at the Fling this year - and I won't be marshalling at Balmaha, taking on a slightly different role at the finish line instead. I'll miss the mid-race hugs from sweaty runners, and the banter as I send folk up the steps haha, but I'll try to make sure I see people at registration and at the finish line, and hopefully still fit in those hugs and encouragements! The race approaches pretty rapidly now - I'm really looking forward to it!!! x
It's just great reading how well you are doing. I know it's really tough keeping course at times, but there are just so many positive things happening now it has to be helping crowd out the negative memories/thought processes. You totally deserve these great results in workouts and runs, you totally deserve the weight-loss, you are achieving it all because you've been putting the effort in week in, week out.
ReplyDeleteTo see how far you've come, last summer you did the 30 minute running challenge, you did really well and steadily built up the mileage and got there. Fast forward to today and you are knocking out 60 minutes running at the end of hard days work. That's twice as long!!!
These hour long runs will be doing great things for your fitness. A huge number of calories burned, your heart and lungs getting a fabulous workout, your legs will be strengthening and growing more resilient. You are also now part of the small percentage of adults in Scotland capable of just going out and running non stop for hour. You really are achieving something special with your transformation ;-)
Thanks. :-) I think the 30 minute challenge was my only real running achievement in 2014, and I failed to capitalise on it, so it's definitely better that I've managed 60 minutes twice in the space of about 8 days. Just got to keep this transformation going, so I can become a butterfly, and no longer a fat hairy caterpillar munching away on anything I can see, hahahaha!!
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