ouch :(

I have posted a question on CR about the curious injury that I have but might talk about it here in case anyone has any ideas. The abridged version is that i felt a twinge in my thigh (right in the middle of what I think is my quad?). Didn't think much of it and didn't feel it in the time trial run. That night i moved awkwardly and felt a sudden burst of pain and it really burned and ached for a little while. That subsided over an hour or so and it didn't hurt when walking or anything like a quad strain from overexertion does. It only hurts when i stand up awkwardly or extend my leg against some kind of resistance.

Very odd and I don't know whether i should run regardless or take it easy till that pain goes away. I have't run this weekend (mostly because I have been at my course all weekend and have been seeing a boy who is in the navy and only in town for a little while!) and don't know whether it is a normal kind of thing.

Any words of wisdom would be gratefully received. My instinct is to not go to bootcamp tomorrow morning but to try a slow and shortish run to see how it goes. (but maybe i am just trying to get out of going to bootcamp... hehe).

Other than that all is well. This weekend was the start of my 4 year psychotherapy/counselling training so very excited about that. I am also interviewing on Tuesday for a new job in the meantime (back to law... gulp...) so fingers crossed and I'll try to get back into the running again after 5 or so days off.

E

yay!

So today we had our 6-weeks-on fitness test at bootcamp. It was push-ups(1 min), sit ups (1 min), bridge hold and a 2km time trial. I improved in everything thank goodness!

For the full push-ups I went from 11 to 20 (yay!)
Sit ups from 63 to 71
Bridge hold from 1min25s to 1min50s

and....

2km time trial from 11m07s to 9m37s!!!!

So I improved the time by 1 minute and 40 seconds. Although there was some debate as to the accuracy of the stop watch (it may be out by 15s) and we think it may be a bit shorter than 2km but in any event it is an improvement!

I am going to go back for the next 6 week course as well because i think that it has kept me motivated with running as well as the bootcamp itself and it is certainly pushing me out of my comfort zone fitness wise.

yay!

yeah

i need to chill out - you are all right!

anyway today was bootcamp - but i am counting it as a run because we ran (at faster than my usual pace!) from the Opera house through the rocks to the Harbour Bridge (including some stairs on the way!) and over the bridge, down past Luna Park, around a park and up and down this HUUUGE set of stairs a couple of times. Then back and back across the Bridge finishing in the Rocks. That took about an hour and going faster than usual for me! Our instructor thought it would be about 8km so I am going to call it that even if it wasn't quite that far!!

phew.

i really enjoyed my special K and my decaf coffee is going down very nicely (my imagination is very efficient at pretending that it is really coffee...)

I am going to have a(nother) rest day tomorrow because we have the fitness test for bootcamp on Thursday. The relevant bit of this is a 2km time trial which I really really really want to improve my time from 6 weeks ago. I think I should because I have really upped the activity levels. Fingers crossed. I will report back.

thanks everyone

for your lovely comments on my last post. I think that I am just very impatient...

Lulu - you are right. I will aim for the Mothers Day 8km race. (hehe I was going to ask when it is, but then I woke up...). that gives me a few months to build my base up and work on my speed. I would love to go for a run with you around the park one day soon!

And everyone is right - no point worrying about how fast or slow I am because that isn't going to make me any faster. I will just keep plugging away and try to drink less. :)

Speaking of which I have had a reasonable few days:

- Thursday - bootcamp. I am definitely improving and find my recover a lot better. I consider these my "speed" sessions at the moment because there is lots of stair work and hill sprints etc. Then I flew to Melbourne for our conference. At the last conference I had a huuuuge night on the Thursday and was incredibly ill the next day. This time I was so tired I went to bed at 10 which means that on:

- Friday - in Melbourne - I got up super early (5am) intending to go for a run around the Albert Park lake. However, when I got out of the hotel (best hotel ever incidently - The Prince in St Kilda) it was pitch black and there were still people who were out from the night before/ sleeping on the footpath. So rather than going to the lak I just ran down the beach and back. Altogether I ran for 60 minutes and could have kept going but didn't think it was the best plan when I am building up.

Friday night I ended up going out with people from work straight from the plane. We went to Manly and I got home at 6am. Oh dear. I felt very bad. Slept till about 12.30 but it was bad news and I knew that I shouldn't have. ugh. i even drank shooters which i don't do - and when someone buys you one it is hard to say no thanks. and i fell over at some point and have a scrape down my ankle. another learning experience. ??? But yesterday I went out for dinner and got home for an early night so:

- Sunday - got up around 8am, went into Centennial Park for a run. I had intended to see whether I could do 3 laps but I really struggled the whole way. I did 2 laps in 55.45 (back to my old time!!!) and then just kept going to round it out to 60 mins. Probably about 8km total. Which is fine but I don't like how it was slower and harder than before.

But i;m not going to overanalyse it just yet (yeah right I hear you say!). Will see how I feel tomorrow morning and whether I go out again!

Also - I have noticed that I am sweating more than I ever have. How weird is that? could be the sydney humidity.

E

warning

not running related - more of a vent so please ignore.

So I have been feeling pretty good lately. Relative to lots of other times in my life I am going well. I ran 3 times last week (including the weekend). Have been doing a bootcamp twice a week for a month. And I am really enjoying it all. But I still have this habitually self defeating thing going on where I do things that stop me really going where I want to go. Firstly I have had 3 big nights and one late night since Friday. Which is fine - but not when it gets in the way of something that I really want to do (ie improve my running). For instance last night. I went with some friends to an anti-valentines party. Fine - but there was no need to share 4 bottles of champagne between 4 of us and then have a couple of beers. I'm ok today but not in condition to go for a 5am run when I didn't get to bed until 2.

And then there is the fact that I am just so slow i can't quite believe it. It is quite disheartening. I am really happy with how much I have improved (from nothing!) but all I can think of is that it might just not be possible for me to ever really be even good enough to run socially (which is the main goal I think). I have flashbacks to high school 1500m trials when I could barely make one lap of the 400m track and it is the same kind of fear of being really embarassed. Just reading about everyone elses running is incredibly inspirational and I know that I can only do what I can do - but still. I am just in an "everything is too hard" mood - which isn't like me at all.

Anyway I am heading to Melbourne for work tomorrow and we are staying at fancy hotel in St Kilda and there seems to be a good sized park (Albert Park?) to have a run around in so I guess I will just have to take it a day at a time.

ok rant over.

Back to it

Well I feel great today after a good 7 hours sleep. Had bootcamp this morning so was up super early. This was a hard session (they all are!) but not as hard as last Thursday which was a little nuts. The group of people doing this bootcamp are very very fit - I am definitely the slowest still, although its probably about equal between 2 or 3 of us. I am good at walking lunges though!!

Happy Valentines Day everyone! (do you think that the phrase "by the way Happy Valentines Day" at the end of an email counts?)

E

oh so tired

I had planned to get up super early this morning to do a yoga class. I like the Bikram class at Bondi Juntion but hardly ever make it to the 6am class as you need to get up a fair bit earlier to drink enough water so you don't pass out in the heated room!

Anyway because I didn't get to bed last night until nearly midnight (hehe had a date and just kept talking...) and I was already tired to start with I couldn't do it this morning. So a rest day it is. Tomorrow is a bootcamp day so I will probably benefit from having a day off today anyway.

OK - running blog is turning into excuse for not running blog...

short and sweet

So I woke this morning with another semi-hangover. Given that I usually don't do so well at "moderation" in any area of my life I am impressed with myself at two good recoveries in a row. A bit of water (ok - and a sausage mcmuffin) later and I was right as rain, drove home and hit the park again. I figured that it was better to get out and do a short run than nothing at all.

In the end I did one lap (3.7km) but I did my version of a speed session by just running as fast as I could for as long as I could and then walking until I felt like I could go again. I think that I must have done alright because my time for the one lap was 23m34s which if I did two would be 47 minutes which is heaps faster than I have been doing the two laps. And that included a bit of walking.

So I am happy with that for a Sunday with only 8 odd hours of semi-drunk sleep under my belt since Thursday.

Turns out...

Well it turns out that I can run with a hangover! Not a huge one admittedly ( have discovered that if I drink beer - rather than champagne - that I don't get as drunk because I can't drink as much or anywhere near as fast), it was probably about a 3/10.

I managed to do the full two loops of Centennial Park, and in the end I cut 2 minutes and 25 seconds off my best time so far!! Which makes it 7.4km in 53mins20s. I know it is still very slow but I'm pretty happy with that as I didn't even think I would finish the first lap of the park.

what a welcome!

Wow - I can't say how much I appreciated everyone's comments on my last post. I felt very welcomed - and intrigued particularly about so many people running in my neck of the woods. I am making my way through all your blogs, I could actually read that stuff all day.

In terms of running - I didn't do anything this morning. I had good intentions of getting up at 5am but I had a few little voices fighting the good fight in my head. The one that won was the one that suggested that my knees may not appreciate it after Wednesday run that came off no build up at all. So depending on how many drinks I have tonight I will hopefully go tomorrow.

Which brings me to one conflict that I have had in the past - to run with a hangover or not? instinct says not. But part of me suspects that it would make me feel better. Although I always find when I am very hungover that my heartrate seems higher and I don't know if it is such a good idea. Any thoughts?

I was also going through a few old posts on coolrunning while I wasn't working yesterday (oops) and one was Runners Confessions. Seriously the funniest thing I have ever read in my life. I myself can confess to being a serial perver (not to be confused with a serial pervert). And i totally speed up (from snail to tortoise pace) whenever I see a cute boy. Terrible I know!! And I should really because it just reduces perving time that few extra seconds. Oh well.

This is really starting to sound like a confessional (and will even more in a second) - I was also reading the post on Coolrunning couples and romance, and while it doesn't fit those two categories I did once disco-pash a guy who was a runner and I told him I was trying to start running and we discovered that we both frequented the site from now and then. Of course he turned out to be a bit of a dead loss but it was fun at the time!

OK this is turning seriously un-running related. I am sure that as I actually run more I will develop more focus...

Roll on 6pm...

Number one...

Here i am - i am already doubting my technological ability to get this set up right but I'll give it a shot!! I am a 25 yr old new-to-Sydneysider. I moved to Sydney about a year ago and I really love it, although i am completely bankrupted by the extortionate price of everything. I moved to sydney to make a few big changes, away from Perth (not for any particular reason except that i like change...), to a new job that I thought would be fantastic, and to try and get myself motivated to get fitter.

The move itself has been great although I do miss family and friends a lot. I have met heaps of great people here, but it is still not quite the same as family. The job has turned out to be dreadful and a year later I am desperately trying to make a move - but am hampered by not wanting to make another wrong step. I am starting some more study in a couple of weeks (counselling/psychotherapy) which I am very excited about but is a 4 year course so I am a little daunted by the magnitude of the proposition.

Do I sound a little overwhelmed? :) I am a little, but am basically having a great time here. One thing that has been good is that I have made a lot of changes to my health and fitness and feel like I am very much in the right direction. When I was about 21 I lost 10kg which I have maintained since. I feel that there is still another 5-7kg to go which is part of my motivation. However in the interests of my ongoing mental health I chucked away my scales so who knows what I am now. I certainly feel better!

Early last year I decided that I wanted to run (because obviously runners are all very good looking and intelligent people - why wouldn't I?). I thought i would be starting from scratch and it turned out that i could do a very slow 20 minutes. Anyway throughout 2005 I kept at it on an off (some times particularly off) amongst a range of other things. I had a particular "off" period at the end of 05 and am now trying to get into it seriously. Hence the blog!

At the moment I am doing a bootcamp (not a fitness first one) which has been great for improving my fitness. Its only twice a week but it is quite intense as it is with a group of super-fit people. which is great for fitness, rubbish for the self confidence!! Ah well it is a very humbling experience to be the crappest at something isn't it?

So, yesterday (in between 2 bootcamp days which was a bit dumb I suppose - but got to harness the motivation when it is there!) I thought I'd see how far I could go. In the end I ran 2 laps of Centennial Park which is the equivalent of my best distance ever! (I think that is 7.4km). My knees were a little sore at the end and I was super duper slow (too embarassed to write it down. ok it was 55minutes) but I did feel that I could have kept going at the end.

Other than that i have been doing some beach running (again very slow) for as long as I can and then walking which I think has improved my fitness a bit. And I enjoy getting down to the beach early in the morning.

My running goals for 2006 are lofty! But I need to have high hopes or else I get bored. They are:

- Run 10K
- Run 10K in 60 minutes
- Run in the Mothers day fun run
- Run the City to Surf
- Run the Blackmores half marathon (hmm maybe that can be a 2007 goal...)

And my stats for this week are:

Tuesday 7/2: Bootcamp
Wednesday 8/2: Run - 7.4km, 55 mins
Thursday 9/2: Bootcamp

Hopefull if I see this all in front of me and write it all down I wil keep motivated! Any help much appreciated!