back on the (running) wagon... again...

well thank you everyone for your very supportive and helpful and healthy-perspective giving comments to my last post. i was feeling a bit sorry for myself to be honest. i actually don't feel now like i am all that slow - especially given how much i feel like i have improved. but in any event i need to forget about that at all and remember that i really just enjoy running and enjoy the challenge and the satisfaction that i get when i do it!

so - to that end i have just walked in the door after a run in the domain with the lovely lulu. Lulu had kindly offered to show me the mothers day fun run course -- even though now i am only doing the 4km!. we ran the 4km course and then looped back down to the opera house and back for a combined run of 65min and 10km on the dot! I only had 60 mins on my program but lulu had 65 and i was keen to keep going with her - and i also suspected that 10km was in reach.

so the garth the garmin clocked us at an average of 6m30s pace with 3(three!!!) sub 6 min kms which could have been a garmin misfunction! but it did feel like we did some of it really fast - particularly as we meant to go at 7km per min pace. which means that i am not all that far away from one of my goals for the year which was to run 10km in 60mins. yay!!!!

so i'm excited again! i had been a bit worried that after 4 days of not running i would have completely lost all of my fitness and not be able to make it for that time. silly - but that was what was going through my head. actually that break was probably what helped me get through!

we had a coffee at a gorgeous cafe on clovelly rd and i soaked up the sunshine and fantastic company and am now contemplating going back to bed. i flew in early yesterday morning (6am..) on the red eye flight in order to make my volunteering commitment yesterday - which was subsequently cancelled! i also had a choppy sleep last night so could use a few more hours - especially because of the new job starting tomorrow!! eeek!

thanks again to all you lovely souls who kept me going - it is very much appreciated!

E

yeah...but no.

so since having joined the happy coolrunning blogging family i have felt incredibly encouraged in all of my endeavours to become faster and fitter and able to run longer and enjoy my running more (which i do!). i think that i have improved a lot lately and i feel like something is missing on those days when i wake up and don't do at least some form or exercise. which is fantastic!

but being back home in perth has kind of been a flashback to my old life and consequently my old lifestyle. i have found myself eating too much for one thing(socially mostly and i am on holidays - but still too much!). however, i started off great and was running and exercising still. all good.

until last night - when i went out for dinner with my immediate family. one of my family members is fairly round of girth (too many beers) but has been walking every day which is fantastic and i have been thinking of joining him except that he leaves the house at 10 to 5 - which is not cool on holidays! anyway the conversation somehow gets around to my plans to go for a run the next day. and he starts going on about how slow i run and how he can walk nearly as fast and how i should really go faster or why do i bother. and i was absolutely shattered! it made me really upset - and so i didn't go for a run this morning (i was supposed to do some hills...).

i know that i shouldn't really listen to what he says but it is an incredible reminder of how (mostly) i have moved past all that negativity that has held me back in the past. but it is hard because it is just a reminder of that voice in my head that agrees that i am embarasssingly slow!! anyway i still feel pretty demoralised but am thankful that at least going back to sydney is a psychological boundary from all that crap too.

sigh.

AND - i went to register for the Mothers Day Fun Run which i have been soooo excited about - and the 8km spots are all full. doh!!!!! what a doofus i am to have waited this long - it just never occured to me that it would fill up. can you tell i am not a native sydneysider??? oh well - guess i will register for the 4km instead - but i am kicking myself!!

freestylin' 1200s...

well despite a marginal hangover i got up at a respectable hour and found an oval. my 400m course was quite ad hoc - but i think it was close-ish...

now i have always considered myself to be reasonable tech-savvy. at least as it applies to my pretty silver gadgets (ie ipod, camera etc). turns out i'm not. i was huffing and puffing running my 1200's and i was quite surprised that i was doing it incredibly consistently - 6m 06s each lap according to my ipod's stop watch. and then i busted a lung on the last one and was sure i was going faster - but no - 06s again. and then i looked closer. i was ignoring the last bit which i had thought was milliseconds but actually it was the seconds and the 06 that i was looking at was the minutes.... so i have no idea how many seconds past 6 min they were (prob about 30) but i was definitely short changing myself in the recovery stakes because i would wait till 8m06 seconds each time (somehow i could read the seconds at that point)....

what a dork. but nonetheless i did (at whatever speed!) my 4 x 1200's and about 500m warm up and 1.5k cool down. a nice mornings work.

glad i made it before the torrential rain started too...

Perth!

Here at last! it feels like ages even though i was here at christmas.

anyway got up earlyish and went to the gym for 45mins on the elliptical x-trainer. it is so boring. plus it was a crappy gym with crappy machine and was really humid in there - i sweated like anything. ew! but i did it. tomorrow i have 4 x 1200m reps. Need to find a 400m track somewhere or else i'll just do 6mins followed by 2 min recoveries. so better not have too many drinks tonight hey?

off now for a nice long lunch at the left bank (Fremantle for those unfamiliar with WA). unfortunately its really overcast but who cares - i'm on hol-i-days!!!

PS - funny thing - i have noticed on the site-meter thing at the bottom that some people get to my page when they google "wet t shirt comp" - how wrong is that??? but funny - they must be so disappointed when they see that it was just a bad joke...

50 mins

on my long run this morning. i did the outside of centennial park and ran outside the fence for most of the way (partly cause it was quite dark at the start). felt good and i added a run up cook rd at the end to take me up to time - i can't be sure though because i must have paused the stpowatch on my ipod. doh!!

i'm getting quite excited by my upcoming first fun run ever which is the 8km Mothers Day one. i am hoping to run that course next sunday when i'm back from Perth to make sure i can do it!! even though i know i can cover the distance i still feel a bit apprehensive for some reason. oh well. anyone else heading down for that one?

orright - back to packing and then off to my course. will keep posting my runs from perth otherwise i could easily let it drop off i think.

E

so cold!!

i am going to either need to get some tactics for dealing with the cold (ie gloves or something) or learn to run faster cause i was really cold this morning! only had 20 minutes on the program so i headed to centennial park (nothing like a change of scenery eh?... hehe). just did one lap minus a bit of the last straight bit. it seemed dumb to stop after 20 mins when it was so nearly one lap - but i figure that greater running minds than mine devised the "program" so i'd try and stick to it.

i went out last night for a girlfriends birthday drinks in Woolloomooloo but as i have my course on all weekend i had one drink and left pretty early at 10pm. can i just say that there was a LOT of eye candy there... jeez. but obviously i'm a serious athlete so such considerations hold no appeal for me...

so i have my course all day today and tomorrow and this weekends topic is "Clinical Applications of Repetition Compulsion" which should be really interesting. i'm personally quite keen to break a few destructive repetitive compulsions i have so i'll be paying close attention. then tonight i'm going to a fancy restaurant for dinner which should be lovely and then tomorrow night i am leaving for perth until next saturday. i am going to tentatively try and replicate what Sean's plan was at sweat training but we shall see.

damn my fingers are freezing!!!

swanning about...

now that i am a lady of leisure for at least a few days!!

i perhaps unsurprisingly headed out last night after my LAST DAY EVER! and it ended up being a big one - got to bed around 3.30. perhaps surprisingly i actually made it up and out to the sweat session this morning. it was struggle central and i will admit that it was a half arsed effort. i did 3/5 of the wild wally's. i seriously thought i might have thrown up if i did more. not because i drank much cause i actually didn't but because i was so tired and hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime yesterday so energy was low on. so apologies to everyone who i saw but didn't really engage with. i was in fact barely conscious.

still there has got to be some brownie points in getting up and going hey? hmmm.

then i headed into the city for a session with easy tiger. it was great! hurt like hell in a few spots, and i have a tiny achilles tendon apparently (not a good thing...) but once he loosened the arches of my feet (a new world of pain) and released a few things on my shins and quads and shoulder and lower back i was right as rain. i suspect that was just a nice friendly introductory session but it felt - beneficial!!

anyways - i'm off to do some shopping for someones birthday present and then i'll bloody do whatever the hell i feel like!!

E

last day!!!!!!!!

hurray!!!!! can you believe it? finally 6 weeks. i almost don't believe it. almost. it is such an incredible relief that i can't quite describe. I have been feeling really weighed down by this feeling of forced inertia during the last six weeks that to finally be able to let it go is incredible. i think it will really hit me tomorrow.

i am planning to have a few drinks tonight to celebrate (out of character i know ;P)but won't be able to have many because of tomorrow mornings sweat session at 6.15 involving a hill that is formidably named "wild wally". i thought big bertha was bad so who knows what this will involve...

i have cross training on the program today but unfortunately that isn't going to happen because i didn't get out of bed in time today. i had a session at the house of tears last night which flowed over to much thinking and introspection so i thought i needed a sleep in. most likely this was a lame excuse - but hell - its my last day!!!

anyway - new beginnings and changes. all my favourite things. bring it on. (and sorry for the un-running related stream of consciousness babble :) )

thanks

for all the suggestions that i find myself a sugar daddy to fund my lifestyle - it is definitely in the game plan, "kept woman" is on the list for career number 4 once i have exhausted lawyer, recruiter and psychotherapist. which at my current rate should be in a couple of years.

but back to the relevant stuff. went to bed early last night (after i sat and watched the Biggest Loser while eating my dinner.... hmmmm) and woke up feeling spritely (love that word!) this morning. it was great to see kit at sweat this morning.

today sean has a session of "windsprints" which sounded both mystical and painful. turns out that this means 4km where you "sprint" (or version thereof) the straights and jog the bends. We had 10 reps of 400m of these which were done continuously! aargh! i thought that i would have another beginners version but no - sean seemed to think i could do 10 - so 10 i did. i was pretty darn slow but finished all 10 with no stopping in 23.24. (hehe, which, as my first ever timed 4km is a PB in my books!!).

anyway - 2 days left at work and then i can focus on finding myself a rich husband under 80.

i can't afford my life and i need to win the lotto

So i had a(nother) big night last night. had dinner with some mates and then met some others out for a drink. ended up at ruby rabbit till 4 thinking it was a great idea to get a bar tab on my credit card (in my defence - i have zero cash till pay day and tried to pay for a round with my credit card only to be told that the minimum for using your card is $50!!!!!). however, i thought it was an appropriate venue for easter sunday. anyway - i'm feeling rather sensitive today and have limited myself to a late rise and a picnic in the park with friends over from perth.

i have strength training on the program today so i will probably go to the gym or use some of the weights that i have here. i do however need to work out a proper program instead of just doing whatever i can remember or using whatever equipment doesn't have a scary man grunting loudly on it. anyone have any ideas of specific running related resources for some kind of weights program?

but i'm struggling a bit to be honest so not sure i will make it. but i have been so good so far this week!! seems a shame to miss today.

back to sweat tomorrow... eeek. should be good - but i still get a bit scared...

and i'm getting multiple tags (talk about peer pressure...) so here it is - i wish i had more exciting things to say!!!!


1. What time of day do you run?

Mornings for sure.

2. What are your favourite runs?

Centennial Park, Bondi-Bronte, the Bay (she says having run it once!!), Cott beach in WA

3. What is your favorite song to run to?

Fast Girl - Gyroscope, Bombtrack - Rage Against the Machine, i could go on for aaaages.

4. What book are you reading at the moment?

Kingdom of the Golden Dragon - Isabel Allende
Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy - Eric Berne

5. When did you start running?

Depends what you call starting...

6. What's your post-race/post-run ritual?

Stretch, shower, breakfast (wow - that is unique - not - need to develop some quirky rituals...)

7. What do you eat before you run?

Nothing - i get a stitch if i eat!

8. What's your favorite running accessory?

sexy white ipod nano.

9. What's your motivation for running? (or why you first started running)

fitness, energy, weight loss, buddies and the fact that i always thought i couldn't. still trying to convince myself i can.

10. What are your running shoes?

Asics GT2210 (with ugly orange bits...)

11. What is your next running goal?

My first real fun run - Mothers Day 8km.

sublime

best day EVER for running. it is pretty darn cold but once i started running it was perfect, not a cloud in the sky.

i had 45 minutes on the agenda so i got up early (cause i went to bed obscenely early for a saturday - what a nanna!!). this time i ran around the outside of centennial park which i think is about 7km so given my timing for the run around the bay i figured would give me about 45 mins. i ran a mix of just outside and just inside the fence. i felt pretty good and when i hit the downhill bit at the end i felt like i could keep going forever! but i didn't because i hit 46 minutes. i enjoyed running on the trail-y bit instead of the path - it was kind of fun jumping over the tree roots. that said, i didn't like running through the really sandy bits.

but now i am going to mount a mission to find a shop open to sell me coffee. i'm going to take a punt on woolahra because (a) i can walk there in 5 mins, and (b) there were places open on friday. and i'm bloody well going to have a real coffee instead of that decaf rubbish i've been drinking. just because.

i have a soundtrack in my head today that is making me happy:
- Crazy, Gnarls Barkley (can't get this out of my head!!)
- Watch the Sunrise - Axwell feat Steve Edwards
- Baby Don't Cry - INXS
- Beautiful - India Arie

Happy Easter! :)

x-training

had cross training on the program for today but woke up feeling reallllly lazy. do i didn't go to the spin class i had planned. in the end i walked into bondi junction and went to the gym for a v quick 25 minute cardio workout on the cross trainer where it increases your resistance until your heart rate reaches a certain level. i think it was supposed to go to about 170 but i didn't seem to get above 160 and spent most of it at 155. which says to me (along with a few other instances lately) that i need to toughen up and extend my comfort zone. because i felt at 160 like i was working pretty hard on a pretty high resistance. but apparently not bloody hard enough!

oh well. then i went to the shops, did some grocery shopping and walked home.

so it was a bit of a token effort but at least i have stuck to the program in spirit.

E

program!!

so i got my program from sean yesterday afternoon and was very excited - makes me feel like an official runner! hehe.

however, i noted with some concern that on today's agenda was a 30min easy run.

this was of concern as my prediction that i wouldn't get home until 4am did in fact eventuate. however, i got up this morning around 8am and did my 30 mins "easy". let me tell you - it was not easy. every step reverberated through my brain. but i did it. actually i may have been still a bit intoxicated. but have surely sweated it all out by now... surely... feel surprisingly good now (although shivering in a slightly weird manner) - which is lucky as i have about 8 people coming for easter brunch. but i'm not too worried cause most of them were out with me last night.

had a ball last night and met some more lovely coolrunner and caught up with some that i have already met. it was great to have all my different groups of sydney mates in one (or 3 over the evening) venue and i certainly celebrated my last full week at work in style.

think i'll have an easter egg for breakfast.

SWEAT-y hills

(i'll stop making the sweat-y jokes soon... i promise)

Well I went back for round two this morning. On the agenda was a hills session at "big bertha" which had me a little worried! I rocked up, did a couple of warm up laps of the oval (first mistake! don't waste energy on the warm up laps when we have to jog to the hill....). Then we jogged over to the hill. Which makes a couple of k's warming up which is generally a good percentage of my whole run!!

Then those funny warm up things which culminate in accelerations that i believe in a normal person would resemble a sprint. i think i actually slow down... its all psychological - i know it!

So then the hills began. Sean marks out a 500m round trip course up and down the mountain. Most people do 10 laps but us beginners only had to do 6 (thank god - some of the 10 lappers still beat me!!). The thing that got me was that you have to keep going and no stopping at the bottom! I finished my 6 (so 3km of hills) in 17m46s. I consider this a win!! i didn't stop at all.

i do need to work on going fast down the hill though. i find it really hard to "lean forward and let go" as I am supposed to do. i think i would fall over!

anyway so then we ran back to the oval and stretched and i ran part of the way home (cause i was running late!!).

i really enjoyed it again and after i finished a rested for a bit i felt like i could have gone another lap or 2. but i didn't.

was good to see wildthing down there today. everyone is very nice! and no one has pointed and laughed yet so alll good.

roll on easter...

SWEAT-y Tuesday

Well I did it! Got up early and debated how long it would take me to walk down to McKay Oval in Centennial Park. As always I overestimated by about 10 minutes but that was fine because I got to meet another new girl who was just lovely and who runs about as fast as me (hurray!!). (and Hi Jenny if you drop by!).

The session was fantastic and cause we were new Sean wanted us to take it easy. We did two laps to warm up and then some other running warm up things (i don't know how to describe them...). and then we got into the guts of it which was 10 x 400m reps. Sean suggested that we do every second one or 2 and then 1 off. In the end we did 7 out of 10 of them and finished with 3 in a row. Admittedly we were pretty slow (about 2mins! give or take 5 seconds) but i was amazed at just being able to finish. I can see the potential to improve!

But mostly i had a great time! i found that I recovered pretty well and didn't come away needing to spew - but I certainly felt like I worked. It was fun - but that could just be cause I'm new...

Was great to meet a few new CR faces and re-meet some others. Thanks to Mr Lulu and Don Juan and Sparkie and Amjan for being friendly!! And to Lulu for dropping down too, in her fantastic CR shirt.

So i'll be back on Thursday - which sounds like a hard session - but i'm starting to quite enjoy the back-of-the-pack.... excellent view....

E

PS - its nearly Easter!!!! hurray for easter eggs! although it will be a little sad because I will have to buy them for myself cause my mama is back in Perth... but I think i'm ok with that... at least i'll get one of those rabbits made out of that crap red tulip chocolate - to remind me of my childhood. (ok... and last year...)

nothing

today - just developing a heightened state of anxiety about going to the SWEAT session tomorrow...

and having trouble remembering why i thought it was a good idea...

walking

went for a walk around the bay today with a couple of mates. v low key - although i think we giggled the entire way round. and checked out all the cute running boys :) all good. i had planned to run before i met them but when i woke up i was coughing again so thought i'd take it easy. another perfect day.

ugh

woke up this morning feeling like i'd been run over by a truck so after about 3 hours sleep rather than going for a run I decided to go for a walk. once i started walking i felt alright and wanted to run a bit cause everyone was running and i wanted to join in. but then i realised that my heart rate was already out of control before i even got out of bed and that running would not help this.

so walking only. however i am counting the 5 hours of dancing last night inbetween about 4 bottles of champagne as exercise.

damn.

EDIT - oh and i forgot to mention that someone suggested that I get an online program from Sean Williams so that I have a bit more structure. I sent him and email and he thinks that I should go along to the Tues and Thurs sessions. However I am a bit scared of those fast kids so i'll have a think about it. i don't mind being a back-of-the-pack runner but i don't want to be the absolute slowest.... although it seems i do my best runs when i am challenged and am not just cruising on my own so it could be a good opportunity to get out of my slow-and-steady comfort zone. hmm... food for thought.

friday fast one

another lunchtime run and it was fast again! (obviously not by my own choice - i definitely thrive under the pressure of others...)

Not sure how far it was (bout 6km) which we did in around about 34 mins. headed from the quay down around darling harbour and back up through the city. after we'd finished i even jogged the little way back to the office (freudian slip - i nearly said "back home"... that is appalling!).

anyway - feel great now although i think i got a bit sunburnt on my shoulders. it is an absolutely gorgeous day though.

kostya watch out

so i went to bootcamp this morning (hurrah! at last!!) and it was great. and by great i mean easy. we did boxing, and having done some beginners kickboxing i had an idea of what to expect and although there were a few sprints and my arms are going to hurt i didn't struggle too much. i was actually disappointed that we didn't get to do more because i have a mean right hook (hehe).

back on the track tomorrow morning!

crap

well after a not-so-great evening i slept in past my alarm (ok i reset it for an hour later). then at 6am i thought i should get up and at least make an effort to do something resembling a run - but my heart wasn't in it.

i don't know whether it was my apathy, being tired from yesterday or the cough that i have woken with the last couple of days but i lost my groove.... 2/3 of the way round and i just couldn't do it so i stopped and walked home and grumbled under my breath.

nuff said.

yay!

so i got up this morning (forgot about bootcamp actually... oh well it will be over soon and my guilt can cease...)with the somewhat intangible goal of doing some "speed work". (or my version thereof).

went to the park and i surprised myself. For my first lap i was running at my usual pace and then doing surges where i went as fast as i could for as long as i could (i'm going to call it a sprint... but that is a huge exaggeration by normal standards :) ). what i was happy about was that after i did the fast bits (and they were probably between 200 - 600m depending on how stuffed I was) i didn't walk, i actually kept running at my normal pace. that was a big improvement for me!! i didn't time it but it was definitely my fastest lap of the park ever.

then the second lap i did the fast bits but my recovery was walking instead of running. but i still finished it pretty quick.

i felt great after that and had a good stretch. i had some soreness at the back of my knee (on the inside) but i think that is because my legs aren't used to running fast. have also had some soreness on the arch of my foot (not today though) but i am hoping it will go away like magic.

(hehe just like i am hoping that one day i will come into a billion dollars just like magic)

never thought

i'd be pleased to see the end of daylight savings. but going outside and being able to see at 5.30 is the best!! felt like a reasonable time to get up. i know it won't last long but i'll enjoy it while it does.

i wanted to go to a spin class because i haven't been for ages but when i got the gym around 6am it wasn't on at 6.15 like i had thought but rather at 6.45. so i did some weights instead. i like doing weights - i am better at putting up with muscle pain than i am with cardio related pain! so it was fun. will try and go for a run thought either at lunch or after work.

embarassingly i only noticed half way through that my black singlet was on back to front. oh well. it was early. i don't think anyone could tell ;) but i became hyper-paranoid about it after that!

sigh. 11 work days to go...

the bay

well after a rest day yesterday (read - massive hangover and all day volunteering out at homebush followed by much sleeping) i woke up this morning feeling rested but still a bit crap. i had a sore throat, a cough and felt like i was catching a cold. i had decided that it might be fun to go and see if i could run the bay run over in drummoyne but when i woke up (after 12 hours sleep...) i told myself that i would just walk it and run if i felt alright.

my ruse worked and i got myself there and as if i wasn't going to run - at least a bit! in the end i ran the whole way and surprised myself by doing it (7km) in 45 mins whichis under 6.30 per km and without anyone making me go fast!

so i am happy with that. i am needing to go a bit further afield that centennial park cause its getting a bit boring... the bay was lovely although lots and lots of walkers who don't necessarily like moving for runners!