Short Run

I was meant to go for another medium to long run this morning - desperately trying to get my kilometres up in time for 1st April. But I was tired from the last two days... plus I overslept half an hour and had to be at work by 9:30 today.

So instead I did a short one, took it easy. Have Running Group tomorrow anyway which includes a fitness test so maybe I should aim to have fresh-ish legs for a good result tomorrow.

Route: my house, away from Burwood Hwy across to Eley Rd, up Eley to Blackburn Rd, right at Blackburn, right at hwy, right at Holland, left at Eley, back to my house.

Good thing about the run - it included a couple of hills (which I will now nickname the Blackburn and Holland Hills). I am getting better at those hills, I remember the first time I ran up Blackburn Hill my lungs wanted to die... today was pretty good, but maybe I ran it too slow and that's why I felt no strain on the lungs. However, this time the legs were the limiting factor - might have something to do with the last two days' runs.

Thanks for the comments and encouragement both from Blogger and Multiply world. I may seem a little hardcore to you guys but it doesn't seem that way to me at all - I know I probably shouldn't compare myself to the train-twice-a-day community, but I do. Consider it an aspiration that I am working myself towards.

Long(ish) Run

Trying to increase my distances in preparation for Run for the Kids on 1 April. However it doesn't help that I have no idea what distances I'm running because I still haven't gotten around to measuring them in a Melways.

Today's route: from my house toward Burwood Hwy, right at hwy, right at Middleborough Rd, right at Canterbury Rd, right at Blackburn Rd, right at Burwood Hwy, back to my house.

A nice big square. It took me just under 1 hr, given that it was a moderate to slow jog, I would say that was nowhere near 10km because I doubt I was even doing a pace of 6:00. But then again I could surprise myself.

I'll try measure the distance sometime this weekend and edit it into this post.

Edit 15/03/07: The distance was 7.5km

New Weights Program

10:30am - met with Glen at the gym to get my new training program
I'm trying something new - rather than doing my weights program twice a week for over an hour each, I'm trying for 20-30 mins, 4 days a week. We'll see how this goes. Sometimes after a long day at work the idea of going to the gym for 1hr+ feels like a tiring prospect, whereas popping in for 30mins is much less daunting.

11:00am - 20 min resistance workout

• incline sit-ups, 3 sets, 10 reps
• s/b sit ups, feet against wall - 3 x 12reps
• s/b ab reverses - 3 x 10 reps
• calf raises, 10kg - 2 x10reps, 1 x 12 reps

How far have I gone?

One of these days I'll have saved up enough money to buy myself a flashy heart rate monitor complete with foot pod that measure my pace and distance. For now, I'll just say my pace was fairly moderate. I think my pace has improved over the last couple of weeks since picking the running back up - Run for the Kids in 4 weeks' time is certainly providing the motivation for me to keep up the training, particularly at a time in my life when I feel too busy to exercise.

Running route: my house to Burwood Hwy, left at hwy, left at Blackburn Rd, left at Eley Rd, right at Holland Rd, left at Fulton, left at Middleborough Rd, right at Eley Rd, left at Station St, left at Burwood Hwy all the way back to my house.

Distance: no idea, I think maybe 8-9km? I really need to measure it in the Melways.

Edit 15/03/07: The distance was actually 7.4km