A quick update to the Hampton Court 10k – a workfriend of wifey, Ebony (who is also non-workfriend of mine since, well, I don’t work with her), has signed up for the Hampton Court 10k as well, so now I will have a potential training partnet. That is, if she actually trains for it :)
So that’s nice.
So yesterday I went to the gym, as I’d promised myself, but decided I would take it super easy so hit the cross trainer for 10 minutes before doing some weights, and then heading to the dreaded treadmill. Considering how out of shape I became, I am surprised I even last 10 minutes… which I didn’t – I lasted 8. I was hoping to do 1 min walk/1 min run * 9, but ended up doing 3 min walk/1 min run * 2 instead. Which is not even close, but it’s a start, no? And if I combine the distance ‘travelled’ on the cross trainer with distance ‘travelled’ on the treadmill, I managed to ‘travel’ 2km. Which t’ain’t too bad. (Ok, it’s not too good neither, but oh well)
I did remember to stretch afterwards, though.
I forgot to note in the last entry that my pack arrived from Cancer Research UK for my next 10k, the Hampton Court Palace 10k in September. It’s a nice low runner number of 944, which makes me feel super speedy considering my London 10k number was 6000-and-something. Sure, it’s probably because I was 944th to sign up, but I do not care for I am a man of self-delusion!
It also came with a nice girly-blue t-shirt to run in, although why they think anyone could survive a 10k in a cotton t-shirt is beyond me. It’s also an XL, so unless my dieting and fitness regime actually pays off, I won’t be even close to wearing it come September. I’ll wear my nice, light, but fat-bulge-clinging running shirt instead.
More walking this week, with two more walks to and from the station, so that’s 3 miles for my unofficial Juneathon. That leaves me with 15 days to do 97 more – easy!
Following on from last week’s disastrous run, and some very nice advice from two sterling gentleman in the comments, I decided this afternoon that instead of getting the shuttle bus from work to the station, I would instead walk the 1 mile distance. Yes, it’s only 1 mile and yet the bus is used by over 100 people a day (and they – ok, we – are often waiting for 15 minutes for the bus to turn up. The 1 mile walk takes not much longer than that).
I’d walked it last Friday, at the pleading of work-chum Alex as she hates the shuttle bus, so I agreed on the proviso she buys me a beer at the dodgy pub near the station. I managed the walk then ok, but arrived at the pub feeling much worse for wear, and welcomed the chance to sit down and nurse my aching ankles.
This afternoon, however, I managed it with no more shin pain than I would normally get doing a brisk walk in crap work shoes. The weather was nice, I had some lovingly-cheesy power metal on the iPlod, and I wasn’t feeling too knackered from a day hunched over code.
The walk took me just over 20 minutes and left me feeling not uncomfortable at all.
Earlier in the day, I dug out an email my boss received from a friend, and forwarded to me, when he’d asked said friend for advice on what would be the best running shoes for me (friend works in a running shop in Brighton, apparently). It was advice I was thankful for at the time, but ultimately ignored (natch), but took it to heart today when pondering my shit turn last week.
More importantly, he gave some sample shoe models as examples of what might be good for a largish-bloke – Brooks Beast, Saucony Hurricane (sexy sounding!), NB1222 (eh?) and Asics Kayano (ooo! exotic!) – for which I looked up images for on Google, and spent a few minutes admiring shoe porn. They all looked Very Fucking Cool.
So now I’m excited about getting a new pair of shoes, despite the last pair not even being properly broken in.
Despite what I’d promised yesterday, I forgo my run this morning with the idea to skip Taekwon-Do training tonight and do my run then instead. And so I headed down to Tooting Bec Common, a brisk 5 minute walk to warm myself up. I crossed the road into the park, making way for my fellow runners (for I understand the etiquette of the track), set my stop watch going, and proceeded to jog.
My plan was to run 1 minute, walk 1 minute. Within a few strides, I was running like an old man. Within 40 seconds, my calves were seizing up and I was waiting for the first minute to end. Finally it did, and it took another three minutes walking until I felt brave enough to try running again. This time, that lasted about 10 seconds, and I had to hobble the rest of the way home. My 0.8mile course I was planning on doing a couple laps of ended up taking me 15 minutes to complete. I then had a 0.4 mile walk home from the common. I hobbled indoors, told my wife I’d injured myself, and collapsed on the floor, pleading for her to rub my poor, disabled legs with deep heat.
What’s going on? I know I gave myself a serious beating last week when I did my 10k without any training or conditioning, could it be I am still in recovery from that? Could it be I am wearing the wrong shoes? Poor form? Combination of the above? What’s the answer, boffins?
Wifey wants me to go to the doctor; I’d rather sit it out for another week and see if things sort themselves out. I want to get back into running, so I hope this all passes soon.
One good thing: I saw my first creepy park guy. Yay!
So I had big plans tonight to go running. But then I remembered that I was meant to visit a friend wot had had a baby, so couldn’t really ditch her since I’d stood her up last week as I’d been in London training. So I popped around and cuddled the baby for a while, being the soppy big bloke I am, until she threw up on my only pair of clean trousers (which means jeans at work tomorrow! Yes! Thanks baby!). Then because said friend lives way out in Wallington, it took me forever and a day to get home. I was, natch, famished when I’d got off the train at Streatham Hill, as was wifey who’d diligently been waiting for me to get home before cooking and instead had been buying makeup online from MAC, so I stopped in at Sainsbury’s and bought two of their finest pizzas. Plus it’s raining outside, so no running for me tonight.
So, tomorrow morning before I head off for work I promise to run around the block twice, doing the 1-min run/1-min walk times 7 thingie which, if my math doth not fail me, should take 14 mins. It’ll also be a pre-breakfast run (or fasted cardio, as they say on the fatty forums) which will do me well and not make me feel so bad about hot crumpets and butter for breakfast.
Strangely, my lower calves and ankles are still paining me, but only when I wear my work shoes. This is really shitting me off, but I’m thankful that I have only baby-sick trousers for work, so I can instead wear my comfy walking boot/shoe things tomorrow with my jeans and see if that helps alleviate things. If my legs are fine tomorrow, then I know it’s my work shoes (bought recently from Target in Australia when on hols). Kind of hoping it IS the shoes, and not anything I’ve done to myself, considering my stellar ultra-marathon career has only barely just begun.
Here I am. If in doubt, start a blog – that’s my motto. With a week gone since my first ever race, a 10k through the streets of London which I struggled through for ninety – 90! – painful minutes, I have begun to get the itch again. Also, my legs have slowly stopped hurting enough for the idea of going for a trundle around Tooting Bec Common not to strike me as insane.
Tomorrow I am planning to begin a “5-week to 5k” training plan provided by the good folks at Runner’s World (since, honestly, I was nowhere near ready for the 10k to begin with!). I plan to attend a 5k time trial in Banstead with some workmates at the end of July, and have a 10k booked at Hampton Court at the end of September (paid for and all, so I have to do it).
JogBlog is what inspired to start this blogging-me-jogging lark, funny gal she is too.
This is me. Hello.
I'm Mark. I am a new runner, and an overweight, big bloke. Not necessarily a good combination, you may say, and often I (or at least, my ankles) would agree with you. But what the hell, eh? Might as well give it a go!
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