64 days

Yesterday wasn't as successful as I'd hoped, I set my running/walking intervals quite tough as it was a short 4km run, thinking that I should be able to do well, but it was cold and rainy, and without the proper clothing I'm not a good cold weather person. I ended up feeling pretty light headed and eventually I had a headache, which is typical in cold weather for me.So I completed the first 2km lap in 14:12, which is not shabby at all. The second lap was however a different story taking 17:34 because I walked most of the way. I think I'm also used to resting every second day, and three days in a row just gets to me, but hopefully I'll get used to it.

65 days

Part of the program I mentioned yesterday includes running reps of 800m and if you are running a marathon you use the hours and minutes you are aiming for to determine your minutes and seconds to do an 800m rep. If you are running a half marathon you take your 10km time, multiply it by 4.66 to get your equivalent marathon time and then do the same thing.

If I take my latest 10k time of 78mins then I get a goal 800m time of 6min 04sec this seemed rather long, and besides I'd like to do a bit better than that. So I used the very reasonable time of 70mins for a 10k to calculate my goal 800m time and got to 5:26. Then yesterday, which was meant to be a 20min run/walk, I walked to the school which I know has an 800m circumference and let rip... well kindof. I didn't expect to be able to finish the 800m without stopping, but to my surprise I made it!! Whats more, imagine my surprise when I completed the 800m in 4:17, now I'm under no illusions that I can do a really fast half marathon, but maybe I can do it little faster than I think I can currently. Keep you posted

66 days

I decided to look at a "proper" training program to get some tips about what I should be doing...it's scary! So I've improvised it a little. What was stressed was that hills are very important, especially considering how many hills there are on the 2 Oceans route!

So yesterday was hills, it was supposed to be 20mins of hills but the hill in question was about 2 km away, so 4 X 200m worth of hills was settled on. It took about 12 minutes. I think every Monday will be hills and every Monday I'll do 2 more hills.

Below is my heartrate response from those 4 hills and you can clearly see it rising and falling as I get to the top of the hill and walk back down! You can clearly see the 4 big peaks, it takes me about 1:30 to go up the hill and a similar amount of time to come back down.


Like I've said in previous posts this is usually not the case, hy heartrate usually doesn't respond in this linear fashion, it rather jumps around. I felt pretty good on the hills although I do feel quite tired now, and I was buggered last night, I was fast asleep by 9:30!!

Today I need to do a 20min run/walk, but I'm going to include an 800m test run in that, because the program prescribes 800m runs later on and I'd like to know if I can do one in the calculated time. If you'd like to see the program I am trying to follow... if slightly modified, check out this link

67 days

I did a 10km on Saturday, what was supposed to be an easy, flat run, turned out to be an ok route with more hills than expexted. I was expecting to complete the race in over 80mins as my pace so far this year has been pretty slow. Imagine my surprise when I finish it in 1:18 (78 mins). It was a nice race and something I can definitely work on.

I mentioned in my last post that my heartrate is doing "strange" things at the moment, but actually when I look at it, it is responding pretty well at the moment to changes in intensity. Which I take as a good sign. Where as before I would get it up to about 140 and it would pretty much stay there for the duration of the run, now it seems to vary as I run and walk. If you click on the figure below you can see, both the figure and my heartrate response clearly.

So hopefully when I see the cardiologist later this month and ask him if he thinks this is a good idea...or atleast if it's do-able. He'll tell me yes :)
Talking about things I'd like to ask the cardiologist, I want to know if he thinks I can take supplements like L-Carnitine or Coenzyme Q-10. I know that perhaps the benefits of these supplements have not been fully proven, but if they aren't going to interfere with my medication, I can't see why I shouldn't take them, especially while I'm putting my body through a lot of stress.

For people reading my blog who aren't familiar with me, I have chosen a monumentally bad time to complete this run. I am nearing the end of a Masters degree in Mechatronics Engineering and should be writing up my theses starting April. Considering that I also need to be training really hard in March and April, I'm going to be under major stress at that time. We'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

71 days

Went for another nice run yesterday, 6km in 47minutes. It's a little slower than the 5 the previous day but I still felt good about it. Something I haven't mentioned in my posts is that my heartrate is unusually slow since I came back from holiday. At the moment I am struggling to get it above 120, where usually it flat lines (hehe) at about 140.

I lost another 0.3kg this morning and 0.5kg yesterday so thats a total of 2.3kg in less than a week. If thats not water weight then theres something strange going on, but I'm pretty sure thats what it is. I'm now pretty close to the same weight I was at the end of last year, so thats alright.

The plan is to do another 4km tomorrow, gently and then do a 10km race Saturday morning. I'm pretty sure I'll go through with it this time.

73 days to go - feeling better

So I went for a 5km run yesterday, it was fantastic... i don't think I've enjoyed... REALLY enjoyed a run since before I left for New Zealand, late November. I'm pretty sure I know what has been bugging me, I had relaxed my outlook on diet and fluid intake, most likely resulting in me eating more salt than I should and drinking more fluid than I should. Both of these add up to me retaining too much water. I decided on the weekend that I needed to be more careful again, and I've lost 1.5kg since Saturday so I think I was right.

Yesterday's run was a 37minute 5km, which is pretty fast for me! Infact I rarely get under 37 mins for a 5km especially on a hot day :)

Too few days

So I haven't done this in a while, but considering the lack of time left I think I need to start blogging again. I had a rather busy holiday, drove 1500km down to Cape Town from Pretoria, spent 2 days (including christmas) with my family in Robertson, drove 700km to the Orange river on boxing day and then spent 5 fantastic days paddling down the river. Drove back to Cape Town, spent a few days with friends and then drove back to Pretoria. In that time I consumed more stuff that is bad for me than I think I have the entire preceding year...

Getting back to it has been pretty tough, especially considering that I was sick late November, then I travelled to New Zealand for a week early December, then 2 weeks back at it and then away on the previously mentioned holiday. I feel in bad shape :( and then there the heat and the humidity that really don't help either.

So from today on in 76 days to go, I'm going to try to be a lot stricter about what I eat and drink again, and I'll try to step up my pace a little, but mainly the distance... a lot.

I had intended running my first 10km of the year today, but decided against it last night cause if I'm honest with myself I'm not feeling well enough to run a 10.

But so far this month I've run 36 km, which is alright, but pretty shappy by last years standards... I'm gonna have to pull something out the hat if I wanna do this, but as much as the mind is willing... the body isn't really :(

Week 38 (22/09/08 - 28/09/08)

I should really try write these the week after, so I remember what was going through my head then, but alas I am lazy. This no morning runs were completed, I felt that the past few weeks had included so many long runs that perhaps taking it easy wasn't a bad idea... hopefully we'll start running in the morning again soon, if I can get out of bed!! A big incentive is that it is getting stupidly hot in the evenings and I'd prefer to run in the (hopefully) cooler mornings.

Monday evening 22/09/08
Distance run: 7km
Route: Boys High (loop)
time: 52:28 mins
Intervals: 60/120

Wednesday morning 14/09/08
Distance run: 4km
Route: Mackenzie (this was a public holiday)
Time: 30:46 mins
Intervals: 60/120

Friday evening 12/09/08
Distance run: 4km walked

Saturday morning 13/08/08
Distance run: 10km
Route: CSIR
Time: 1:17:25
Intervals: 60/90

Total distance this week: 28km

The CSIR run was quite nice actually. I kindof thought it would be a lot worse, but still took it quite easy. There were the hills especially the last one from one side of campus to the other. I however don't think I walked any more of it than I had to to follow the intervals. However the route didn't have long enough downhills to take advantage of, which I sometimes do, by running all the way through my rest interval, and the next running interval, but only on downhills.

Some Pics

When I like pictures of me... this is a pic from the Phobians 15km race, check those sexy, melanin deficient, legs :P
When I don't like pictures of me... ok so this was 15km later, after crossing back and forth over a mountain (uh...um... ok large hill) on the Ou Voedpad run.

Major Bleakness

I know it's stupid, but I stored all of my exercise data on my work laptop, mainly because it has a COM port which I can use to download the data (my personal computer needs a USB-Serial adaptor). So I had ALL the data that I've gathered since being in Pretoria on that PC! Which is really sad, because it's quite interesting information that I can't get back!

Oh, did I say that my laptop was stolen from my office at work this past weekend? My window was pried open and my laptop taken from my desk :( I guess it serves me right for leaving my blinds open. The saw it in the window, but we are supposed to have a really good security system, state industrial secrets and all!

Sometimes, just sometimes, I hate my country.

On the bright side, I did start this blog, to store an outline of the data, and I also have my old fashioned logbook...still

Week 38 (14/09/08 - 21/09/08)

This week I started my 30th year on planet Earth! And started the last year of my Twenties... oh well :P. It was a good week.

Monday morning 15/09/08
Nadda: I think I was lazy again after too good a weekend

Monday evening 15/09/08
Distance run: 7km
Route: Lynwood (loop)
time: 52:16 mins
Walked to and from running: 2km

Wednesday morning 17/09/08
Laziness

Wednesday evening 17/09/08
Distance run: 7km
Route: Premier
Time: 56:13 mins
Intervals: 60/120

Friday morning 12/09/08
Nadda: I have no excuse except laziness and resting for the 10km run that I did the on Saturday

Friday evening 12/09/08
Distance run: 2km walked

Saturday morning 13/08/08
Distance run: 10km
Route: CSIR
Time: 1:17:25
Intervals: 60/90

Total distance this week: 28km

The CSIR run was quite nice actually. I kindof thought it would be a lot worse, but still took it quite easy. There were the hills especially the last one from one side of campus to the other. I however don't think I walked any more of it than I had to to follow the intervals. However the route didn't have long enough downhills to take advantage of, which I sometimes do, by running all the way through my rest interval, and the next running interval, but only on downhills.

Ou Voedpad 10 Miler

OK so the link is in Afrikaans, sorry to those of you who can't read it. You'll have to read my interpretation. The 10 mile run started at TUT ( Tswane University of Technology) heading west and within three miles we were led onto an old footpath, heading north over the Magaliesberg. I stupidly sprinted down most of the north face of the mountain, and I think it's a miracle that I didn't twist my ankle, but I really do enjoy running down mountains :)

Then we headed west over the entrance to the Daspoort tunnel and then a little further on we headed straight up the mountain to head back south and finally east back to TUT. I think my description is useless...

It was a pretty tough but I never felt REALLY tired at any point. I guess a lot had to do with the necessity to walk single file up much of the track. The scenery was magnificent, being able to see the whole of Pretoria, North and South of the Magaliesberg.

So far this is the furthest I've run and even though it was at quite a slow pace, I think that had it been on a flatter surface, and not hampered by other walkers I'd have been able to do it in atleast 20mins less. Which is encouraging for a 21km.