Quadzilla's day off

My legs don't ache as much as I thought they might have. In fact, they aren't as sore as my biceps, which got that way simply from holding my forearms up on Saturday.

I'd thought of going running during the lunch break at work today, and last night had even packed my running gear and stuff, but woke up today thinking for some reason that it wouldn't be a good idea, that I'd had too much work to do, and (again) the only benefits would have been for the ego, so before I left for work I jettisoned the running gear. In any case, all I'd wanted to do was a 5K, and it didn't seem worthwhile to haul all that stuff to work just for that. Turns out it was the right decision, as one of the other teachers at work is ill and I've been asked to cover the lessons. I guess today it'll be quick lunchtime pressups and weights using anything I can find around here. Table dips? Curl an Epson printer maybe? Or hack-squat the filing cabinet? I have to admit, that my first foray into weights was bicep curls with a pot of paint when I was 15. That sufficed for a bit until the plastic handle broke, mid-curl, and I parquetted the floor of my parents' lounge in white. Nice.

I'm more open to running a marathon than I was previously - well, "covering" a marathon distance at least; I can't see myself signing up to run one with the masses, and while I understand that there is nothing like crowd atmosphere at races, and taking it all in, I would strangely prefer the solitude of a long run. Anyway, my "marathon" might just be laps around the park, if it ever comes to that. One of the considerations is that while I enjoy exercise, I wouldn't write a blank cheque for it. In other words, I wouldn't want to just get work and life out of the way so I can spend the remaining time running. My belief is that running, like other things, should have limits to it; I like running, but it's not the world to me.

I'm racking my few brain cells and trying to think: How can I prepare for a sub-4 hour marathon by running not more than 13.1 weekly miles? Anyone got any ideas? I'd be a willing test pig.

the Lunar New Year long run

Hee hee. This Sunday is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year ... a bit like Christmas and the Western New Year rolled into one, I suppose. Families gather for a meal and instead of gifts, children get red packets containing money for them to spend on Nikes, Garmins, Hilarys, swimsuits and whatever else they fancy. "Happy New Year" in Chinese is pronounced "xin nian kuai le" - "Sin" "Neanderthal" Bridge on the River Kwai and Ler... - well, think throwing up after one too many interval sprints.

Anyway, I ran 30K today.

There was no school for me – the school I normally go to on Saturdays has an “Exeat” (I’m guessing Latin for “exit”) once or twice a term and today happened to be it, so I had the day free. What better way to spend a 40F day than run lap after lap of my local 1.1K mini-park? I’d thought about it all this week, and decided that the best thing to do would be to run 6 laps of the park, trot the remaining ¼ mile home for a short 5 minute break, see how it went… and keep repeating at 7K intervals.

1st 7K in 35 minutes – well within the 8-minute mile pace I had wanted to start off with. Trotted home, put the kettle on, had some toast, put petroleum jelly on feet, towel-dried hair all within 5 minutes.

Did the next 10K in 50 minutes – 8-minute miles again. I should have stopped at 7, but I felt fine and relaxed, and decided to make the most of the pace until I could sense some fatigue. Back home, cup of tea and the other usuals, in a slightly longer break of 10 minutes.

Next set: 8K in 45 minutes. I passed the half-marathon mark in 1:58:50, which wasn’t spectacular but fine, because I was more concerned about the next few kilometres. Including the breaks and all, by this time I’d run 25K in 2:25.

The last 5K after a five-minute break were the hardest. Absolute legs of lead. I was pretty much reduced to run/walking, and tried doing a few sets of 45 seconds of quick running alternating with 15 seconds of walking, then 40/20s, then just trying to run quickly whenever it felt possible. Of course, since I was in unknown territory by this time, I was just concerned about not overdoing things. 30K in 2:55:34 seems like a good first-time effort.

Some things I’ve learnt:
1) Split long distances into shorter manageable ones. Take a break from time to time.
2) Rubbing petroleum jelly on your feet where you would normally get blisters is amazing. Normally after 10 miles I would get blisters. I had none today.
3) Oats! Oats! Oats!
4) Run in a controlled fashion, especially the first half. Resist the temptation to go out fast. Not that I achieved a negative-split, but I don’t think I would have been able to go 9K further than I have ever done without starting out slow.

If I were to do it again, I would aim to do the half-marathon under 2 hours again, and then rethink the rest breaks and pace after that distance. I think I should have walked at some point after the 2 hour mark to allow my legs some form of respite. Back to the war room, I suppose. Now that I’ve done 30K, the lure of 42.195 in 4 hours is fast diminishing the shine of the sub-2 hour half. Hmm.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to do some stretching... have a good weekend everyone! Or as people seem to be saying nowadays, bbbbbbbblog on!

It was 5C/41F when I got home. Now, the places some of you come from, I know at 5 degrees, you’ll be on the patio in shorts trying to catch some winter sunshine. Certainly not for one who has experienced only 5 winters in one’s lifetime. (And I’m not 5, by the way; otherwise I might just blitz that age group.) The rational, if somewhat procrastinating, part of my head also said it wasn’t a good idea to eat lunch and run in the same hour I had free, and the benefits of running with a cold would have only been for the ego, so I got on the stepper and did an easier workout after some oats.

I discovered one of the hydraulics in my stepper has gone bust – a hint for me to lose weight, maybe? – so it might be the time to think about alternatives for indoor exercise.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals...what I want to achieve from running and fitness. The main goal is a healthier lifestyle, of course, which I think I’ve achieved. Previously I thought that, for someone who aims to just run about 30 minutes three times a week, a sub-two hour half-marathon would have been good enough. The thing is that now I’ve done it, and know that on any given day I can crank that out on the same minimal volume of training I’m doing, I’m... bored. Maybe I should up my sights to doing a marathon, but the time commitment to training to run one properly seems more than I would want to give. I also know that I would probably be faster speed-walking a marathon (done that distance before with full army kit before) than run/walking it.. and a marathon seems like an extravagance for one who just wants to keep fit. But at the same time I'm already starting to get stale with the idea of improving my running times at the shorter distances. Where should the search for running Nirvana lead me?

Had a good run today. Went to work slightly earlier (out the door at 6:10) to get as much as possible done before teaching, so I could have the whole of lunchtime free to do running, instead of worrying about things I have to do, like photocopying after wasting time standing in a long queue. That's one of my pet peeves - waiting, watching and wasting time... WaitWatching! It's quieter early in the morning, but obviously some others have cottoned on to the idea as well.

I wasn't so much concerned about overall time today, but just wanted to work on incorporating slightly faster sections of running into my normal trot. Did 5 miles at 7:30 pace, then jogged all the way to 10K. The weather was cold. I had my thermal base layer, my waterproof and gloves, but still never felt warm. Even the heating in the school succumbed today to the weather. The boiler broke down but thankfully there was hot water in the shower somehow!

I'm going to take it easy during this week, as I think I'm starting to develop a cold. My training partner, Mr Nose, has been running continuously after lunch today. Maybe I'll do light cardio and then try a long run on Saturday. I don't know if I can do a half marathon under 1:40; going by today's results, probably not... and maybe I'll try something different, like try and see how many miles I can log within, say, 2 hours of run/walking. Happy training and blogging, everyone!

My Amazon DVD-rental-by-post disc arrived yesterday.

The question, therefore, was: Do I do my intervals in the forecast heavy rain, during the lunch break at work, or do I go on the stepper at home, and sacrifice an evening slouching on the sofa watching Alias?

Easy.

Did 2.25 miles at 5K pace, and then alternated 30-40 seconds of running hard with jogging in between. Total time: 30 minutes. DVD evening: priceless.

I've done about 10-11K of running since Tuesday, which - if I go by my rule of not running more than 13.1 miles per week - leaves me with about 10K to play around on Monday. Any ideas on how to spend it - long slow distance or intervals?

The stuff Tuesdays are made of, and a new PR

Me: (to student) See this circle here, with the line through it? (Point at note) This is the note "middle C". Let me show you where middle C is (play note). Now, let's look at the sheet again. The note next to middle C is one note higher. It is called "D". (Point at note) Can you show me where "D" is?

Student: (puts finger on paper, next to mine) There.
¬
Today one of my students at home asked to be rescheduled later on in the evening, so I went running as soon as I got back. The pace was meant to be an easy "let's get 6 miles before dark" pace, but once I realised I was on course I went for it - 5K, 20:50. Just 4 seconds off the previous mark. The improvement curve is beginning to flatten out. After running out to 3.5 miles, I also did 5 sets of 200s. I'm starting to like intervals. You run fast. You spend less time running. You get the workout done quicker. Can't get any better than that.

The cost of running indoors

Yesterday morning I dropped by a gym near where we were to have a look. The gym had offered a free day pass allowing people to drop in to use its facilities before possibly signing up for memberships. Now, those of you who have read this blog often enough will know I hate spending money unnecessarily on equipment, so you'll know I wouldn't have even considered getting a membership. But it was that free day pass that enticed me. I thought that I'd go in to have a look at the facilities and the treadmills first, see what they had, and maybe return a few weeks later, flashing the day pass to get a free workout on the treadmills. In the back of my mind was the thought of running a sub 1:40 half-marathon on the treadmill, setting it to go at 8 miles per hour and using it to pace me.

The guy who showed me around calmly explained that it costs £165 (US$300, I think)to join, then either £42.50 ($80) per month for a three-month membership, or £39.95 ($work it out yourself) per month for a twelve-month membership. He also said that since I'd already come on that day, I couldn't really return on another day to use the facilities; the reasoning was that the day pass was only valid for the day I came, even if it were just to check out the gym.

The next time I'm ever bored with the stepper, and the weather's seemingly too rubbish to run outside, I think the thought of how much it would cost to run indoors should be sufficient to boot me out the door.

Stepping yesterday: 20 minutes, then some bicep curls and pressups. There is a noticeable area of "soft ground" between the upper and lower half of my body, so I might have to do crunches again, much as I hate them because I end up with neckache after doing them.

As an afterthought - does running a half-marathon distance on a treadmill count? I know this is a rather anal question, but I - in my own anally retentive way - worked out that if a treadmill manufacturer over-estimated the length of the running platform by just an inch, at my pace I would lose more than 30 feet for every mile supposedly run on the treadmill. That works out to be about nearly 400 feet for a half-marathon, a distance that might work out to be worth about 30 seconds to me. Also, a half-marathon indoors on a treadmill is run in fairly comfortable conditions. So, treadmill half-marathon - does it count, or not?

Jennifer Garner gets my heart racing...

Last night my heart rate soared to a maximum of 160-170bpm for about 40 minutes.

A good stepping session (to Alias) after a lousy one the day before - while nothing to crow about, is at least redemptive in its basic respects. It also means a less guilty weights weekend.

What makes your heart beat faster?

Hmmph

I'm having a break at the moment at work. 20 minutes. I had longer, but it's all been taken up with doing bits here and there. Hard to imagine that, last week, I even thought I might be able to get a run in during Friday lunchtime. Yesterday I thought I might have time to do pressups and weights during my break, but I've got to catch my lunch somewhere.

Went on the stepper last night, but I wish I hadn't. Heart rate - a miserly 120bpm on average. I might as well not have tried. No matter what I did - fast, slow, pressups etc, nothing would get the heart rate higher than 130, 135. I only did the bare minimum of 20 minutes and then gave up. At least I'm away from #50. Hope for something better over the weekend. Hope yours is good too.

HELP

Work is winning.

Today's workout plans call for a run before I'm teaching next at 5, but I think that'll have to go by the wayside, as there's not enough time to have a proper run in, get changed, et al. I didn't get to do yesterday's weights. I didn't feel like doing any stretching. If I'm lucky I might be able to do some stepping in the evening. There's also stuff to prepare for next week, materials to get ready to photocopy... the consequences of having about 80 individual students to teach, of various standards, and each requiring different lesson materials. This week being the first full week back at work, I've really felt it. I've slept 10 hours each on two different nights. I'm a weakling, I know.

One mundane problem I have to tackle is the problem of lunch. My students come to me in twenty-minute intervals for their individual lessons, and in order to fit them in students within their school day (they cannot have lessons after school), I have to place them one after another. Which, three days a week, means lunch is not scheduled, and I may have to teach six-and-a-half hours before getting a break. That's right. A break. One to make a pit stop. Wednesday is the afore-mentioned terrible day where work seemingly becomes an exercise in surival: get in as many calories as possible before work, bladder control, try not to drink too much during work for fear of loss of bladder control, pray for students to be afflicted with terrible diseases and be absent... which means by the time I'm off work I haven't really eaten or drunk properly, and then I have to think about running with a bloated stomach in the time I have free between students I teach at home. If anyone has a similar problem like this - long hours without a break - can you tell me so I can stop moaning about it.

Back to the daily grind - and hopefully I'll be able to tell you later that work didn't swallow my run! Maybe I should have aimed to hit #53 or something instead of #50? Susan, sorry to disappoint you, love, but you who run and do boobcamp even when you're tired and have a cold, are way behind me in the voting for "Weenie award". I think I pretty much have that in the bag. (The correct one too.)

You think I'd know better

I like to run my life with ruthless efficiency.

I have two bags, one containing music stuff, the other containing EFL stuff, so I can pack lesson materials for each week at one go.

Each night I lay out the next day's clothes on the radiator. The heating is programmed to come on half an hour before I get up, and my clothes are nice and warm.

Each night I also place a flask of tea and some stuff to munch on into my bag, so I can have warm - not boiling hot - tea as I'm travelling; and I don't have to waste time in the morning getting it ready.

My toiletries are laid out in the order I will use them. Right to left.

Sounds like the Jetsons? Or Wallace and Gromit?

Somehow the conveyor belt of morning preparation moves along slower than it normally does, so today I'm having to rush to get to work today, grabbing the wrong bag.

That's right. The wrong bag. Not the bag with all my food in it. Not the bag with the lessons I'm going to teach today.

Ah heck. At least my underwear was warm.

Tonight's supposed to be 20 minutes on the stepper, but I've been so zonked out by the day, I'll just do some weights. I figure my running would also benefit more from stretching than cardio, so that's my excuse.

#50, finally

I won't bore anyone with further reiterations of how I set myself a target of 50 cardio sessions to get myself out of a sedentary autumn/winter lifestyle. There are more than enough posts in the archives that deal with that.

Anyway, I'm there. Of course, "there" isn't anything big enough to pop the champagne, release the balloons and confetti, and hire the gospel choir, but I'll celebrate my little victory. "There" isn't the summit of things, but a bivouac on the mountain I want to climb. After all, Winter's barely started, and I want to maintain this momentum into Spring.

Did 10K today in 45:45. Was hoping to at least run close to my PR, but I didn't have the energy or will to do it. I ran pretty close to the lap times I envisioned, 7:30 miles until after mile 4, which is when it started getting difficult mentally. "Come on!" the spirit willed, but the head retorted, "Come on! Be serious." Still, 7:32 miles for 6.25 miles isn't too bad for someone who doesn't usually run more than 10 miles a week.

I hope to do some fartleks (gotta love that word) over the course of the next few runs - just adding a few sections of fast running into normal jogs. I intend to leave the watch behind, though. I'm getting quite sick of result-oriented running; looking at lap times and in a way, judging myself by the ticks of the second hand. It detracts too much from the joy of running, and each time I do that I feel like I'm tightening the screws on myself. Don't get me wrong - I love it each time I set a PR, and I like working towards one, but the need to run a certain distance within a certain time each time I lace up can be a little too needlessly all-consuming.

What inspires you?

Ran 5 miles today. I did the first 4 under 30 minutes, but mistakenly hit the "stop" instead of "lap" on the watch after that, so I have no idea of my finishing time. This is what you get for not running regularly, you see. It was cold outside but I was reasonably comfortable in my hat, gloves and layers, even though my cheeks are stinging now that I'm indoors. Today's running weather was 1C/34F, and snowing. Normally it's reason enough for me to consider the stepper, but how can you stay indoors after reading posts like these?

Also kept up with the stretching, and did some weights for biceps and triceps, and some ab work. Nowadays I don't do bicep curls as often as I used to, but it doesn't seem to have mattered much.

My bike is no more. I've had a sort-out around the house, and I've had to dismantle the bike to make room (yes, we're that short of space here) so it's nicely tucked away under the ladder to the spare bunk bed. My bike wasn't really used very much - if it had a name, it would have been called "Rusty" - so I don't think I'll miss it at all. It's actually quite a relief to have it out of the way. Oh yes, the handlebars were a goner, and they've been chucked. So why do I have one non-functioning bike packed away when I could chuck the whole thing out? I don't know, but one stashed-away bike sure makes a hell lot of a difference. Now, imagine what would happen if you cleared away all these.

My nose runs better than I do

Got a cold, so it was just 20 minutes on the stepper. Finished off with some bent-over lateral raises and a bit of stretching - just hamstrings.

Did some stretching yesterday and the day before, and the results have been surprisingly good. I had less muscle soreness after the stepping and weights on Wednesday. I break up the stretching over the course of the day, so stretching has been easy to incorporate into my life. I tend to do a few extra stretches for hamstrings and lower back, because that's where I need it most. I've got more knots there than a boy scout platoon.

What can you do to spend less time on the computer? I've spent nearly the whole day in front of my TFT, partly surfing, but mainly sending application forms to summer schools. This year I'm hoping to teach at summer schools - the break between the end and start of terms is too long for my liking, even though I know it means more time to run.

Tomorrow I hope to go running for the first time in about a fortnight. I haven't run for nearly two weeks, so it should be interesting.

Can I also say a big "Thank You" to Susan for taking the time to design a header to replace my old drab one! It's a beauty, and I'm gob-smackingly thankful!

40 minutes of cardio this evening. I did the first 20 – 25 on the stepper at 150 – 170 bpm, alternating quick half-steps with slower full steps; anything to get my heart rate up. The latter part of the workout was stepping interspersed with an assortment of press-ups, bent-over dumbbell raises, calf raises on the 2¾, and squats, at a less intense rate of 130-150bpm. I didn’t really count how many sets or reps I did, because, again, the idea was just to keep the heart rate up. I’m pleased with the whole thing, particularly as the initial intention was to do just 20 minutes on the stepper. To close out the hour I also did some stretching, 30 seconds per stretch, mainly lower body and trunk.

I’m still working towards reaching 50 cardio sessions since I started #1 at the end of August, and the last three will mainly be spent getting back to running shape after a ten-day layoff over Christmas. It might not be all that bad though – I seem to have lost weight since then! I don’t have a scale so I can’t be 100% sure, but my normally-easy-fitting jeans hung like hipsters today, so much so that if you saw my behind, you might have mistaken me for Anna Kournikova. Okay, maybe that's not true – Anna’s butt is nowhere as brilliant as mine lol – but you get the idea. There are still loads of boxes of chocolate hanging around after Christmas. For someone who strangely wants to gain weight, and run faster, is that good or bad? Hmm.

Nothing like home

And I mean it in all senses.

I'd rather be jet-lagged in this part of the world, in my own space and lifestyle - which includes reading blogs and catching up on what I've missed since we left on holiday.

"Half" seems to be the buzzword for 2006, by the looks of things:

Jennifer P: Hypothermic Half Marathon, Feb 26; Winnipeg Police Half Marathon, Apr 30
Massoman: Cowtown Half Marathon, Feb 25
Runner Susan: Austin Half Marathon, Feb 19; Big D Half Marathon, Apr 2
TryAthlete: IM Half-asleep, Jan 3, Jan 4, Jan 5, Jan 6
Jen C: Hartford Half Marathon ... but when?
M: I gather you're training for one, but I don't know which.
Andrea: What about that half marathon you were considering? Go on. New shoes.

Summary of the week in Singapore:
The Good
Seeing my two-year-old niece for the first time. She's so cute, the 7000 miles to get there seems worth it.

The weather - which is normally a blazing 34C/94F each day, but a cooler 29/86F for the whole time we were there.

Turtle-feeding! Especially at a pond where the sign says "Do not feed the turtles"!

I got a pair of spectacles made within 2 days, compared to 10-14 days it takes in the UK. And - I'm not exaggerating - they were 5 times cheaper!

The not-so-Good
Singapore is renowned for its variety of food from different cultures, but vegetarian food appears to be "meat dishes, without the meat". If you're a vegan, emigrate.

I'm such a misfit with the whole place - family, culture, environment - that I remember why I left two summers ago, and I realise I was right to do so. And at the back of my mind there is the realisation of the sad fact that visits like these will get increasingly fewer in the future.

Still, I had a nice time, but there's absolutely nothing like being in your own place. The weather in London is cold and dreary, but I'm ... loving it.

Cardio sessions done since Xmas: zero

In Singapore, I was going to get myself a new pair of Nikes, because they're far cheaper there, and work a bit towards #50. However my parents, who are generous (but notorious for giving people loads of souvenirs and other junk the people don't need in spite of their protestations) heaped such a humongous load on us that I had to forget about buying anything for myself, because I seriously didn't have any more space to carry it back in. Does dragging half your bodyweight in luggage through the airport qualify as cardio? I know they meant well, and I didn't want to hurt their feelings by not bringing the stuff back, so I had to grudgingly carry back all that tack, even though it meant transferring their junk 7000 miles to store in my house. Anyone for keychains, and calendars with Chinese horoscopes on them? Or how about 20 DVDs of a Korean programme that I wouldn't watch - a programme that has such appeal, my dad proudly states, that "even the President of China watches it"?

Being back in my own place means getting back into the routine of cardio and all again. Weights tonight, I think. This year I also hope to do more fartleks, and stretch more often. Pavel Nurmi, a running great, reputedly did only speed training is his first few years, because "I already know how to run slowly. I need to learn how to run fast." And call me lazy, but I'm also going to try to lower my half-marathon time by not running more than 13.1 miles each week. It should be an interesting experiment in running economy!