Training for week commencing 17/07/2005

Well this was my most interesting training week since I started. I set myself the challenge of three 10Km runs, and managed it... just! I got my best 10km time since the Great Manchester run, and followed it up with my worst time ever!

10km
19/07 - 49:24
20/07 - 56:53
23/07 - 50:26

Now you'll notice that the run on 20/07 has an appalling time compared with the usual time area I aim for. This happenend due to me hitting "the wall" which worryingly is known in the running world as "bonking". Needless to say I wasn't expecting it, and it was a surreal experience as my heart & lungs were OK, my legs weren't in any more pain then they usually were, and then all of a sudden I stopped! I had no control over it and the legs simply wouldn't respond to start with. I only had about 2 km left so had to do a mixture of walking and running which really damaged my time. I think this was caused by diet, as I had only had two cookies since lunch and the training run was later than usual. Also I hadn't had any Banana's as the supermarket had sold out of them... typical

Anyway, after getting another education, it spawned my 5th lesson in running:
Lesson 5: Cookies might taste great, but Banana's stop you bonking!

Anyway, the total distance run so far is 262.8 km. This is further than running from Stockport to Newcastle Upon Tyne! I wonder if I can make it back by the start of the Great North.

Andy

Training for week commencing 10/07/2005

Well a great start to my second attempt at getting training in for the Great North. The Sunday (i.e. 10th) had been the day after the stag do where I had finished drinking at 04:00 am. By the evening though I felt that I was OK to do a run, and given the time left before the Great North also decided that I needed to raise the bar to a minimum of 10K training runs now!

10km
10/07 - 53:18
13/07 - 53:02

Sadly I didn't get a run in on the Saturday as it was another friends wedding. However it was well worth missing out on a training run as it was a great day and a fantastic laugh.

This meant for the first time in roughly a month I could update my total distance run count which now stands at 232.8 km

Andy

Training for week commencing 03/07/2005

Well, back from holiday, but catching up at work and home and a friends Stag do ate most of my time up so again no training. Things aren't looking good for the Great North given my appaling training over the last month! However after a bit of friendly banter off some work colleagues of it turning into my "Summer of sitting on my arse" I vowed to get some serious training in the following week.

Andy

Training for week commencing 19/06/2005 & 26/06/2005

Well both of these weeks I was on holiday, so naturally did no training runs, dranks lots beer (though the price did limit it to not being the usual holiday amount!), and had lots of food. All in all I guess I did some serious damage to my overall fitness! However lugging my heavy backpack around must have given me some exercise... at least thats the story I'm sticking to.

Anyway here's me in the arctic circle towards the top of Finland...

And here's another of me dressing up as a local...

It was a great holiday with the only drawback being the price of beer, throughly recommend it though and I would love to get to Nord Kapp at the top of Norway!

Andy

Training for week commencing 12/06/2005

Well, no training runs this week as I had the U2 concert, REM concert and packing my bags for a two week holiday and catching the flight to Helsinki on the Saturday meaning I didn't have much time spare.

Here's a photo of me on the Saturday passing through Copenhagen.

Training for week commencing 05/06/2005

Well not updated the blog in a while so appologies for my lazyness! Thankfully my running hasn't been as lazy. This was a good week for training times, but the distance could have been a bit longer ideally...

6.2km
05/06 - 26:55
07/06 - 25:56

The total distance I've now run in training is up to 212.8 km

Andy