Le Tour de.. Brendan?

Yesterday marked the beginning of the next chapter in my pursuit of what seems to be eluding me this winter - reasonable fitness. Or rather, the motivation to do what takes to attain this.

This week sees me house-sitting for my parents, which means I'm no longer within walking-distance from work (unless I leave before 6am to get to work at 9am). As a result of watching Le Tour de France for the first time this year, a combination of inspiration and ambition (and probably naivety) led me to set the goal of riding my bike to and from work this week.

To ensure I didn't bail out at the last minute, I left my car at my apartment and rode to my folks' place yesterday. Short of chucking a sickie, I had to ride this morning.

Canberra winters can be pretty brutal, and this year it has been especially cold. So I made sure I had plenty of layers: this morning I was wearing two pairs of leggings, a thermal undershirt, shorts, thick woollen socks, a woollen ski jumper, a wind-jacket, two pairs of gloves and a ski balaclava (with a sweet visor). I was well and truly ready to do battle with sub-zero temperatures.

So naturally it had been raining, was overcast, and it never got even close to sub-zero last night. In fact it was quite muggy. Plus a lot of the route to work is uphill. As a result I was way too hot. Good times.

Over-dressing aside, even though the ride this morning was pretty tough while I was doing it, my legs actually feel pretty fresh. I'm ready for the rest of the week! Although I reckon my legs may start to feel the burn towards the end of the week.

I guess the irony is that in order to ride to work and back, I'm going already in bed before Le Tour starts each night. And it's watching Le Tour that inspired me in the first place.

This is where it must start

I woke up at 6am this morning to find that it was a tad windy. After trying to "sleep" until my alarm went off at 6.30, I got up, got dressed and started my stretching. I knew it wasn't going to be pleasant outside, but I've been putting off training for too long, I sensed it was pretty important that I run today. I needed to set a precedent, to stop making excuses and start being disciplined again. And running on a morning where a blizzard warning had been issued by the Bureau of Meteorology was a pretty awesome way to start. And very boast-worthy.

I realised a few things as a result of today's run (beware, list ahead):

• Running in wild weather is not so bad, in fact I kinda enjoyed it. It took my mind off the shock my body was in at running for the first time in nearly three weeks.
• I tense up when walking in the wind. I don't when I'm running.
• My hippie-headband thing rocks at keeping my ears warm, and doesn't make my head explode from heat like a beanie does. And it's actually colour-fast, something I wasn't expecting from a piece of fabric I bought in a coastal town for a coupla bucks. In fact I was half-expecting a blue streak across my forehead, but when I checked in the mirror afterwards - no streak!
• I really need to stretch and run more. My legs were so tight in my pre-run stretch, and the run itself. Yoga sessions are needed.
• My hands took around 3.5 to 4ks to warm up. I don't expect that they'll warm up at all on tomorrow morning's bike. Ouchies.

So the good news is that it has (finally) begun! I've also started planking (the core workout one, not the bogan one) and doing push-ups everyday - laying the foundation to hit the weights at the gym next week. I'm finally psyched!

Like Communism, this program is good in theory

So today at lunch time I came up with a "timetable" for my fitness. This is the first time I've had a timetable since finishing uni, but I'm pretty excited. If I'm disciplined and follow it, it'll see the creation of Fit Brendan 2.0, hopefully seeing my fitness become more comprehensive, rather than simply cardiovascular/legs of steel fitness.

In fact, before I started running I was actually pretty involved with rock-climbing. It was an injured wrist (from skating - my injury demonstrates my skating ability) that got me into running in the first place. But now that I'm wrist-injury free, I'm pretty pumped to get climbing and gym-ing again.

According to my timetable, my weeks will look like this:

Monday - Indoor climbing

Tuesday - Morning run, yoga/pilates class at lunch

Wednesday - afternoon gym session

Thursday - Morning run

Friday - afternoon gym session and yoga/pilates class

Saturday - rest day

Sunday - Bike ride to and from church

Boom.

If I'm disciplined, I'm pretty sure I can handle it.

The only thing I'm worried about is the morning runs during winter. I'm not so concerned about running in the cold (I kinda like it) as I am about actually getting out of bed. I've been pretty much hibernating lately, sleeping more than 8 hours a night. Which means some pretty early nights if I want to be getting up early in the morning. Or I could just man up.

Future goals

So I was gonna post a like to this site, and you'd click on it and be directed to an awesome site for the next running event I'm planning on entering. But instead "canberratimesfunrun.com" is code for the "Canberra Times Outdoor Art Show that we're gonna tell you about four times in a row."

Anyways, hopefully when I rock up to the start line in September I am greeted by water stations and a starting gun, not running through a group of disgruntled artists and their paintings I've just knocked over.

The Canberra Fun Run is 10km, which is a darn sight shorter than a half-marathon. I know I am capable of running the distance, so this time around it's all about the time. I have two benchmarks with which to measure myself by, and my aim is to hit somewhere in the middle.

First of all is my dad, who wasn't much of a runner, but I can still learn a bit from his determination/stubbornness. When he was a young lad, he had a goal to finish the Canberra Fun Run within an hour. I don't know much about how he trained for the run, but on his first two attempts at the (annual) Fun Run, his time was outside the hour. In his third year, he managed to run a 59:58, and promptly vowed to never run in the event again. I hope that I have the same strength of will to set my mind on a target, and to persist until I achieve it.

The second benchmark is a guy from my church. He's the dad of one of my best friends, and has been running for a solid chunk of his life. I talked to him a few days ago about running 10k, and he told me the last time he ran the Canberra Fun Run was 20 years ago, and he posted a PB for 10k in that race. His time was 36 minutes. THIRTY-SIX MINUTES. Apparently he was tired after running 17 minutes for his first 5k, that he only managed to run the final half of the race in 19 minutes. What a freak. But I'm going to try and let that inspire me, rather than scaring me off.

So my aim is to run a time somewhere in between my dad's "I'm never running again" time and Lloyd's "I was tired so I only ran the final 5k at a SEMI-elite pace" time. I think 45 minutes is a nice figure.

I feel that my fitness is on a slow decline after completing the half-marathon, so hopefully having something to aim towards again will remedy this. Lately I've only been managing about one run a week. It's a lot easier to just stay in bed when you don't have a program to follow, or a goal to achieve. And armed with some training advice from Lloyd, I think I'm ready to write up a program that will get me out of bed and into the blizzard that is the winter morning in Canberra.

The awesome thing is that the start line for the Canberra Fun Run is practically across the road from where I live, so I just need to make sure I bring enough change with me on the run to catch the bus back homw.

A Recent Turning Point

Strap yourself in, this is gonna be a long one.

At the start of this year I was feeling pretty good about myself. Mid-November of last year I injured my wrist, so the only thing I could really do to keep fit was run. So I set myself a goal to run 10km non-stop by the end of the year, as it was something I had never done. I managed to reach that goal around the 20th December, and was pretty stoked.

And then in mid-January I travelled to Hawaii for my brother's wedding. It was such a beautiful time, in a beautiful place.

So as I've already mentioned, I was feeling pretty darn good when I got back to Australia.

Shortly after returning, I got a phone call from a friend. in short, he wanted to know if I'd be interested in running a HALF-MARATHON. Without too much thought I said yes. That call and my impulsive decision marked the beginning of a stage in my life that has left a pretty big impact. And I'm so glad it did.

After a week or so of stuffing around I got into contact with a friend who had run a marathon a year earlier, and asked her for advice in training. At this point I had about 6 weeks left before the race. I was freaking out a bit as this did NOT seem like enough time, considering it was more than double the longest distance I had run before.

With some encouragement and great advice from my friend, I was able to set up a program that would hopefully see me crossing the finish line. And this meant discipline.

So for the weeks leading up to the race, I was getting up very early in the mornings in order to run long distances and still make it to work on time. This was a challenge for me, firstly because I don't do mornings (in fact I'd rather days were made up entirely of afternoons), and secondly this was the most I'd trained in such a short period of time.

The training was hard, especially the weekends, where instead of running alone I'd run with the friend who initially asked me to run the half-marathon. He is much, much fitter than me, and as a result I had to work to keep up with him. Also about halfway through the program I caught a cold, which stopped me from training for about 10 days, which is a big deal when my program was such a short one.

However I turned a corner in my training on my first run back after recovering from the cold. I realised that I had just over two weeks left, so it was make or break time. It was at this point that I began to really understand the importance of the mind in exercise. I found that I could push myself faster and further than the point I thought was fast enough and far enough.

In the end I managed to complete the half-marathon in just under two hours, when initially my aim was to complete it in two and a half. But the end result wasn't everything.

There were a number of benefits I got from the training. First of all it taught me how to get out of bed early. However, this is a lesson I forgot pretty soon. The rest of the benefits have lasted. As a result my friendship with Tim (the guy who asked me to run the half-marathon with him) grew a lot, and we were able to feed off each others' enthusiasm. I love that guy, he's the most positive guy I know. I also learnt about the power of the mind to control the body. I realised that running a marathon (something I want to do at least once) is very achievable. I learnt that you can achieve great things as long as you are organised and disciplined.

And one final thing I realised this afternoon as I was walking home: that you don't receive benefits when you take the easy option. Real progress, real growth only comes when you leave your comfort zone. I think that's why brussel sprouts taste so bad.