Late night blogging

Well this week has been a week of inspirations. At the beginning of the week I began reading "It's Not About the Bike", the book Lance Armstrong wrote on his battle with cancer. Knowing people who have had or still have cancer, it cut straight to my heart. And on Tuesday I went for a run for the first time in almost a month. And then again on Wednesday. And Thursday. And Saturday.

Here's a map of Saturday's run, my first run over 10km in probably over four months. It also marks the beginning of my training for the Canberra Fun Run, a 10km deal which is in a few weeks.

It probably would have been a slightly more impressive time had I remembered to hit "pause" when I bumped into some friends and chatted to them for about 10 mins around the 6km stage. Oh well. That particular run was more about making the 10km mark, rather than the time it took.

On Saturday's run, for some reason I had a pretty interesting thought. This is unusual for me - usually when I'm running I'm like Dory from Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." My mental energy is most often just focussing on not stopping. But not this time.

The thought that popped into my head was this: that some things that cause us pain or discomfort can end up being good for us down the track, while other things that are pleasurable or comfortable will have a negative effect. For example, running (or really any intense exercise) can hurt while you're doing it, but actually makes you healthier. On the flip side, eating lots of cookies and lounging on the couch can cause you to be unhealthy if you do it too much.

Obviously this isn't a very concrete rule. A solid session of head-butting the wall probably won't benefit you later in life. But I thought it was pretty cool anyways.

Well. It's getting late. Good night guys.

P.S. The fact that I wrote this blog in the midnight hour is testament to another thing that's inspired me this week. But I'm not going to talk about it because I've already professed my love for it in a previous post, and I don't want to seem obsessive (even though I am).

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!

Training Update

A week after writing my timetable, I've managed to run on the Thursday morning and do the yoga/pilates class on Friday. No pre-class gym session, no bike-ride on Sunday, no climbing on Monday (although that's because the climbing gym is closed at the moment), no Tuesday run (instead I was sick, off work for the day, and confined to either my bed or the couch. Except for a bathroom cleaning and mopping spree mid-afternoon). And it looks like I'll probably miss tomorrow morning's run too (I'm still sick, although slightly less so thanks to some pharmaceuticals).

So health and discipline are needed, but they are hard to come by when Canberra is in a prime location for an early-winter blizzard, apparently.

And so it begins

So after getting excited yesterday about training for a purpose again, I decided to run after work tonight. The loop I did I estimated to be around 7.5, but thanks to the satellites in the sky and the smartphone in my hand, I was able to track it accurately:

Hurray! I underestimated a distance for once!

At least I know where I'm at now, fitness-wise. I ran 5:15min kilometres, which ok, but the route I took has a lot of downhills. For my half-marathon training I was running the other way, uphill. And that's what I'm going to do from now on, so obviously the pace will be a bit slower to start with. Today was just my way of easing into the training.

I'm really looking forward to the point where my foundation fitness is cranking again, and the only way to do that is by running three times a week. And hopefully by doing this I can get that time down. Running the current pace for 10km would see me running a time of between 52-53 minutes, but I doubt I have the stamina to do that yet. And training is the only way to fix it!

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.