Past the 5km mark!

Big achievement for me last Wednesday when I made it to 5km. It took me 31.5 minutes and ideally I'd like to do it in 30 but I am going to work on endurance rather than speed. This is my best distance/time ever, when I had my running phase last year I never did more than 5km.

On Friday I did a quick 3.2km meaning I ran over 12km in total last week - about 7 miles I think! My weight has dropped back down to my pre-hotel weight and I feel good. We had a pool party on Saturday and I wore my new bikini for the first time, it fitted well and I felt great. I have got to keep this up. I drunk far too many beers at the weekend so I'm going to try and stay off alcohol all week.

S came down and we talked about the half-marathon next year. We will make a weekend of it (if in fact I end up doing it) in Stratford-upon-Avon, so it is something to spur me on to being fit enough to run it. Hopefully A will do it too. I know both of them will rush off without me but I don't mind, as long as I can get round within a day :)

I'm having a day off sick today (sick of work :) ) so no running, but I will do half an hour on the cross-trainer and play on the dance machine otherwise I know I'll just end up sitting around stitching.

It's done nothing but rain for the last 2 days so it's quite nice to have an excuse to stay in and mooch.

The Longest Day

I had a lazy weekend, apart from swimming, because the weather was gorgeous. So feeling all guilty I hit the gym last night, even though I didn't get out of the office till after 6pm. I ran 4.2km but I think I could've done more, I was just worried about getting home for tea :) Then I walked to 4.5km.

I rested today, my legs couldn't run if they tried, and I'm going to do 4km tomorrow, with an option to go on to 5km if I feel like I can. I'm happy with how it's going but that 21km seems a long way off, at the moment even 6km doesn't seem at all possible.

I added a new ticker bar to spur me on a little bit.

I think my scales could be broken (a really obvious cop-out I know!) because I somehow managed to put on a mysterious 4lb last week despite eating salads at the hotel for every meal, and I was running more as well. Unless I'm building muscle. Really weird. Anyway, whatever, it's made me feel bad so I'm trying really hard now to shift it.

Now I must go watch the England game. Early night tonight (9pm) as I am going to get up at 3am and pop up to Stonehenge for the sunrise :) it will be my first Solstice since moving here, how totally fabulous. I'm such a lazy cow though I bet you anything I just turn over in bed and miss it. Longest Day tomorrow, my favourite day of the whole wide year.

To start with

I haven't been running for about 3 weeks now, as I had started cycling a lot. I realised that the cycling wasn't doing me much good in terms of getting fit, the kind of cycling I do doesn't encourage much stamina. I'm a lazy cycler. It's infinitely more enjoyable than sweating it out in the gym but I know if I want to get fit I have to run. So when I rested the running in favour of cycling I was doing 4km relatively easily, and it's taking me some time to get back in to it.

I was away on a course in Swindon this week for a few nights so I took the opportunity to get back in the gym. It was hard work and I managed 3km on 2 consecutive nights. The gym was hot and there was no entertainment so it was more of a slog than my usual gym. I know this sounds like an excuse but I really think the heat and boredom contributed to me only managing 3km, and god it was hard.

Today I was back at my usual gym and managed 4km running with a short walk for afters. I think I am running "wrong" because always, without fail, my left calf muscle aches like mad afterwards. I think I may be twisting my left foot when I'm running. I need to sort this out, but it could be something to do with running on a treadmill. I am always conscious of needing to stay "between the lines" so maybe I'm over-compensating.

When I got home I swam for a little bit but nothing too strenuous, just a bit of arm-work really using the floaty sticks. I also did 220 sit-ups. My legs are aching nicely now and I feel good.