Catch up

Quick catch up!

Last week I did skip 2 workouts … one 40 minute and one 60 minute run. I went on a long hike, but I guess that does not count.

What counts is to not beat myself up and pick it up again. So today it’s another 20 minutes!

20 min easy

Done! Now let’s get this day started.

What a weather

40 minutes of running plus 10 minutes of walking done and completely soaked. Winter is coming …

20 minutes easy

It was actually easy and I am both surprised and happy.

I never thought I could feel like this. I actually didn’t want to stop!

60 minutes beach

Went for an easy 60 minute run. Ran the whole time and felt amazing afterwards. Yes it was super slow, but finally I can run so slow and for the duration without feeling beat up. Hope speed will improve. Next workout will be 20 minutes on Monday.

Mixing things up

Decided to change plan/strategy and went for an easy 20 minute run along the beach.

Sunset super slog

Somehow I got it done. Weather waited until late today until it cleared up so I headed out after work. Worth the wait. Feel awesome now that I did it.

1 hour morning run

I have to admit I am quite pleased. I ran 1 hour with only one 30 second break around 30 minutes because of rocks as I had to switch from beach to trail.

This week I ran 3 times and a total of 24 km. I also ran most of it!!!

I am still super slow, but I don’t care or to be honest at least I try to not care.

As mentioned before, I followed the endomondo 5k beginner plan and after completing it I switched to Andrew Read’s fabulous plan found here: http://breakingmuscle.com/running/a-week-by-week-guide-to-becoming-a-runner-later-in-life-and-or-safely

This is what he says: ‘While it may seem like it’s a long way to get there, trust me when I say if you’re taking up running later in life (and sorry to say but that is 35+) this will be an injury free way to get you to running non-stop for an hour. ‘

So this brings me to the end of his phase 1 and I am now supposed to run twice 1 hour during the week and starting with one hour on the weekend. The weekend run will become my long run and will be 2 hours long at some point. This phase will take 6 months. In a way I am scared, as it sound long and tedious, but this is what I want right?

This plan brought me to 1 hour of running and no injuries!!! I was sick for a week in the middle, but just picked up where I was and went on with the plan. I never felt it was too much and really took care to take all the rest days.

This time I also changed other factors: I always walk 5 minutes before and after, I don’t stetch but use a foam roller, I switched to neutral running shoes and I run on mixed terrain – mostly beach, gras, trail and dirt road with the odd street in the middle. I also started walking and hiking. I am not quite sure but I think this is the longest I’ve been running without a forced break. So despite my super slow progress I am still running!

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4 months of running – stats

To try and keep me motivated I tracked my stats from the beginning. This is what I had missed in the times I tried to become a runner before. I hope this will give me the long-term motivation I need. After 4 months I can already see improvements.

I want to mention that yes I am super slow and I don’t focus on getting faster as I think this will only lead to injury and I am hoping speed will develop magically lol. In the first 2 months I also tracked calories and macro-nutrients. I stopped after I reached my first milestone and had lost 4 kg. I maintained this now for nearly 3 months without counting calories or missing out on anything. My goal is to get to a healthy weight. I guess I’ll have to start tracking my food and water intake again to get there – yikes!

	April	May	June	July	August
Resting Heartrate	74	63		52
Blood Pressure		116/85	120/86	112/85	110/78
Weight kg	88.3	86			84
BMI	28.8				27.7
Fat %	34.4				33.1
Muscle %	32.2				32.4
1 km	00:09:24	00:07:49	00:07:39	00:07:23	00:06:41
5 km			00:53:38	00:42:26	00:40:33
1 hour			5.10km	7.06km	7.09km

Time improvement on 1 km

Distance covered in one hour running

Weight and Calories expenditure

So those are my stats. I am curious to see how it will look another 4 months down the road.

Beautiful Ireland – 8k

I did 8k today and finally decided to kick the 19×3. I ran the first 3k along the beach and only walked twice because of the rocky surface. I ran the remaining 5k in one go!

 

Why did I abandon the program? I think I did this last week now 3 times and I felt it was more a mental blocker than anything else.

I feel I have reasonable distance (8k) right now and want to do this now for a couple of weeks to get used to it. I am running/slogging it 3 times a week and still am super delighted that this time I haven’t gotten injured.

In the end I have only one main goal: to keep running as long as possible and I have learned from my past mistakes.