Sunday 11 August 2013

A Bit Of A Catch Up

Well I seem to have fallen behind a little with posting to my blog so this will have to serve as a bit of a catch up.

I have had two training sessions with Mark since the race for life, session 5 we did our usual 5k run/walk I ran in a pair of Nike lunarlon trainers that I picked up reasonably cheap in a TK Maxx store, they are not zero drop, but are a good transistion shoe till I get my new Brooks Puredrift which is what I was told would suit my running style by the guys at Sweatshop. We completed our run/walk in 52.5 mins which is my fastest time so far, the shoes gave me some well needed cushioning for pavements and I didn't have any shin pain at all very pleased with that

Session 6 with Mark went pretty good, I again ran in the Nike lunarlon, and although the time was a little slower 54 mins 45 seconds for 5k this as usual includes the time that Mark spends teaching me exercises or ways to improve my form etc. so all in all pretty pleased. I also found that my breathing was much better I think because it was a cooler evening and I was concentrating on breathing through my mouth and not trying to breathe through my nose.

Up until now pretty much all of my running has been in the sessions with Mark, 
mainly due to me being a bit of a coward at not wanting to run around in woods and fields on my own, but I have been doing some other exercise in the form of Aqua Aerobics and Aqua Zumba, I also have a bike/elliptical cross trainer at home. Which until recently, like a lot of home gym equipment has spent a good deal of time as a clothes horse. I knew that if I wanted to get better at running there is really only one way to do that, you guessed it I needed to get off of my butt and actually run, so I decided that now was as good a time as any to go and join the gym at least then I would save the money on my aqua classes and be able to use the treadmill to clock up a few exta miles. And interestingly as I am a Slimming World member I got 20% discount on my membership fees and I donated a pair of old trainers, which got me my first two weeks free....what a bonus.

My first session at the gym went well, I decided that I would use my ipod with the podcasts for the couch to 5k plan. This way I knew that there would be some structure to my session. Apart from at my gait analysis I haven't used a treadmill in a few years so thought it would also be good to start the plan again from the beginning with session 1 run for 1 min, brisk walk for 90 seconds.
I walked at 5.3 - 5.6 pace and then increased to 6.2 for the runs this was steady but not too fast and I could breathe pretty normally throughout, the minute flew by with relative ease, before I knew it podcast one was over. Feeling pretty good and not wanting to finish my session I continued and did podcast two which was 90 seconds running, 2 mins walking, I did three sets and that brought me up to 5k distance so I called it a day it had taken 55.5 mins so I felt pleased that it hadn't taken much longer than when I was running with Mark so made it feel like a "Real" session. 

Really looking forward to my next session and getting my Brooks Puredrift.
Till the next time................................ 

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