Keeping the treadmill interesting

So, the continued snow and, therefore, ice is continuing to keep me restricted to the treadmill.

It’s getting boring.

Today I was supposed to head outside for the first time in over a week but was, once again, forced to find some solace on the conveyor belt. The past week or so has seen fartlek, threshold and interval training in an attempt to keep from falling off the back due to boredom but today I had to just run 5K. Thank the lord for iPods.

Hopefully on Sunday I’ll be able to get out onto the road for a planned 10K.

Still, it’s nice to be back in the gym, training is feeling good and running is going well. I could do with an event to work up to but at the moment everything that I’m interested in takes place on a date that I already have plans. I’m pretty motivated at the moment though, got a skiing holiday coming up in 8 weeks or so, so that’s something to be fit for, but after that it’ll be time to find myself a nice 10K, then it’s on to the halves.

Bring on the halves.

Brass Monkeys

Bloody hell it’s cold out there.

Not just cold, but icy. So icy, in fact, that I ended up going ass over tit on the way into work today.

Because of this I have been running on the treadmill, very dull but there you go. I’ve been spicing it up with some fartlek and threshold work but it’s still not as enjoyable as running outside. Well, running outside when it isn’t icy, at any rate,

Still, ice or no ice I have been in the gym all 5 days this week, and I have run 2 of those days as well, and I have loved every moment of every workout; it’s nice to be back and training again after all that food and sitting about, even if I can’t go for a run tomorrow.

I think yoga might be in order.

Wimping Out and Weddings

The latter half of last week was pretty much a write off. There was a training run at lunchtime on Thursday but due to other commitments that was the end of it for the rest of the weekend.

The Thursday evening training session was thrown out of the window, there wasn’t time for the Friday evening session by the time I got to Leeds and the wedding on the Saturday effectively put pay to any hope of training for the entire weekend.

So I was quite pleased to be getting my kit together on Monday morning for a planned outside run followed by an evening gym session. However, mid way through Monday I found myself staring out the window at the icy, snowy ground and decided that the best idea was to hit the treadmill. So I did.

It’s been a little while since I ran on the treadmill and it was a nice change to threshold run a set pace for 25 minutes,  so nice in fact that I’ll be heading back for another hit tomorrow, although this time I might make the most of the ability to control speed and do a 25 minute fartlek.

Plus it’s going to be bloody freezing tomorrow, I’ll run outside on Boxing Day.

Back in the gym and the run that wouldn’t die

It’s another week and so that means it’s back to the gym. Not being able to use the gym at weekends, given that it’s in my office building, is a bit of a pain in the arse. It means that I have to fit all my gym training in around the normal 5 day week where I would normally prefer to take 6 days over it, including a day to clear up anything that was missed.

It does, however, allow for easy twice a day training sessions, which is what happened today, but first, to yesterday.

I was still feeling pretty rough yesterday following on from the weekends exertions, so it was with a heavy head that I finally made it to the gym after work for a chest and triceps session. I’ve been working on my training though, trying to come up with new and interesting ays to make sure I hurt in the morning, so yesterday I ditched the standard 5 sets of 6 or 8 approach and went for something a little different; steadily  increasing reps across three sets with the same weight (so 6 then 8 then 10 reps in 3 sets) super setting with another exercise for the same body part.

I have to say it felt great when I was in the gym and doing it, I was failing pretty much on the last rep of every exercise but this morning when I woke up I didn’t feel a thing. They do say that the recovery pain is worse after two days though, and I’m already starting to feel my chest go this evening.

Today was a planned lunchtime run followed by legs and back in the gym. I have to say that I very nearly didn’t make the run outside, largely because it was so bloody cold today and I hadn’t taken enough layers, but when the time came I just couldn’t bring myself to run on the treadmill. So, I cadged a shirt off of the gym staff so that I would have something to wear for evening training and headed off with my extra layer to go outside.

Now, seeing as the run had been resurrected I was feeling pretty good, until I got to the top of the first hill and realised my lungs were burning in the freezing air. Still I stuck with it and eventually was planning ever longer, more ornate routes. Eventually I ended up running 5 miles, not too bad for a lunchtime, the damn thing just wouldn’t die.

The evening session was a nie legs and back hit. I will be revisiting back later in the week and I didn’t want to wail too hard on my legs seeing as I have at least one more run planned before the weekend, so I didn’t go overly crazy in the gym but working legs always hurts me in the morning, so we shall have to see.

Silly Season and Training

Thursday night was the start of 3 evenings spent on the beer.

Thursday was my work Christmas meal, which started in a pub and moved on to a very nice restaurant, I had way more to drink than I had originally planned, although I did feel OK on Friday.

I managed to get to the gym on Friday for a pretty good shoulder and chest session. It’s no mean feat going to the gym on my day off because, you see, my gym in in the building I work in, so it’s easy to just slack off rather than, effectively, go into work.

I managed it though, as I say, and was glad that I did, training in the gym on a mild hangover tends to have the effect of blasting the cobwebs out, and this was no different.

Friday night I was out with some old school buddies for a few beers. That was supposed to be a quiet one, just going to a local pub. I hadn’t appreciated that the pub stays open until 12, so it was considerably messier than I had intended. So much so that yesterday was a  total write off in terms of training.

Hell, I didn’t even get out of bed until 11.

Then yesterday evening a friend from University and his fiance came down from Leeds to buy Girl and I dinner to celebrate out engagement. It was incredibly nice of them to drive four hours just to take us out to dinner, sleep, and then get back in their car and head back up North so they can sort out their own wedding, which is happening next weekend!

It was a lovely evening, and there was rather a lot of champaine, which is the done thing when celebrating, so I wasn’t complaining at the time. This morning, however, was a very different story, especially seeing as we all had to be up early.

I took Girl to the airport for 10 this morning, she is off to Japan for the week with work, then I came home and nursed my hangover for most of the afternoon. Eventually I convinced myself that I was being rubbish and that I needed to go running; so I donned my kit and headed out for what was supposed to be a short 2.5 miler than grew into a 4 once I got going.

It was a great run, nice to be outside in the cold and actually doing it, and ended up running my fastest mile in about 6 months, so maybe I should go out on champagne and scotch fuelled training runs more often!

It is difficult though, next weekend it’s going to be close to impossible to get out, what with weddings and driving and all that. Silly season is well and truly upon us, and although training is normally the priority, you have to put people first sometimes.

Still, Girl is away for the week this week, so I can hang late in the gym if I want to, which I probably will because, honestly, it’s lonely at home.

Gadget Lure and Party Diversions

So, yesterday I picked up a new MacBook.

I’ve been promising myself one all year, and I finally gave in yesterday, following a pretty stellar performance review that pretty much guarantees me  my bonus I decided that interest free credit would be the way to go and took the dive. I’m very pleased that I did, it’s a lovely machine, and my 4 year old G4 was starting to show it’s age, although only because people had stopped developing software for the PPC architecture, had it not been for the switch to Intel I think it would have been good for another could of years. Anyway, I digress.

I’m a geek, and as such the lure of the new gadget is difficult for me. As much as I love training it was difficult last night not to simply go home and rip the box off of my new toy. I did resist though, and instead spent a very good 40 minutes in the gym working on my arms. I’ve been working on a new routine, concentrating on super sets for all of my workouts, and yesterday was no different, super setting six exercises in groups of three. It means that I can pack a lot more training into a lot less time, and makes the muscles work harder in the process.

It seems to be working, I ache like hell, although that could be the product of having taken two weeks away. But I have to say I feel much tighter and am happy with the new routines so far, it’s nice to be back in the gym and feeling energized by my workouts.

My new trainers also arrived yesterday, which is excellent news, I’m already planning a 10K run on Saturday afternoon that should prove a nice “welcome to the family” for them.

Today I played touch rugby at lunchtime, which was much harder work than I had previously thought it would be by virtue of the fact that there was only 6 of us… total. 3 on 3 makes for a fast paced game, you really have to work to find the gaps and differences in fitness really start to show through. I was left feeling pretty good at the end, having run 5 over, and I felt that I had taken a pretty good sprint session out of the game, which left me pretty upbeat for the afternoon.

Tonight is going to be our department Christmas meal, so I will have to skip the gym for the evening, regrettably. I don’t really mind though, I have had a great few days training and I know I shouldn’t overdo it on my first week back. I have already trained today as well, and if I had gone to the gym it would have been legs, which would have blown any chance of a weekend run out of the water.

Look at me, justifying myself.

I also have the day off tomorrow, so I can train a little longer than normal in the gym, which I’m planning to, to make up for the lack of workout tonight, a little light legs tomorrow shouldn’t hurt my run on Saturday.

Let’s go outside

Today was the first time in a long time that I ran outside.

At least, the first time in a long time that I ran outside in the UK; I did run outside a couple of weeks ago, but that was in Melbourne.

I forgot to charge my iPod Nano, so I couldn’t use my Nike+ to measure or time the run, my trainers, very much on their last legs and full of holes, provided very little cushioning, the cold air burnt my lungs and I forgot my gloves so my hands were frozen.

I loved it.

I’m not going to say that dealing with these things is part of running outside, because it isn’t, pretty much none of those things needed to be an issue, all I needed to do was get my shit together better. But adversity is part of running outside, and that’s one of the things I love. Running in the wind and the rain and the cold, or even running in extreme heat, part of the experience is putting yourself out there, into the elements, and doing it anyway.

Due to my lack of iPod I thought I would take my favourite 3.5 mile route today to help keep my motivation up, it’s a mostly road route (I live in London so they all are) but it takes in one of my favourite stretches of tarmac in my local area; the entrance to Syon Park. It’s 2 minutes of running on pristine flat tarmac, I can stop worrying about kerbs and potholes and driveways and all that stuff for a couple of minutes, get my head up, and feel the road move under me. That’s the feeling that I run for.

After the run I felt excellent, a stint with the foam roller sorted out a slightly tight IT band (seriously, those new trainers can’t arrive soon enough) and I headed back to my desk for the afternoon.

Following work it was back to the gym for a back and biceps workout, having taken two weeks away from the gym I’m really enjoying being back at the weights, and am in the process of working out a largely dumbbell dominated set of routines to take me up to Christmas. This evening’s set up was good, all super sets, I left feeling energised and pumped, exactly the way you want to feel after a visit to the gym.

It’s just a shame my gym is closed over the holiday period, I think I might have to find somewhere to go to tide me over during the Christmas / New Year break… maybe somewhere with a pool… and a nice spa.