Andrew is getting fit

I got a few questions in my last blog post so I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer them:

Annalisa asked what do I carry on my runs?

First and foremost I wear my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch.  I love this and I love knowing how far and where I’ve gone.

I tend to start off wearing a jacket as it’s normally very cold when I start my run.  Normally after about half an hour it goes around my waist though.  For my long runs it’s normally dark when I start off so I have a flashing light that clips on to the back of my cap.

When I remember to wear it I also wear my RoadID just in case anything bad happens.

As I’ve mentioned before I love listening to podcasts while I’m running so of course I have my ipod either strapped to my arm or in my jacket pocket.  I normally wrap it up in clingfilm if it’s raining!  I have Sennheiser MX75 running headphones which I think are absolutely brilliant but I’m not an audiophile by any means.

I also carry my phone so that I can call my beloved wife for a pickup if needed.  I’ve only ever had to do that once fortunately.  Another major reason that I carry my phone is so that I can take photos with it.  I’ve got a Sony Ericsson phone that has a 5 megapixel camera in it – it’s more a camera than a phone.  I wanted a phone with a great camera and that was the best I could get when I bought it.  It’s pretty nifty to be sure.

William also wondered how I get water on my longer runs.  If I’m doing more than 20km I carry water in my Camelbak.  For less than 20km I don’t normally bother during winter although in summer I carry water on all my runs as I think I’d dehydrate very quickly if I didn’t.

Bruce asked if I do any cross training/strength work and I have to admit that since I let my gym membership lapse at the beginning of the year I haven’t really done any strength work besides pushups.  I’ve started cycling a bit on the weekends but that is very much a leisure activity rather than a training one.

Today’s run was an easy 3-miler recovery run which I did with my wife.  It was a great little run around the neighbourhood.  It’s really nice to be able to do our runs together when our programs coincide.

Tags: fitness by Andrew
14 Comments »

I got up bright and early on Sunday morning for my long run.  I’m in week 04 of Hal Higdon’s intermediate 1 training program and this week I needed to do an 11 miler for my long run. 11 miles is about 18 km for those of us who use the metric system.  I did all my other runs on the treadmill this week as I’ve just been incredibly busy at work and home and haven’t really had the extra few minutes to go run outside.

It was very cold for the first third or so of my run as the sun hadn’t come up yet.  The clear skies we had had overnight also meant that there was a lot of frost.  This was the view in Cornwall park:

There are no streetlamps in the park so it was rather dark!  While I was running through the park the sun did start to come up and I could see that all the fields were white with frost.  I was just too cold to stop to take a photo!

I then ran on towards the Auckland Domain and what do you know?  There was an event on!  The Sri Chinmoy half marathon was being run.  If I had known I could have gone and done that instead!  It was quite funny running against the flow of the race:

I then ran around the shoreline towards home and on the way I saw a sign saying nature walk or something like that so I headed down it.  I’ve run past it many a time and not really noticed it before.  It was pretty nice:

Here’s the view out towards the Orakei Basin:

You really don’t get much better surrounds for a run than that!

Overall I did a bit more (20km instead of 18km) than I was supposed to but it was such a beautiful run that I’m not going to complain:

I’ve found a new running podcast to listen to:  4 Feet Running by Nik & Dan so I listened to a couple of episodes of theirs during my run.  I also caught up with the latest episode of Pheddipidations.  I have to admit I do love listening to the podcasts while running.  If you’ve never tried it you should give it a go.

Tags: Marathon Training, running by Andrew
14 Comments »

I got up bright and early to get a run in before everyone else woke up  but I have to admit that I piked out.  I was standing outside on the porch looking out at the wind/rainstorm and I turned around and went back inside and had another coffee instead.

My family and I decided that we weren’t going to let the weather trap us indoors so we bundled up warmly and headed off to the zoo. It was really fun watching my 2 year old’s reaction to all the animals. Much to my disgust she was much more fascinated by the chickens than the lions!

By early afternoon the weather had lightened up considerably so I headed out for an easy 9 miler.  I got rained on a bit but the wind was blowing so strongly that it passed really quickly.  There were quite a few people out on Tamaki Drive and it was a really good run.

Here’s my routemap:

I did just about 15 km in 1:32:10.  And that ends week 03 of my marathon training.

My wife is doing her half marathon training so she did a great 8.5 km along the same route a bit later in the afternoon while I took our daughter to the park.  A good time was had by all.

Tags: Marathon Training, running by Andrew
14 Comments »

I teach a late class on Thursday evenings so Friday mornings I normally go into work a little later.  I sleep in for an extra hour or so and then I normally go for a run.

This morning my wife came with me and we did a great little easy run.  5.04 km in 32:43.  It’s really nice to run with my wife and it has the added benefit of making my easy runs easy in that if she goes too fast she gets injured so we keep the pace nice and gentle.

The picture below is where we were running this morning:

I have to do a 8km pace run tomorrow which I’ll probably do on my treadmill and then Sunday I have a long run coming up.  Week 03 of my marathon training is almost over and I have to admit I’m really enjoying it!

Tags: Marathon Training, running by Andrew
4 Comments »

I’ve been sick so there hasn’t been much running going on but this week I’ve gotten back into it. Yesterday I did 5K on the treadmill and this morning I did 8.8 km in the Auckland Domain.  I was supposed to do 5 miles this morning which is 5 loops of the Domain but I did a bit extra as I had to run back to work.  The first 5K my wife ran with me which was nice.  She’s training up for her first half marathon in November.

I find there’s nothing like a run for clearing the lungs after you’ve been sick.  It really helps expel all that green stuff!

Tags: running by Andrew
10 Comments »

Well, I’ve got my first Did Not Start coming up in just under 2 hours.

Unfortunately I’ve been off work since Wednesday with the flu/a bad cold and as I’m still coughing up green stuff I don’t think I should be running my half marathon today.

I’m not too happy about it but there is no point in being silly and running a race today. My wife is doing the 6K option so I’m going to go along and cheer her from the comfort of the car.

Tags: fitness by Andrew
12 Comments »

My wife and I had to head into work quite early today so I decided I would park the car and go for a run before starting work. That was the plan at least but I woke up to a tremendous rainstorm and was a little concerned for a moment or two.  I decided that I would go out anyway and as luck would have it the rain stopped as I parked the car.

Conditions were actually really great to tell the truth.  Here’s a photo from about 3.5 km into my run:

You can still see the puddles!  I actually scraped my knee on that metal barrier as I jumped up onto that little ledge at speed to avoid the puddles.  Such is life I guess.

I headed out towards Kohimarama Beach and then turned around to head back to the city and work.  As you can see the weather was picking up nicely.  I’m truly blessed to live in a city that has such beautiful running routes I reckon.

Overall I did 16.12 km in 1:38:10 for an average pace of 6:10/km.  I’m quite happy with that – a nice easy run.

Tags: Marathon Training by Andrew
12 Comments »

It’s been a good week for running so far!

As you can see from the picture above conditions have been just about perfect for running here in Auckland.  I went for a run yesterday morning at about 10:30 AM and it was a cracker of a day.  The sun was shining but the temperature was only about 12 degrees C and there was no wind so it was just beautiful.  I did 9.5 km in about 56 minutes.

This morning I went for a predawn run with my wife through Cornwall Park.  Once again conditions were perfect.  There was a light mist that made everything rather ethereal.  Unfortunately I forgot my camera so no photos!  It was quite funny running past sleeping cows!  We did a nice 5K in about 34 minutes if I recall correctly.

It’s my daughters birthday tomorrow so I’ve got a cake baking in the oven – I’m a man of many talents!

I also need to do a 8K (5 mile) run tomorrow morning at marathon pace according to my training program and then on Sunday I need to do a 13K (8 mile) long run.  It feels funny to think of 8 miles as being a long run!  Although having said that it wasn’t that long ago that 8 miles seemed like an incredibly long distance to me.  Just goes to show that it’s all relative.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Tags: Marathon Training by Andrew
3 Comments »