Andrew is getting fit

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I had to get up at 4 am today to drop off my brother in law at the airport.  It was rather cold!  I got back home around about 5:30ish and had a bite to eat.  I briefly considered going back to bed but decided a long run would be a better use of my time.

The weather played along today.  It was brilliant! There were a lot of runners out and about enjoying the conditions.  I suspect a lot of the people I saw out running were training for the Auckland marathon as well.  8 weeks to go.

I did a similar route to the long run I did two weeks ago but incorporated the final leg of my half marathon course as well.

It was a relatively hilly run but that’s Auckland for you.

I did 23 km in 2:12:53 which is my longest run yet.  I had a nice peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich to celebrate. :)

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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The weather forecast for the weekend was for sun! Guess what, it rained most of Saturday and was raining when I went to bed last night. However, when I got up this morning the sky was clear and it promised to be a beautiful day.

I’m on a recovery week so I’ve been doing about half the mileage I would normally do but there was no way I was only going to do just 10K this morning! It was just too lovely. I decided to do the Tamaki Drive route along the coast and it was glorious.

The only negative of the run was that it took me quite a while to get into the groove of things. I think it was because my ipod wiped itself somehow and I had no music or podcast to listen to. After a while I forgot about that and just enjoyed the ambiance of nature and all the people out jogging, walking and cycling.

Actually, there was one other negative in this run. As I turned on to Tamaki Drive a guy running with a big poodle ran by and I set out to catch and pass him. 4 km later I was still about 10 metres behind him and I only managed to pass him because the poodle stopped to empty his bowels! C’est la vie!

Overall it was a great run and I really enjoyed it. 18.13 km in 1:42:22.

This brings my total for the month to over 200 km for the first time. I’m quite pleased by that I’ll tell you!

I also seem to have inspired corrupted another friend. One more victim of C25K!

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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Today has been a day of victories for me.

Victory number 1:

My alarm went off at 5:30 AM on a Sunday morning and I got up despite the cold and the sound of a wet, howling gale outside.

Victory number 2:

I left the house to run despite the cold and the very wet, howling gale outside.

Victory number 3:

I chose a hilly route and stuck to my determination to run up every one.  No walk breaks for me today.

Victory number 4:

I ran straight past the coffee shops and bakeries without  seriously thinking about stopping for a quick snack and a coffee.

Victory number 5:

I kept running even though I foolishly had to do the last 7km into a headwind.  Did I mention that the winds were galeforce?

I actually thought I had been cunning and planned my route so that I would have a tailwind for the last half but I got it horribly wrong.  I did the first half in suburbia so that I would be protected from the wind and the last bit along the coast line so that the wind would push me home but for some reason the wind was blowing the wrong way, which was a nasty surprise.

Victory number 6:

I ran a full half marathon distance and am still alive!  21.6 km in 2:05:19 baby!  Even with the crap conditions and wind.

Victory number 7:

And possibly the most important one - At about kilometer 17 I got hailed on, the wind was pushing me backwards, I was drenched, my cellphone was beeping at me that it had gotten wet (dead now) and I had a massive grimace SMILE on my face.  God I’m a nutter but I love this running business.

I love this guy:

I had his rendition of Nessun Dorma on my ipod playlist today and as it was playing I felt like singing along!

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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Apparently we haven’t had a dry weekend since May according to our local paper.  I can well believe it.  This one is gearing up to be wet as well so I’m looking forward to a soggy long run on Sunday.

I had a good workout yesterday - a 10K hill workout on the treadmill.  I enjoyed it but it was hard work.  It really has been a wet winter as I seem to be on the treadmill most of the time.

However, it was reasonably sunny this afternoon so I thought I would take the opportunity to get a quick run in outside and I did.  About 20 minutes into the run the rain reappeared and I got soaked.  A few minutes later it was sunny again and I quickly got dry.  I really love the technical gear that I have.  The water just disappears off it.  So it was a nice 5K run home.

Got a busy weekend planned.  Lots of socialising and whatnot so hopefully my meals don’t get knocked about too much.  I’ve had a really bad week with the eating but it hasn’t hurt me too much yet in the weight department.

Anyways, gotta run!

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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I only got about 4 hours sleep last night due to my beloved little daughter waking up at regular intervals for some reason.

As such, the run today was rather hard.  I wanted to do a 10K tempo run but very early on in the piece I decided to make it an easy run.  Then I decided to make it a 5K easy run.  I got to 6.3K and decided that enough was enough and decided that I would do 10K tomorrow rather than the 5K I had planned.  It will all work out in the end I’m sure.

I was also a winner in Steve’s (Run Bulldog Run) competition.  The prize is the great new book Dean Karnazes: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days which was released yesterday. I’m really looking forward to reading it.

And everyone seemed quite interested in my lunch last week, so for your viewing pleasure here is this week’s lunch:

Some Japanese noodles, carrots, cashews, onions, garlic, courgettes and sundry other vegetables.

I also had another visit from my physio and he’s ordered another week off the pushups.  Bugger.

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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I’ve been a bit quiet the last few days but haven’t really had much to say.

On Friday I did a 10 km run on the treadmill in the gym.  Unlike my Thursday run (that was nice and easy even though it was a hill workout) this one sucked big time.  My legs felt heavy and it was a real struggle to nut out the 10K.  I suspect it was because I had done the hill workout the day before and my body needed a bit more rest.

I also popped in to see the physio with regards to the pain in my arm and after much prodding and poking he reckons I’ve managed to pinch a nerve.  Funnily enough he described the exact way I would have done it without me really telling him how I did it so he must know his stuff.  He gave me a set of stretching exercises to do and I’m to report back for a followup on Tuesday.  No pushups allowed for now.  I can’t say I’m too disappointed as I’ve been getting heartily sick of pushups but I will restart my program once I can.

Saturday was a rest day and I spent most of it tagging along with my wife and her friends.  She’s got some friends visiting from overseas and they had lots of gossip to exchange.  It was quite nice in that they hadn’t seen me for quite a while and jaws were dropping left, right and centre.  I think I managed to convert one of them to running as they asked my wife for details about C25K.  We’ll have to wait and see if they get inspired to actually do it.

This morning (Sunday) dawned wet and miserable but both my wife and I wanted to get our runs in.  She’s in week 09 of C25k so had to do a 30 minute run and I wanted to get my long run in.  It’s really nice to run with her so I did her run with her and then continued on once she was done.

We drove out to the waterfront and then ran along the docks and around the Hilton hotel.  Then back to the car.  The rain was threatening for most of the time and about midway in it came down quite heavily for about a minute.  Luckily we could run under shelter for a bit as there were plenty of shop awnings.

I left her at the car and then carried on.  I went up through Parnell and into the Auckland Domain.  Then I headed out through Newmarket up to Market Rd.  I ran to the end of this and then the rain started to crash down and I was soaking wet.  It didn’t really ease up until I got home but I have to admit that I really enjoyed it even though conditions were dreadful.  There is something about being out running that just makes me feel alive.

I did my longest run ever at 18.73 km.  I didn’t really intend to run that long but I was just enjoying myself.  It took me 1:47:36 which works out to 5:45/km which is surprisingly fast (by my standards) for a nice easy run.

I got home and had a nice big peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwhich and it was good!

My half marathon is about 11 weeks away now and I think all this running should help me do well.

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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This is a photo essay so click more only if you are brave! [Read more →]

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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Today I ran an 8 mile race.  Crowd support was non existent.  Drink stations were unmanned.  And I felt great.

Nancy over at Notes of a Non-Runner organised a virtual event in which runners all over the world ran 8 miles on the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008.

For some reason I entered the ‘hilly with very strong winds’ course.  It was hilly as I was checking out some quick routes for the volcano challenge so I ran around two of the other volcanoes in the challenge.  Earlier in the week I checked out the other 3.

I started off at work and walked up to the Auckland Domain to warm up.  I then headed out towards Mt Eden and ran up (uphill into the wind!) to check out an alternative route up to the top.  After that I headed out towards One Tree Hill and ran around it.  Conditions weren’t really great for running as the wind was very strong but I enjoyed it nevertheless.  After One Tree Hill I ran home and funnily enough I hit 8 miles as I turned into my street.  I’d mapped it out on g-maps beforehand and had gotten 8.4 which I thought would be enough (I wanted a little margin as I’d have hated to come up short).

I was listening to another great podcast by Steve Runner and one of the points he made was how great the online running community is and I have to agree.  These virtual events really help you to feel connected and that you are part of something bigger.  It was great.

I’m going to be cheeky and claim provisional 1st place for this event as I live in New Zealand and we are GMT +12 which means that I probably completed the event before it was even the 8th in the rest of the world.  Of course my time won’t be fastest but hey, since when was time important!  Speaking of which, 8 miles in 1:17:23.

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Tags: running by AndrewE
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I started week 05 of the 100 pushups challenge yesterday.  Week 05 is a bit of a massive jump up from week 04.  For day 01 I was required to do 40, 32, 30, 25 and a max set (min 40).  Well I managed the first 40 but that was the only ray of sunshine in this workout.  I did another 20, then another ten then though Bugger this and went off to do my run.  I did a comfortable 5K in about 26 minutes.

Today I wanted to do another 5K run as I’m planning on doing 8 on the 8th tomorrow.  However, I was reading a post by David over at Running because I can where he was talking about running a mile as fast as you can and then I read another post that directed me to Jeff Galloway’s Race Prediction Calculator.  (Apologies to whomever it was.  I just can’t remember.  Leave me a comment and I’ll link to you.) This calculator predicts your HM time based on how fast you can run a mile.

Anyways, as you probably guessed by now I decided to see how fast I could run a mile today.  I did a kilometer at 10 minutes a mile pace just to warm up then I ran as fast as I could for a mile.  I did it in 6:45 which is faster than I thought I could do.  Now I only need to knock off 2:45 and I’ll be seriously fast!

When I plug my time into Jeff Galloway’s Race Prediction Calculator that predicts a half marathon time of 1:46:07 which I personally think is rather unrealistic.  That’s an 8:06 min/mile pace and I’m not too sure I could maintain that.   Just for comparison purposes I also plugged my time into the McMillan running calculator and it gives me 1:48:05.  So maybe a sub 2 hour half is not that far fetched.  Food for thought anyway.

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Tags: Interesting, running by AndrewE
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The theme of this week’s Take it and Run Thursday over at the Runner’s Lounge is Look back, look ahead.

Looking back:

Six months ago I started C25K and then had this crazy idea that I would try and do a quarter marathon at the Auckland Marathon this year.  Wow, I’ve come a long way since then.  I’ve run in 5 5K races and 1 10K race.  And I’ve decided to do the half marathon instead!  I’ve discovered a love for running that I never would have dreamed of earlier this year.

I’ve also lost 25 kgs (55 pounds) over the last 6 months and I owe a lot of that to my getting fit focus.

Honestly, I’ve exceeded all expectations I had.  I’m fitter than I’ve ever been.  I’m lighter than I’ve been since I was a teenager. It’s definitely a miracle! And lest I forget I can do more pushups than ever before!

Looking ahead:

Am I satisfied?  Part of me is but a larger part of me wants to strive for more.

My running goal for this year is to do as well as I can at my first half marathon. For next year? I’d love to do a marathon.

Weightloss:  I’d like to lose about another 7 kgs (15 pounds) and hopefully that will help me get a bit faster!

I’d also like to be able to do 100 pushups in a row!

I think this whole experience has also given me a new perspective on life in many respects.  I’ve realised I can do whatever I want and that has opened up whole new vistas of opportunity for me.

Thanks everyone for your support along my journey.  You guys rock!

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Tags: Life, running by AndrewE
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