spacekadet

First off, the attention I've been paying to Training for the Apocalpyse is inversely proptional to the actual training I've been doing. My reason for the lack of posting? It's just too damn time-consuming to keep up with two blogs at the same time. As a result, I end up doing no posting at all, which is such a shame really because I'd quite like to keep track of my workouts.

So in the coming weeks I'm going to incorporate Training for the Apocalpyse into spacekadet blog via the use of Movabletype's category system. When I think about it, being an athelete is a full-time job, and it's unnatural to keep that huge segment of my life separate from everything else. So here my sports reports will meld with tales of my Rock Star Party Lifestyle, and hopefully I shall emerge a beautiful butterfly!

I've probably mentioned that I'm running in Run London's Nike 10k. Take-off is at 9pm, November 28th - one week from Sunday. For the past 4 weeks and 5 days I've been following Run London's recommended 6-week 10k training schedule for intermediate level runners. Better late than never to start recording my progress...

Weeks 1 - 4 I remember starting off easy compared to the running I'd be doing in Austin. I remember the first 20 minute interval run ( 10x reps of 1 min hard running followed by 1 min jog). It kicked my ass. I know I missed a couple scheduled runs, but no more than two or three. Go me. Week 5 Monday: 30 min easy run including 5 x 1 min hill reps. This was tough but entertaining. I enjoyed the recovery walk because it gave Tim and I a chance to chat about things. I only sort of enjoyed racing him up the hill - I say "sort of" because he always won. Damn these short legs!

Tuesday: 30 min easy run. Uneventful. I think I ran this one on the treadmill at the gym.

Wednesday: Fartlek. 3 mins hard running, 3 mins jog x 4 (plus 10 mins of warm up and 10 mins of recovery). This was my first successfully completed Fartlek session. I've tried this before, but I always poop out halfway through and end up skipping the intervals and easy jogging the rest of the way. Not on Wednesday! During the hard running, i felt like I was really pushing myself to some kind of fuzzily-defined limit. The last repetition was rough as hell, but the cool-down jog home was pleasant and relaxed once I recovered.

Thursday: Rest! Glorious rest!

Friday: 30 minutes easy run. This I did at the gym on the treadmill. I started off at 8.5 km / hr, and worked myself up to 10 km / hr once I warmed up, but had to kick it down to 9.5 km / hr for the greater part of the run. I wonder how my speed is affected by weather / hills / air quality / company / etc. I guess I'll have to buy a mad leet GPS watch at some point. Oh damn!