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Toilet mercy dash and wardrobe malfunctions – a typical run!

I was looking forward to my 10.5k run today as it was with some of my friends that I haven’t run with for a while and it was at 7am – lie in hoorah!

If you’re new to my posts you won’t have read about my toilet rituals as a runner, a lot of us have our things we have to do before feeling comfortable running, mine is having to go to the toilet twice! I know crazy. But if I don’t go that second time then in my head I struggle all the way round. So I dashed off from the girls as I knew there was a toilet enroute. One of the girls was quick to make a quip about my having to pee must be why I do P90x – ha ha! We were all in good humours this morning!

Just as we were leaving the toilet one of the other girls had a sports bra malfunction (it broke so she ran with one strap), and then I realised why I no longer worse the shorts I was wearing to run in – they were very uncomfortable in so many ways – but i’m not going into that on here To top that on the way back my orthotics started rubbing, I think this was probably due to my socks being old and not having run this distance for a while. So quite a run, all good fun though and training felt really good.

Running Wardrobe

I try to be so careful when it comes to what I wear to run in as when I started running 11 or so years ago I made stupid mistakes and paid the price, such as wearing old cycling shorts to run my first 10k – not being a woman blessed with thighs that don’t touch one another it was a disaster, the shorts wore out and I got a giant blister on the inside of my thighs that then burst! I had a massive blister under my crop top after the London Marathon which wasn’t too nice either so I should know better!

I usually have my special training socks, they’re $35 a pair but great to run in – didn’t wear them today – oops, I also like the Triumph Ultra training bra range or I have an Intimo sports bra and a great Lorna Jane one that makes me look like Dolly Parton! Short wise I like my Skins or my Performax shorts – as they are compression pants they make my bits wobble less! and then top wise my new favourite brand is Asana which I have bought from Rebel Sports in the past as they are light and I like the slogans – the one I wore today for example said “Champions Train; Losers Complain” – reminding me not to complain when I am running

Have you had running ‘malfunctions’? if so what happened?

Tags: Running hindrances, training

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Categories toilet, Training

Even though you run – are you fit in other areas?

2 Apr

Here's Nadia in action - she looks harmless but she's a tough trainer!!

My wonderful friend is a personal trainer. We run together and we sometimes do weights together, but I have never really had an appreciation for the group fitness style of training thinking I didn’t need to do it.

So anyway she recently started another round of her Fit Camp training sessions on a Sunday afternoon in Forest Lake and I thought I would go along partly to support her and partly to get my husband doing some exercise and to motivate him by doing it too, and boy was I in for a surprise.

Having run a hard 9.4k the day before I kind of didn’t think about what I was letting myself in for.

I turned up at the Forest Lake Oval and was faced with boxing gloves, medicine balls and lots of cones all over the place. I figured, this would be ok. My husband was looking a little bit pale though! So we kicked off with warm ups and then we did lots of things that hurt like boxing – although that was good as I got to pound my husband a few times all in the name of fitness of course, and he got to pound me back – great fun.

We did lots of cardio and push ups and not so nice squats, planks and squat jumps and I realised that whilst my fitness is good from a running point of view, give me squats and things that involve using my arms too much that I am useless and weak! It didn’t help that I had a tough run from the day before on my legs but it made me really think about the exercise I am doing other than my running.

When I got home I was exhausted and my legs and arms were like jelly. My poor husband had had to sit out the last round of exercises as he was looking decidedly pale! I felt great though, like I had really pushed myself in a different way to how I push myself in running. Unfortunately I can’t make next weeks session (:-) oops – shouldn’t smile!) but I will be going the following week determined to get a bit fitter!

If you’re in the Forest Lake area and want a challenge then you should check out Nadia’s Fit camp.

Tags: boot camp training, challenges, fit camp, NADU Fitness, training

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Categories Bootcamp training, Training

Are you an early morning runner or a late riser like me?

31 Mar

So yesterday when I was feeling decidedly energetic (or mad you might say!) I told my friend I would run with her and the girls this morning at 5.20 for 5.30am. I haven’t done an early run like that in a while and I really fancied running a 10k knowing there were other people there too.

I normally wait until my husband gets up to go to work and then go to the gym then, so around 6/6.30 and I don’t mind that – I guess some of you probably think even that time is early but the difference is I wake up slowly and get out of bed when I want to rather than being forced out of bed because my alarm is going off.

Bunny yawning image used from http://thistletonthwaitecastle.blogspot.com.au

Have you ever been jolted awake by your alarm clock and it takes you a few minutes to calm down? Yep that was me this morning. My alarm went off at 4.45am! My body didn’t know what on earth had happened to it and my poor husband almost jumped out of bed with fright! I apologised and told him to go back to sleep, and then stubbed my toe – screamed my head off, apologised again (seeing a pattern here?).

I stumbled out of the bedroom and managed to sort myself a glass of water and a very light breakfast, only to realise I couldn’t find my trainers, so yes you’ve guessed it I had to go back into the bedroom, tell my poor husband to hide his eyes so I could turn the light on at 5am on a Saturday morning. He actually didn’t say too much and rolled over and went back to sleep.

I met the girls and made it by the skin of my teeth, hurtling down the road at the last minute, switched my Garmin on and we were off.

The run itself was great. I chatted to the girls for a short while, then zoned out, iPod on and pushed on. Felt really good and the route in the end was 9.4km but I was happy with that as training this week has been somewhat sporadic around working so it was good to be out running.

They do say that running early in the morning is better for weight loss and there are all sorts of theories out there but I figure if you have the choice run when you want to run, or if you don’t have a choice it doesn’t matter anyway as you don’t have a choice when you run

I’m not sure I will get up so early again for a while but it was good to be up and running and be done before most people are even up for breakfast. When I worked close by I would run home or go straight to the gym after work and that worked for me but now running my own business and working in my office at home things are a bit more flexible and it’s great!

So when do you train? Vote in the poll below if you get a chance as I’d love to know

Tags: running type, training

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Categories poll, Training

My first mixed cardio session

23 Mar

How is your training going this week? Mine has been a great week. I am aching in that awesome kind of ouch it hurts but it reminds me i have trained well kind of way.

So anyway, I am used to hearing the girls at the gym talk about mixed cardio training sessions but have never actually done one. I rocked up at the gym last night to train with one of my really good friends who also happens to be amazingly fit having challenged her to a ‘let’s smash our legs in a sprint’ session and when I got there she said why don’t we do a mixed cardio session? I said ‘sure’ not completely sure of what I was in for.

So we started on the treadmills and after warming up (of course) we did 5 lots of 300m sprints with 1 min rests- the first one at 12.5 pace on the treadmill and got up to 13.5. So I put everything into the last one and she turned around and said ‘you’re finding that easy let’s do two more!’ this is the girl whose legs are way longer than mine and so my ducky legs look they are sprinting next to hers that look like she is just cruising!’ so I agreed and we ended up doing 8 in total and hit 14 or 14.5 on the treadmill which I was pleased with.

But then she says, right onto the next machine and we jumped on the elliptical training and pushed it on an interval training sprint for 13 mins, then onto the rowing machine to smash it for 5 minutes as hard as we could, and finally onto the bikes.

By the end of it I was exhausted and felt like I’d been on The Biggest Loser but I felt amazing. I usually stop after my sprints but moving on from machine to machine really shows how fit you are/can be and you push that bit further. So we’ve said we’ll do a mixed cardio session once a week now and I can’t wait. I am clearly a laggard on this having not done it before but now I have I can’t wait for the next session (Nadia I hope you’re not reading this!) .

Tags: training

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Categories Training

What do you think about when you run?

2 Mar

It’s always been a conversation starter amongst running friends and when I went out this morning I started to think about it.

Do you switch off when you train?

Do you think about the pain?

Do you think about your ‘to do’ list or grocery list?

My answer is I think about them all – it depends on the run.

If I am taking in the scenery around me or listening to music I tend to just switch off to everything around me.

If I am doing sprint sessions or a generally hard training session then the pain is on my mind and counting down to when it stops.

If I am doing a comfortable run and feeling nice and relaxed and unchallenged then I think about my day, what I need to do and even my grocery list.

What do you think about?

Tags: training

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Categories Training

The pressure is off

27 Feb

I got in from my first proper run since I got sick two weeks ago today.

It was hard work.

I forced myself to get up, put my kit on and even ran with my iPod Shuffle this morning to give me that extra motivation. My legs felt sluggish to begin with and everything jiggled, or at least I thought it did. In my head I was pushing myself to push harder but my body was crying out that I hadn’t run properly in at least 10 days so to take it easy. Then when I got into the run I kept a nice comfortable pace, relaxed back into the run and really enjoyed it.I got home sweating profusely – it was a sticky morning in Brisbane this morning!

Image used from Indiadaily.com

The first thing I said to my husband was

“i’m so slow…..I don’t know if I can do the 5k race that is in three weeks” and he said to me…

“why do you always put so much pressure on yourself?

You have nothing to prove. You’ve been running for 10+ years, have run four full marathons and are injury free! Stop complaining and enjoy running”.

I stood and looked at him and the penny (or cent – we’re in Australia after all!) dropped.

He was right.

The only person putting the pressure on was me. Noone was forcing me to enter the race that so many other people I know are running. I was forgetting the reason why I love to run!

So I’ve decided, pressure off for a while.I need to get better after being ill, get back into enjoying my running and aim for the next race but not force myself if my heart or health aren’t in it. Definitely going to do the Mother’s Day 8k in May all being well and may try a few Park Runs and Brisbane Road Runner Runs but no pressure.

Tags: Brisbane, gadgets, mothers day 8k, running clubs, Running hindrances, self motivation, training

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Categories Brisbane, marathon running, mothers day 8k, motivation, ParkRun, Training

Typical! Training is going well and then BAMM! I get sick!

16 Feb

Typical isn’t it. My training has been going well and then the last two weeks have been a pain, last week with not doing as much as I wanted and then this week I’m sick.

I felt fine yesterday. Then at lunch time I got a tickle in my throat and then by late afternoon I had a fever and a sore throat as well as a chesty wheeze. I was meant to train this morning but didn’t and probably wont tomorrow unless I feel remarkably better, what a pain! I’ll just keep popping the vitamins, day and night nurseq, honey and lemon – and if I get desperate the odd glass of wine.

Tags: training

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Categories Training

A week of training highs, lows and sorry excuses

12 Feb

Cane toad image take from ozanimals.com

It’s been an interesting week this week and whilst I had planned for my training to be as consistent as it usually is, it didn’t happen.

I had it all planned. A solid week of quality training.

I blame the dog.

Mid week our dog attacked a cane toad (link for those of you that aren’t familiar with the horrid things) and my husband had to rush her to the vet as they can kill dogs. So that was a very late night for us and I ended up sleeping in the next morning and then it was too hot outside and in the gym to train – so excuse number one!

To make up for all of that I went and did BodyPump as that part of the gym does have air con and I pushed it and was very sorry afterwards. Not having done Pump regularly for a while it was a very silly thing to do and as I sit writing this today I am still aching four days later and my butt and thighs feel like they have lead weights in them, so as a result my planned longer run today was agony and I cut it short – excuse number two.

AND as well as that I missed my sprint session yesterday because I literally couldn’t get out of bed my legs were hurting that much – excuse number three!

I have friends that I know would force themselves to train but unfortunately (or fortunately depends how you look at it) I am not always as strong willed, so took the opportunity to stay in bed snoozing with my husband.

So it hasn’t been the best week of training but I’ve managed to do two sprint sessions, one medium run and a longer run as well as body pump so that’s not too bad but I know I’ve made too many excuses and not trained as well as I should.

So tomorrow is another day and next week is another week – so I’m ready to start afresh and keep on running.

Tags: self motivation, training

Comments 4 Comments
Categories motivation, Training

Miles per minute vs Km per minute conversion sheet download

8 Feb

If you read my blog regularly you’ll know that I use MyFitnessPal which is an app that enables you to log all your food and your exercise. I’ve been getting increasingly tired of having to try and work out my pace to ensure that the calories that the app calculates are roughly correct as it shows in minute miles pace. So I sat here this morning and created a sheet that shows the km pace against the minute miles pace.

Feel free to download if you find it useful.

Tags: downloads, resources, training

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Categories Training, treadmill conversion

Treadmill conversion sheet download

27 Jan

If you have sprint sessions in your training program like I do and need to see your per km pace in order to adjust your treadmill to the right speed, you would understand my frustration when my gym changed its treadmills. Great that they changed them and updated the equipment but the newer ones which they put near the mirrors don’t give the per km pace. I’m not vain in my needing to be near the mirrors but I am so used to running outside and have awful balance that if I run facing a wall and can’t see myself running I tend to fight to stay on the treadmill and have nearly fallen off on a number of occasions not running facing the mirror!

Anyway enough rambling, I decided that enough was enough. Since the gym doesn’t provide any guides for per km pace for the treadmill I sat and did my own using the old treadmills as a guide and if you need a copy you can download it free of course below.