First day of the long run weekend. Today’s target was 14K, which I hit in about 1hr 26mins. Endomondo Track here. I was using my Nike+ SmartWatch as well, and kept it going till I got home, which was another 3K. Total distance out: 17.2K, total time out: 1hr 58min 58secs.
No Endomondo PBs were broken on this run, but I did set several on Nike+: Farthest Run (17.2K), Longest Run (1hr 58min 58secs), Most Calories Burned (1,140kcal), Fastest 5K (28'51"), Fastest 10K (1'02'12"). I also got the Afternooner trophy (1500 Nike Fuel earned between 2pm and 5pm)
This was one of the longer runs I’ve done in a while, and coming down the last 3K, my hamstring in my right leg started to hurt.
Tomorrow’s target is 16K. If I clock that, my target of a 30K weekend will be achieved. In fact, I will have done more than a Half Marathon over the weekend. Most likely, I’ll use the same route as I took today, so by the end of tomorrow, I’ll have a double 17K under my belt.
Nearing the end of week 2 of my Half Marathon training plan, and this week we start doing regular long-distance runs on both weekend days. Saturday is 14K and Sunday is 16K. I am going to really ache on Monday. ^_^
It’s been a while since I last posted so here’s a few quick updates:
1.Royal Parks Half Marathon
Ballot opens in just under a week, so I’m hoping to be able to get a place
Running Updates
I’ve now got a Running Watch and a Nike+ Fuel Band – linked into my profile here. The band lets me check my activity for the entire day, and the watch lets me log my run far more accurately than my phone can. I still use Endomondo and Zombies, Run. Endomondo for the training plan, and Zombies, Run for the story entertainment.
Stopped using gmusicfs as it causes random reboots, and, I’ve noticed, messes up CameraZOOM, which is the photo app I use on my phone, so now, I have my music streaming via Google Play Music, and have ZR running. However, it does cause overlap, plus, I can’t always hear what they are saying. Fortunately, I’ve listened to the entire Season 2 now, anyway. Actually, might ditch ZR now as its not really helping me now.
Ran a 13K distance on Sunday just gone, and was suffering aches during Monday and Tuesday. The route was mostly okay, but like with Waggon Road, this one stopped doing pavements part way along the road, forcing me to run on the grass and on the main road itself. Even had to balance on the stones holding up the black and white “>>>” chevrons.
Next run is today (7.4K, but going to aim to round it up to 8K.) Aiming to run it at between 5:30 and 6:00 min/km pace, so should be 44-48 mins. Found a nice route following the A110. Sure it’s along the main road, but its lit at night, has a dual pavement most of the way (separate lanes for pedestrians and cyclists), and mostly flat. Should be good to help with my distance endurance
I started to use Nike+ because I liked their use of routes and their concept of “Nikefuel”, then I found out that there is an option in Endomondo to link into it. Though it seems like it’s one way, based on the description (Nike+ –> Endomondo). I’ll give it a go this evening for my first Half Marathon training session. I have been running these past few days with Nike+, Zombies Run, and Endomondo all active, tracking my session, and this drains out about 80-85% of my battery in 30 minutes. If the Endomondo - Nike+ link works, I’ll be pretty damn pleased, though I doubt that will be the case
After the Christmas and (upcoming) New Year celebrations and obligatory over-indulging of food, I, like many people will be trying to shift the extra weight in the new year. So, with the help of Endomondo, I’m going to train up again for a 10K – not a 10K race this time, just try to get up to the 10K distance again, then take it up to distance Half Marathon for the second half of the year and/or early 2015. The training plan is over half a year and I stretched it out to its maximum length deliberately to allow me as gradual work up to 10K.
I know I can do 10K, I did a race earlier this year (Chickenshed 10K), but after slacking off because of weather, I need to get back into it.
Completed the main story of ZR Season 2 finally. A couple of side missions left, then I can start working on the Race Missions, Airdrop Mode and Supply Missions. Supply Missions will be last because you don’t get any materials, and the only reason for running them is to get the hoarding achievements.
I’m reverting back to training my base foundation strength again, so I’m doing 5Ks repeatedly as that is my “base” distance that I’m comfortable with. Then I’ll go back to 10K and HM training.
Restarting my Half Marathon training. Today was an easy 4.60 km. Stopped using gmusicfs and playing music using Play Music, but that isn’t without its own quirks. It sometimes stop playing the next track and doesn’t tell you, which then requires manual intervention to start playing again, disrupting rhythm.
Another problem with using Play Music, is that the music overlaps with the ZR audio so I need to make a decision whether to be able to listen to the ZR audio and have relatively unstable OS, or have a stable OS, but unstable music….
[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“300”] Fun runners taking part in the 2006 Bristol Half Marathon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]
I’m going to slowly pickup my running again next week, starting on a slower pace to begin with, since I still have scabbing on my shingles which may take a while to get rid off. However, most of the scabbing is dry, and should flake off soon anyway.
I've pulled the plug on my running for now whilst I try to deal with my shingles breakout. I've been on the medication for just over 24 hours now, and apart from the side effects, it seems to be working. The first blisters appear to be scabbing over and they are not as red as before. There's a couple of large ones which will cause a mess when they eventually burst (and they will.)
The shingles have spread into my left wrist and have started appearing on the palm of my hand, right on the callus-prone area, which causes a very pin-prick-like sensation when trying to pick up objects.
The medication is making me sleep a HELL of a lot more. Normally I sleep 8-10 hours. Last night, after getting the tiredness and fatigue caused by the medication, I slept 12 hours. Not often I do that…
Today’s run: EASY RUN WITH 5 STRIDES 4.60 KM (20sec high, 1min recovery x5)
I ran around 3k, but my phone rebooted. Again. Also, found an angry rash developing on my arm, which seems to have developed since my blood test earlier this month, so I’m going to get it looked at at the walk-in clinic tomorrow, and check with my GP next Wednesday.
Today’s run was a complete failure. Most of my runs recently have been depressingly bad and work hasn’t really helped. If anything, it’s contributing to my lack of motivation.
Achieved: 2.83k, 18:44min. Today was the first day I tried using my new Polar heart monitor. Not a watch, but a chest strap version, and it uses Bluetooth. My previous attempt at using this wrecked havoc on my tracking, but today, it seemed OK. It tracked my heart okay, and it also let me see where my heart rates tended to be. In today’s run, my average BPM was 140, and max 171. I think I can hit higher, but today was an easy run. I really like Endomondo’s bar chart which tells you on what band you spent most of of your heart rate. For VO2 training, you need to hit Anerobic or Maximum, which is bands 4 and 5. The heart rate bands are configurable, so now I need to figure out how to calibrate my bands….
Today’s training failed miserably. I was trying to use a new heart monitor, along with Zombies Run and Endomondo. I guess all of them together didn’t work very well together and kept dying. A reboot seemed to work, but we’ll see tomorrow. I have no run scheduled tomorrow, but I’ll run today’s tomorrow.
