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.
I passed the Linux Essentials exam, so should get the certificate in the post in the next few days. Then at least I can add it to my LinkedIn profile. Next step, LPIC-1 :)
Here’s my confirmation of passing (blanked for obvious reasons). The only thing I have trouble with was Security and File Permissions. It would be nice to know WHICH questions I got wrong so I can target specifically my revision….
I’m going to make the leap and go for my first Linux Exam this week. I’m taking the introductory exam - the Linux Essentials exam. Whilst not a mandatory requirement for the main LPIC certification, it is a recommended one. And it can’t hurt knowing more than needed. Besides, I’ve already booked a proper training (seminar/group) week next year for the LPIC-1 course. I’ll probably book the LPIC-2 course too, whilst I can still afford it. :-\
Today was my very first proper 10K race. Even though it’s not a competitive race (it’s a charity run), the push and pressure of being the chaser and chased during the run really drives a better time, I even broke my 5K time in this race.
My phone rebooted during this race, so I lost crucial tracking, which is why when I merged my workouts on Endomondo, it comes out less than 10K. In fact, if you zoom in on the map of the race, you’ll see a gap in the tracking which is where my phone rebooted. Had I tracked that last 0.48km at the 4:43 min/km pace of the rest of the track, then my total 10K time would be 47 minutes, 10 secs.
But, it was all worth it….
At the finish line, I heard someone shouting out runner numbers as they passed the line. Maybe I’ll get a letter with my official time in the post in a few days?
