Sharla's New Log - Attempting to Avoid Becoming A Slovenly Pig

[Sharla]

I am considering attempting it again this year but probably next year. I think i want to do it well and it's not realistic to think i can get that much stronger between now and May.
------------
Day Light Savings

Ok yeah I mean I was considering doing it 2011 but I've decided it's more realistic to aim for 2012. You knew what I meant!

I have fallen behind on updating this but I'll catch up around christmas. Things have not gone according to plan - cleats on road bike were not fitted professionally and i was getting a sore left foot - that has now been adjusted but my foot is still a little sore to stand on.

Also I was really excited to have halved my antidepressants to half a tablet a day over 7 weeks but by brain rebelled with a day of dizzy spells and sudden onset of mouth ulcers. Emotionally I felt like i was going ok as I was stressed but I didn't think I was stressed more than i should've been.

Got yelled out by a knob at work (who was later told to apologise by the boss), had a bit of a panic trying to get a trike part posted to Adam when the address he asked for turned out to be a FedEx office in Zambia that didn't exist (awkward as it was urgent and he was out of phone range) and got a really, really bad phone bill from calling Adam. Still I wasn't stuck in bed or totally freaking out or anything.

I guess the physical symptoms mean something though so i'm starting again and reducing my dosage by half a tablet a fortnight now.

[Sharla]

ok finally got around to doing this -

The left foot is all good again. The adjustment of the cleats made a huge difference. On last ride I did still notice a small niggle though so i'm considering putting a soft (not structured) insole in it.

The dude in the bike shop said he wears thicker socks to prevent this. He's had it and suprise suprise he also has feet of slightly different sizes and it's his smaller one that hurts. I'm thinking the socks probably work just because they improve the fit of the shoes (sized for the bigger foot).

I've started a circuit in my neighbourhood. It's only short but the aim is to get myself to really enjoy running again. The last time I did was about April this year - then I got either hooping cough or glandular fever (docs have no idea / time to diagnose) for several weeks and lost a lot of fitness.

Expecting to jump back to that fitness too quickly has made running less enjoyable than it should be and me less inclined to feel like running.

Phil Maffetone is a trainer of distance runners and he has a theory of training at a low heart rate and gradually and very slowly building up to prevent chronic fatigue, heart disease etc. I'm not patient enough to stick to his routine but I did take something from his ideas. He used gradual build up to allow people to mentally enjoy their training even if they started very small.

I think i've self sabotaged a lot by trying to start training the way i did at my fittest and being constantly frustrated by my lack of success!

So this small circuit is something i plan to do most days. It will keep my body and mind familiar with running. It's long enough to get me through that heavy legs warming up feeling and into a more comfortable stage, get a bit sweaty and then stop. As it gets easier i'll add more laps but i'm aiming to get faster before i make it longer.

I've done this for the last three days. Yesterday I also rode about 50 km through the hills and today i cycled to work and back. My gym closed down over christmas so i haven't been there for a while.

[iceman]

ya gotta walk before you run...i forget this all the time and injuries pile up adding to frustration leading to depression...go slow, get the feel get hungry but mostly find your passion for it, what makes it fun what makes it the thing you want to do more than anything? the thing you can't stop thinking of? hope that helps,and if not "remember we're all in this together"- amna wise beyond my years

[Sharla]

ya gotta walk before you run...i forget this all the time and injuries pile up adding to frustration leading to depression...go slow, get the feel get hungry but mostly find your passion for it, what makes it fun what makes it the thing you want to do more than anything? the thing you can't stop thinking of? hope that helps,and if not "remember we're all in this together"- amna wise beyond my years

Thanks Iceman - Even though on one hand starting back slowly makes sense on the other hand a little part of my brain just scream "SISSY!!!!!" - so it's good to know other people have gone through this and can relate!

So I have done my circuit every day since I last updated my log (plus a slightly longer one on one day) and I'm pleased to announce the last two times I've done it it felt MUCH easier. I'm not sure how much is physiological improvement and how much might be mental.

Along with just feeling more sure of myself over the distance (which wasn't scary to begin with but now isn't even uncomfortable) I have been a little more productive with uni work than usual. I had to go through my old desk at uni to clean it out and working through all the reading etc I have done I realised I haven't completely wasted my time even though it feels like it sometimes and it re-sparked my interest in a few old ideas.

An old running partner once said to me when his running is not going well it feels asthough work and everything else doesn't go well either. I think a part of this is related to confidence and probably in his case fatigue as I'm pretty sure he over-trained quite a bit pretty much running the full distance of a marathon every Sunday plus a lot of kms every other day. I wonder how much it does the other way though.

I'm also eager to get back to the gym this week - we have a public holiday for New Years Day tomorrow so i'll have to wait until Tuesday but I feel ready to start some more strength training and have a few ideas from a magazine of all places.

[Sharla]

Also regarding food the LSA, psyllium husks and quinoa flakes it has been working really well. If I have breakfast at home rather than at work where I have my stash I get a LOT hungrier and almost definately end up raiding the chocolate box!

So i bought another stash for at home and am trying to put my sister onto it. She's overweight but i struggle to find ways to help her improve her habits without it being counter-productive. I figure it's much easier to get her eat something extra in the morning than it is to tell her she doesn't need that junk food she goes for when she's hungry later in the day.

I've also started my own veggie garden (in pots so i can move it when my apartment is finished). So far I've only got a couple of capsicum plants (called peppers sometimes elsewhere) and some sage. I'm going to add something every couple of weeks. I figure if kids have ADD from malnourished low nutrient plants from over-cropped land then growing my own in good quality potting mix should be better for me. I'm using self watering pots so the time watering and knowing how much to supply is not such a problem. I need a low maitenance solution but the initial set up I have to admit is fun .

[Sharla]

I have been elected as my sister's personal trainer.

It all began when i found and bought some online nutrition software - will get the name later yesterday morning. It should be handy once it's set up properly as it keeps a database of food so you just add it to each meal in the diary and you can track your consumption.

At the moment it's a bit fiddly as it's American and a lot of things I would consider normal are not in the database like Weet-Bix and skinless chicken breast . So i have to use CalorieKing to google the figures and add it to the database. I don't have a lot of patience for the fiddlyness of it but I'm persisting with the hope it become manageable.

So Rachel looked interested so i added her as a user and she asked to go swimming with me and we used that as her first training session.

It took an hour to get her to burn 325 cal. That was really hard work for her. It's much less than I would've suspected according to how much people are supposed to burn but i did get her puffing occasionally and she did a lot more than she really wanted to do.

Tuesday
Morning walk/jog with Rachel. We did my little cicuit (3 laps around a few local blocks). It took almost an hour. Completely walked the first one and walk/jogged the 2nd and third. She found it really hard and I couldn't leave her at all otherwise she wouldn't keep going. I don't know why she seems to find it so hard yet her heart rate is not so high. Perhaps it's because she's so over-weight it's almost more anaerobic rather than aerobic .

I learnt after the second lap that I couldn't push her to jog for 20 m very many times before it all felt too hard for her. We cut the jogs down to about 5 m and did them more often. Even her fast walk was slower than my normal one.

It makes swimming seem like more the thing for her. At least in the pool I can get her to do kick with fins and do it myself without and she can woop my arse making some cheeky comment as she passes me. It's easier to find things she can enjoy in the pool and feel less useless doing. The dog loved the walk though so we can't stop that completely!

So it was exercise for her but not for me - will get to road runners speed training tonight for myself and tomorrow morning I'm considering taking her to the gym to do some cardio on the rower and we can both do some resistance training etc.

[Sharla]

Last Night Made it to speed training -

I can't say there was much speed about the way i was running though!
2.2 km warm up followed by the following intervals -1600m, 1200m, 800m and 400m.
The others were timing their breaks but i didn't have my watch and felt I wasn't running fast enough to justify much of a break so i generally left at the same time as whoever i saw finish just a bit ahead of me.

Walked about 2 kms to the bus stop to warm down. Overall felt good and the group was a friendly bunch. Told one of them i'd pay him $5 if I didn't show up next week. He looked a bit confused until i told him i needed to blackmail myself.

Wednesday Morning

Cycled to the gym. Planned weights with some cardio between to help kick up my heart rate.

15 mins on the rower - 5 mins easy - last ten with 30 secs hard alternating with 30 secs easy.
One set of shoulder press and seated row (underhand grip to relax my shoulders)
2 mins on treadmill at around 12 km/hr but foot didn't appreaciate it.

Then did the following with 2 mins on the rower between each set (1 set - 2 exercises):

• counterweight lat pull down and tricep dip X 3
• shoulder press and seated row
• shoulder press, Bicep curls X2
• Shoulder press, bicep curls and seated row (got a bit confused there as other people hop on and off the machines bw my sets and i couldn't remember where i was up to but it's all good!)

After the last set above i did the following without cardio between as i was running short on time:

• hamstring curls & leg extensions X 3 sets
• hip raises on mat with extra weight on my abdomen for resistance & squats on 2 medicine balls X 3 sets

Medicine balls were a little awkward. Had none very similar in size so one leg was bent noticabley more than the other. One was more 'squishy' than the other too. Did first two sets of 20 with those balls with them the opposite way round for the second set. Found that the 'squishy' ball was too soft and it made the exercise easier than it's meant to be by absorbing all my wobble!

Then swapped the squishy one for a harder one and did 15 reps with the balls each way for one longer set.

Finished with fit ball hamstring stretches, psoas stretches and band chest stretch. Found my right side is a little tighter than my left.

Didn't get abs in this morning but will hopefully cover them tonight - am going to a kickboxing gym - my first ever kickboxing coach has a gym I need to visit.