Moving house

This past week (and probably 1 or 2 more if you include packing) has been all about moving house, which is pretty "full on" with the 6 of us. So out of convenience I substituted Tuesday's scheduled 30 min run with a 26 minute swim, and Thursday's 50 min run with, well, moving house, which was roughly equivalent IMHO to a day-long gym session. So feel totally fine about that.

Yesterday, Saturday, was a 40 min run in the dark. Aerobically I felt great, but my troublesome calf muscle started playing up. Again. Manageable, but a little worrying. Sooooo frustrating that I feel that I could run a lot faster, but feel very held back by this recurring issue. Grrrrrr.

Today, Sunday, was a 1hr30m run. Unlike yesterday, I remembered to slip on my elastic bandage around my calf muscle and this helped a great deal. Definitely something I DON'T want to forget on race day. Even though the calf muscle moaned and groaned a bit, I felt confident enough to keep on running, i.e. to not fall back to power walking instead. Result: a fraction under 14km in a fraction over 1hr30m... which means that *if* I can sustain the pace on race day, and *if* injury doesn't stuff me up, then I'm inside my target 4hr30m-5hr window.

Talking of race day - FOUR WEEKS TODAY. Excited.

Still only 24% towards my self-imposed fundraising target of AUD$3k. Remember - if you want to see me get my chest and back hair waxed on Youtube, then I need to hit that amount by race day!

Goodbye Chocolate

That's it! No more chocolate until after race day. I really love chocolate. And I'm sure chocolate in moderation isn't going to negatively affect my marathon preparation. But moderation and chocolate don't sit comfortably in the same sentence in my world. So cold turkey it is.

Not a great session

Not a great session today.

Since mildly straining my quadriceps last Sunday, I've been resting up. The good news is that the quads seem to have recovered nicely. I went for a 30m run yesterday,  with no hint of problems. Awesome. I also puchased a pair of $29 running shorts, figuring that on race day itself it could be too warm for my long running pants, so best to take a pair of shorts for a spin, sooner rather than later.

This morning I was scheduled for a 3hr run, or around 27k'ish. I reasoned that a running machine in the local gym would provide a more controlled environment than the open road, i.e. less risky for my recovering quad muscles.

After about 1hr of running at 9km/hr and 30 mins of power walking at about 7.2km/hr, I quit. Why?

1. Wearing my new running shorts exposed the inside of my thighs to a lot of rubbing against one another, and it was starting to get quite sore, despite the application of a lot of vaseline which I'd brought along for just this eventuality.
2. My troublesome left calf muscle started feeling a bit on edge. Really hard to tell the difference between normal fatigue and actual damage
3. I've decided that I'm good with a running machine for about 60-90mins tops, but after that I find a treadmill really boring. I find myself really wishing that I was outside in the elements, wind and sun on my face, scenery changing.

Put that lot together, and my head really wasn't in the right place. So I stopped.

5 weeks to the day to go. I have a lot more work to do.

Thanks, Sponsors! Shall I wax my body hair?

Just wanted to say a huge "THANKS!" to my sponsors-to-date: Kara, Nick, John, Ben, Erica, Harvey, Annie and Itomic.

Lots more work to do on this front though.... still only 24% towards my (self-imposed) target fundraising total of AUD$3k with just over 1 month to go before the big event. Would waxing my hairy back and chest and posting it to Youtube (as was done in the movie "40 year old Virgin") help to further incentivise more people to sponsor me?! If so - done!

Just over a month still to go... the good news is that my pulled quadriceps is feeling massively better having rested it since the half-marathon last Sunday. I missed the two scheduled training sessions this week, but hopefully will be back in the saddle tomorrow.

Quadriceps and more

Some recent updates, starting with the most annoying one:

1. Strained my quadriceps (or more accurately my http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastus_medialis) yesterday while running a half marathon. Took me by surprise, because this muscle group hasn't been a problem at all until now. A bit of googling tells me that "An imbalance between weak quadriceps and stronger hamstrings can also cause the injury, a condition that is common among runners". Also that it's more common for people who sit at a desk for most of their working day because the quadriceps is (unnaturally) extended for long periods of time. That's 2 out of 2 for me. I've done longer runs, but not suffered this pain before, so why now? I'm thinking that it's because this run was 11km mostly downhill, and the return was 11km mostly uphill,. And it wasn't until the last few kms that it started to hurt (at which point I switched to power walking). In other words it was more prolonged uphill than I've done before. QED. I'm pretty sure it's a minor injury, but doubtless will mean that, again, I'm going to be partially off my marathon programme and easing myself back onto it over the next couple of weeks.
2. Got my smartphone back from the repairers, so I'm back in business from a GPS / Runstatic perspective. Something very weird happened on my run yesterday though.... I'm running along, listening to music on my headphones, and suddenly the volume increases to maximum for no apparent reason. Ouch. So I dive for the volume button, bring it back to normal levels... and then it happens again. I thought maybe there was some physical pressure on the volume button on the phone, but I ruled that out. Perhaps some sweat where it shouldn't have been? After it happened about 5 times in a row, I had no choice but to unplug the headphones and listen to the sound of my breathing instead, which makes a change. Not quite so motivating, but not entirely unpleasant. I wonder if it'll happen again, and if I can work out why.
3. Moving forwards but standing still. Last week I had a full-on 100 minute interval training session on a running machine at the local gym. I don't remember ever seriously training on a running machine before. The weirdest bit was when I finished. It totally felt like I was moving forwards, even when I was standing still. Amazing how the mind plays tricks with you. Strolling back the short distance to my house it felt like being on one of those moving walkways you get at airports. Weird!