Hip pain

On my 2hr30m run last Sunday I picked up a niggling pain in the lower right side of my back, but perhaps in the hip joint region. I was hoping it was just fatigue-related and that it would quickly better with a couple of days rest like a few of my other aches and pains have. Bad news... it feels like it's getting worse. Not good. I had a 30m jog scheduled on my training program today, but my gut feeling is that running on it will do more harm than good. So I've cancelled the run and booked physio for tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed it's a minor injury with only about 12 sleeps until race day! I will not be denied!

Why haven't I lost more weight?

So a few months back I weighed in at 100kg, and I was expecting to lose at least 5kg, perhaps as much as 10kg. But I've got down to around 96-97kg, and haven't budged from there. A bit baffled.

• I've burnt loads more calories through exercise in the last few months than I've done for a very long time.
• Unless I'm in complete denial, I don't feel that I've increased my calorie intake over the last few months. Indeed I reckon if anything I've reduced it. 
• I've (almost completely) cut out chocolate for the last month'ish.
• I was a moderate drinker of alcohol in the first place, and I'm purposely drinking even less now.
• All my coffees are "skinny".
• I normally eat a healthy, high fibre breakfast with fruit, typically more fruit for lunch, and a good home cooked meal in the evening (thanks wifey!).

Bearing in mind I'm no expert in this area, the only rational explanations I can think of are:

• The old "muscle weighs more than fat" reason, i.e. the effect of my running has been to increase muscle relatively more than it's burnt fat.
• At my age (45) muscle mass/density is a lot less than when I was in my 20s, and you need muscle to burn fat, therefore with less muscle to do the job, burning fat requires a lot more effort than it used to.

Statistics

Here are my running stats (NOT including cycling and swimming), i.e. total distance covered, according to Runtastic:

April - 8.74km
May - 8.71km
June - 31.73km
July - 73.28km
August  - 156.59km

June and July should have both been 100km+ had I stuck to the program, but injuries dictated otherwise. So a poor/slow start, but in the zone now.

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.