Tuesday - shuttle runs this morning.
I set up 4 cones for this - one at the start, one at around
15m, another at 25m and another at 35m. After warming
up i do 8 of these runs (up to each cone and back to the start)
with a walk for a minute or so in between . Then a cool down
jog for a couple of minutes.
Rest tonight and 30 x inhaling and exhaling with the power-
breathe.

Monday - this morning was long slow easy distance for
45 mins, and instead of having a rest this evening, i
thought i'd try a timed lap of the lake (1170m) to see
how i'm going. Disappointment I'm afraid! the weather
has been quite humid and i started off way too hard early.
I could tell after about 200m that i was going to struggle.
Since i bought my Garmin Forerunner 201 last week, i
have noticed that my running has seemed a little more
difficult. What i think i'm doing is (with the virtual training
partner) looking at how far i'm ahead/behind right from
the start, and not setting my own rhythm. This is what's
causing me to go out to quickly and in the end come home
a fair bit slower. I think for a while i will just use the GPS
to keep a record of the distance travelled and check the
pace at the end of my runs.

Cool Running :: stormbikes's running log

Sunday - no workout of any kind this morning.
Sometimes the family stuff just has to come first!
Late this afternoon i went down to the athletics track
for my Sunday interval session.
If you follow this link to my training log you can read
about today's session and my projected (at this stage)
training plan for the week.

Cool Running :: stormbikes's running log
username - stormbikes
viewing password - 1234

I generally plan out my training for the week on Sunday
morning. While i would like to work on a hard week/easy week
plan, it just never seems to work out the way i would
like. Hours of work and family commitments make it tricky
to stick to a plan without constantly making last minute
changes. At the moment i do seem to be making good
improvement in my fitness so i'm not too worried just yet!

Saturday - went for a bike ride this morning and felt great.
Completed my usual route of the lake course at a higher av
speed than usual and feel that my cycling endurance/strength
has improved quite a lot.
This evening i was going to run for an hour but the heat got
to me after about 25 mins. I decided to try and run it out
strongly to 30 mins and call it a day. I'm hoping that as my
fitness level improves, so will my ability to run in higher temps.
Got through about 4.5km's before stopping for a weeks total
of 36.5km's. This is about 8.5 less than i had hoped for this week.

Friday - reality check this morning!
Using my Garmin Forerunner 201, I realized that my 45 min
runs are only about 6.5kms and not the 7km's i thought they were.
Never mind, i have adjusted my log to show this and my total for
this week should then be around 43km's after tomorrow
evening's run. I think it's still too early for me to try and push
the pace with these long runs. Maybe in a few months.

Wednesday night - interval session at the aths track.
started with a good long warm-up followed by some
stretching then a couple of sessions of stadium steps.
Then a series of run throughs at varying distances
from about 30m - 150m focussing on speed and
technique. Tomorrow is a complete rest day followed
by long easy distance on Friday morning.

Wednesday Morn - yesterday's shuttle runs worked out well.
I did a slow jog up and down the driveway for 6 or 7 mins to
warm-up then did a series of runs using the cones set up at
start /15m/25m/35m. Between these i walked up and back
twice and then started again etc.
I'm just about to go off and cycle around my local lake for about
40mins (about 13km). This will be mainly to loosen up because
i have intervals tonight which will be pretty full-on.

Monday - Once again i've had to make changes to my weekly
training plan. It looks like i'm going to be finishing work later
for a while so i have to concentrate my workouts to the mornings.
Weekends will have longer sessions to try and make up for it.
This morning was a 45 min overdistance run (7 km). My legs
have been a bit sore all day. Possibly from 4 long running sessions
in 4 days. I'll have to pay careful attention to how i go with this,
as i'll have 6 days of running in a row. Thursday is a full rest day.

Sunday - This morning i decided to run instead of cycle.
I also ran for longer than i have before to make up a
little for missing a few training sessions recently. A 40th
birthday party for a friend and some family commitments
also meant that my late afternoon interval session at the
track wasn't going to happen either!
My run went for 90 mins of slow easy stuff for about 14km.
Included were quite a few hills and variations in gradient.
As usual i felt great after about 35mins which happens every
time i run. Tomorrow morning will be more overdistance,
this time about 7km in 45mins.

Saturday - nothing this morning before taking the kids to
little aths. Late this afternoon i spent 60 mins on the
treadmill at different inclines and then ran around some
cones at my place for a while. Also a little basketball in the
driveway with the kids for a good all-round workout.
Saturday is the one day that i can't get away from home
to run as i have the kids with me. The treadmill has to do.
Once again after about 35-40mins constant running i felt
very strong and really wanted to sprint as if in a race to
the line. I do feel that i want to increase the amount of
running that i'm doing each week providing i can fit it in
with my time constraints.
(current short term goal - 400m in under 60)

Friday - I ran for 45mins this morning doing easy overdistance.
As always the first 15-20mins was the hardest part. Then i
felt i could go on indefinately. This type of training really seems
to be helping my fitness and is increasing my stamina quite
noticeably.
Tonight was again supposed to be boxing work with the 3 bags.
I find though that if i get home from work too late, i don't get
a chance to train and don't feel motivated after putting the kids
to bed.

Thursday night - well there goes my training tonight on the bags.
Home too late from work. Sometimes the evening session is a
bit hit and miss, and tonight is a miss!

Overdistance tomorrow morning - about 7km's in 45mins.

Thursday morning - woke up feeling very tired and worn out.
Definately need to get more sleep generally. Especially now
that my training volume is increasing.
At the aths track last night for the weekly Knox Masters.
The 90sec NOSP (name own start pos) went very well.
At this stage of my fitness i chose 460m for the 90sec and
crossed the line in 1.25.3 - 480m would probably have been
dead on! I felt great during the run - after starting with only
1 or 2 behind me, i managed to pass all who were in front
but one, and had a good kick from around the 150.
I did want to do some 300m intervals after that but only
managed 3 - just too tired. They were run in 65, 53 and 55
With warm-up/cool-down around 3km's all up.
This morning is a rest morning and i'll be on the 3 boxing bags
tonight.

I will be detailing each run/workout as i go along.
I usually sit down at the start of each week (Sunday)
and fine tune how much i'm going to do. I think it's
probably time to go over and change some of my
running to add some more stamina type stuff. I'll
try to add something around 20mins at a faster pace
once or twice each week for a while.
Tomorrow will be cycling in the morning - around 13km
and some competition tomorrow evening at the
Knox Masters Athletics (every Wednesday).
Most of my training is longish easy running (overdistance)
and most of my events are at the track - 60m- 1km.
100m is my pet distance and my goal is a good 400m.
I will most likely aim for longer fun runs in the future.
Probably 5km and 10km - who knows maybe even a
half or marathon someday!

Hi Folks!

Tuesday (rest day) - I thought i'd start this blog about my running/cycling etc
to give me added motivation to keep at it and improve myself.
I've just recently come back to running again after a period away. Initially i
had returned from a break of some 30 odd years. This involved 30 odd years
of smoking and drinking and not much in the way of exercise other than some
weight training. Most of that was to keep me looking trim and taut and certainly
didn't have me in good aerobic shape. Then around the year 1999/2000 i started
on a little morning cycling (while still smoking). That continued for a few months
until i realized that without the smoking, i would find it easier, so the smoking
stopped. To cut a long story short, over the next two years i did some running,
cycling and training with boxing bags and got myself into quite good shape until
the start of 2002. Then came a nasty motorcycle accident and a recovery period
of about 8 weeks. I lost a lot of fitness and motivation and i guess really it has
taken me until about 3 months ago to make the decision to really go for it.
(i'm going to add some more to this tomorrow - so stay tuned)

part 2
About 3 months ago i gave up smoking again. Straight away i
found that very close by was an athletics club catering for the
over 35's so i joined up. 3 months later with a fair bit of training
under my belt, i'm in 300% better shape than i was in a little
while ago. I also now have some goals, the first of which is to
run a 400m in 60 or less by the end of December. I would
also like to get my 100m to around 12.5 by then as well.
The bulk of my training at the moment is long easy running
to get my aerobic fitness up to scratch. I'm doing other stuff
as well like a fair bit of cycling and some work on the boxing
bags which i have set up in my garage.