Begin at the beginning....

Keeks

and go on till you come to the end: then stop.....Lewis Carroll

Ok, since I laid down some goals here, I might as well track what I am doing to achieve those goals and hopefully pick up a few tips and tricks along the way.
So a bit myself. I am the wrong side of 40 and a person who has always played teams sports (GAA, Soccer etc) but never about so seriously that I got super fit but was always competitive. Now that old age has caught up to make it no longer any fun trying to chase people half you age around a field.

So now I am trying to find something that will build my fitness to at least be able to chase the rug rats around the place and keep the pounds off but golf won’t do that for you. Got a bike on the Bike to Work scheme a couple of years ago and only started to use it with any regularity last year. And I have to say I really enjoy it.

Entered a couple of adventure races for fun and enjoyed them. But find the running tough, not surprisingly with no training.

Starting back running with some regularity toward the end of last year and this is my main focus in the short term.

One last thing....I can’t swim....yet.....working on it, but will only start logging information about that once I am able to swim a length of a pool

So let’s begin the Journey.....and see where it ends

Keeks

Relist Goals:

• Learn to Swim
• Do more Brick Sessions
• Sub 22min 5k
• get down to 85kg
• Do more Kayaking

Additional goals:

Run 1000 kms this year - Last year did ~250k without a structure so should be doable
Bike about 3000kms - got to ~2000k last year - will only be possible if I get more longer cycles in
Enter more races, whether they are local 5ks, 10ks or even parkruns - need to develop some race craft and pacing strategies so I don't just race and blow up.

Keeks

Week 1

OK as mentioned, the focus for the short term, at least till the clocks change will be on my running, and to get as much miles in the legs as possible. The basics structure will be 3 weeks of training by a rest week of all easy runs/cross training.

The plan is to do 2 session a week of either 30min intervals/Fartlek runs/Hill runs followed by a long(ish) run at the weekends of about an hour or more. This will also be followed up with some easy recovery runs/cross training.

I'm keeping the plan very simple....all intervals/Fartlek runs/Hill runs will be at 5K pace, whilst for recovery and long runs I will be running to Hearth Rate, and trying to keep to below 70% HRR

The bike will be left for a while.

Mon
Planned to get out for an easy run on New Years day, but weather was ****e and was starting to feel a chest infection coming on. decided not to start something just for the sake of it if I could end up sick.

Tue
Ditto - only weashter was worse

Wed
30 Min Easy Run - Nice to get out for a the first run. Still felt a bit chesty, but was hoping the cold air would kill off any bugs. Struggled to keep HR but more to do with pacing. Really struggled to hold a good pace.

Thurs
30 Min Easy Run - Still felt Chesty - Ave HR a little higher than last night, but more evenly paced.....just need to slow down a little more - or maybe still feeling the effects of a cold.

Fri
30 Min Easy Run - Even though ti was a poor route selection tonight, with some small hills, my HR on the even sections was much better and consistent.

Sat
Rest

Sun
50 Min Easy Run - Only planned to go for 45 minutes for the first long(ish) but ended with 50 and still felt good after which was nice. HR much more consistent which is good. Hopefully as I get more miles in the legs, the Av HR will come down for the same pace. It is just at the higher end of the band.


Week Total:

4 Runs for 2:20
Weight - 93.6kg

Nice easy start

Keeks

Week 2 - Not a great week

Mon - 30 Mins Yoga/Stretching - Starting to feel a bit tight, so better to get into a routine of Stretching. Too many area to work on.

Tue Intervals - 3 x 1K @ 5K pace with 90sec recovery. 40mins
This went surprisingly well. I was a bit apprehensive about this as I have never tried to maintain a pace before - it has been either all or nothing. Quick warm up followed by the first interval. Now I am trying to do this more by feel and looking at my watch which I don't want to be a slave to, but I know very quickly that the first interval was a little too hot to start with. the other 2 were pretty much bang on, although the third you can see the pace start to slowly tail off. All recoveries were slow jogs. was happy with that.

Wed 30 Yoga - Went to go for a recovery run, had shoes on but when I went to the door, Noah was floating past, so I did a little more stretching

Thurs 30 min Fartlek - Need to figure out soem session for this. Did a trail run early in the day, which was pretty much stop start. One this I did find out fom teh trail run, is that Hill sessions will have to wait a while. Will need to lsoe soem weight first.

Fri/Sat/Sun Nothing......Other things got in the way...will get back to it next week.

Week Total:

2 Runs for 1:10
Weight - 92.7kg -

Good to see weight coming down without any major focus.

Keeks

Week 3 - Much Better

Mon 25 Min Easy - Got my route slightly wrong, and ended up short......but jsut wasn't goign to do a quick out an back to make up 5 mins.

Tue 30 mins - Wanted to do a 3 x 1k Intervals @ 5k pace again, but got this all wrong. It was really windy, so my normal route won't do so tried a different route. Got the first interval ok, but the second was into a headwind and actually stopped me. Pulled the pin on intervals and just did 30 mins jog.

Wed Rest - Weather was bad so took a rest day. Need to get to a gym and do recovery runs on a threadmill for days like this.

Thurs 3 x 1k @5K - repeat of Tues session, but hopefully complete it this time.
did a 10 min warm up, but pace was again a little too fast for warm up, even if ti is all downhill.
Now I am trying to do all these intervals on feel rather than begin glued to the watch.
First interval, felt fine at the start, breathing was good and form was good, but half way through something didn't feel "right". Couldn't quite figure it out until I took a quick look at the watch, and I was going WAY TOO Fast - sub 4 min per KM....so eased back. No w I didn't even think I could go that fast yet, but there you go. Don't think I would have held it for very long if I didn't cop it.
Second interval start out fast again and gradually got into the correct pace.
Third one much better and pretty much on the right pace all though except for the last 150m where I did fade.
This was all followed by a nice 15min cool down uphill jog

Fri/Sat Rest - house full of sick kids put paid to anything

Sun 55min Long Slow run - Ran by HR and kept it in Zone 2, but when i looked back it was trending to the higher end of the zone. Not sue if this was fatigue from looking after the darlings over the last few nights, or I was picking up something, but miles in the bag, which is probably what I need most.

Week Total

4 Runs for 2:30 hours
Weight 91.7kg - Need to be careful of this number....I think need to hydrate better so this may not be real weight i am losing

Keeks

Week 4

Everyone seems to be getting sick at the moment.....while I wasn't sick, the kiddywinks were all sick this week, so that put paid to almost any training.

Just 2 runs

Tue Temp 30 Mins
The first 10 mins was way too fast and above tempo and more like 5k pace
The second 10 was at tempo while the last 10 was just hanging onto the lower and of tempo pace.

Wed 30 mins Easy
Again just keeping the HR down at a nice easy rate.

Rest of week was a right off.....by the time I got the the weekend, i was really tired and sore for some reason. Just binned any other runs.

One thing i really need to do is get some long runs in and build my aerobic base.

Weight No Change