Month One
It seems crazy that a whole month has already passed on my training. I’ve been doing my couch to 5k religiously and my other training…well, less religiously.
Part of the problem is that I’ve really started to enjoy running for the first time in my life, and I’m not really enjoying doing the other stuff. I think the reason for this is quite simple, even for half an hour it’s something I get to do for myself, and alone. ALONE. I Love my baby, but I am never alone. Add to this that the structure of c25k means I am actually progressing and I can feel this every time I go out, it feels pretty brilliant.
My exercises to do at home I have to do with the baby around and let me tell you, she’s wonderful, but she’s not easy. Especially lately, she’s just grumpy all the time. So the idea of being able to put her down for ten minutes and using that time to do squats and planks instead of drinking a cuppa, well, that my friends is insanity. I work well with schedule. I know when my runs are and I stick to that. I don’t work well with squeezing things in when there’s 5 minutes spare…
However saying that, I’d better let you in on what the second work out is:
Front plank
Side plank (both sides)
Reverse plank
Hold each for as long as you can, time them if possible and try and work on your time. Do this in conjunction with workout one.
Planks suck, but do you know what really sucks? Reverse plank. I’d never heard of it, but it’s bloody hard. With your back facing the floor, lift yourself onto your elbows and get your butt off the floor. I know I have zero core but I was shocked at how tough I found this. The first time I did it I could only hold all 4 for a total of 2 minutes 20, today it was 5 minutes and 41, good to see it works!
In terms of progress, how am I doing? Well, I don’t feel like I *look* any better, a lot of this is down to my core. Until I can strengthen this I will continue to have the “mummy tummy”, but I have to do it in a careful way so as not to cause any damage.
Running wise I know I am progressing, and from now on c25k starts to get trickier, I’ve just started to track my pace, purely out of interest. On my first run I was quite happy to see that, including walking my pace was 6min 14 per KM, and for the runs alone I was hitting at best 5mins 03, and slowest 5mins 30. The second time I tracked my run, I had to forego the 5minute warm up walk because of time, and it knocked everything out of whack. It was so hard to start! My average pace was way lower than time time before because of this, but during my final stint I was hitting sub 5min km which felt amazing. Now even when I was able to run, I very rarely ran a sub 5minute km so this pace isn’t sustainable for longer runs, but in this weeks run I am doing 3 and 5 minute chunks of running, so it’s some time… it’s the end of next week when I have to run for 20 minutes non stop that I’m scared of!
Weight wise, I’ve consistently hit the sub 60kg (by about 200g but still) which I was aiming for, but I’ve still got a lot of fat to shift… I’m not far off my pre pregnancy weight, but the body I have is a totally different one.
My other issue is remembering how cold Nuts is! Every time I go out for a run in this weather I think I’m crazy, but then when I warm up I feel a lot more positive, and then as I’m running I picture crossing that finish line and it just spurs me on. What helps is to reward myself, by running a hot bath before I go, and know it’s waiting for me when I get home, that certainly pushes me to get back, and of course that feeling when you know you’ve done your exercise is great!
The other news is two laps of Nuts on Sunday has just been announced as a qualifier for the OCR World Championships. Now I’m thinking, will I be ready to try that or am I being insane? I’m going to wait a little longer and call it closer to the time.
