This & that

Tuesday:

Whining on about being sick is very boring so I will just briefly mention that I caught my little boy's tummy bug, albeit in a lesser form, so I haven't exercised for a couple of days (again). Not sure yet about today. And I'll move on to another topic.

After touching briefly on a harrowing moment yesterday morning. I had just got out of bed and was holding a retching Aiden over a bucket in the loungeroom where he had been slumped watching TV. Red. Lots of red. And organic looking lumps of pinky red. Oh my God. Until I questioned his big sister who told me he'd just eaten a red plum. Sometimes relief from fear is the most wonderful feeling in the universe.

The day after my first attempt at stair climbing, total of 80 stairs, my thighs were very sore. Cool! Of course I also ran that day which might have contributed, but that tends to work different muscles. I want to do a few more short sessions over the next two weeks, then the kids will be back at school and I can ramp it up.

I was given some ankle weights for Christmas and have done some leg exercises with them. Quite hard work. Just think, if I wore them all day every day, when I finally took them off it would feel like I was flying!

The coming week's weather report says we will have another coolish Saturday so I plan to do my first Parkrun 5K. I'm considering the Parkruns as part of my training, not an end race, so I'll run/walk it and go from there. I'd like to do it regularly as long as it doesn't hurt my shins running on tracks instead of the grass of the oval. We'll see.

Occasional 5K training

Saturday:

I'd had some thoughts, earlier in the week, about doing Parkrun today. They have a casual (but timed) 5K by the nearby lake every Saturday morning. I am totally not ready to run a 5K and haven't done any training for it for months, since it got hot, but I knew we were going to have one cool day in the middle of this heatwave and I could just walk most of the 5K. Then every subsequent time would be a new PB! But anyway I then forgot about it and slept in, but decided it was still good weather to do a training run.

I did Week 1 Day 2 of C25K -- it's only my second try at this program but I had done some of a different program before that -- and again I couldn't do the whole thing so I think I'll be on Week 1 for a while! Of the eight 60 second intervals, I did the full minute only on laps 1, 6 and 8. That last one was hard! I really pushed myself. The other laps I only did about 30 seconds of the running interval. You get 90 seconds recover in between and boy does that go quickly.

As well as having a voice in my ear I keep track of how many intervals I've done by changing which lane I'm in, I start in the outside lane and move in one each time. It also boosts my perception of how far I've run because each lap is a little bit shorter than the one before. Everything that helps me get through it is worth doing.

I find myself much tireder after running than I have been after dance.

5K Fun run

Sunday again:

I just had a look and it turns out that there is a regular Saturday morning (8 am) 5k fun run around the lake near here (Lake Ginnandera, not the bigger lake I like to walk around). They started in April this year and have an average of about 50 runners each week, last week 63 with 26 new people. They post photos and results on their website. Sounds good. But the average time is under 30 mins and my best is over 50! Hmm, definitely train for it first. The fastest guy has done it in 14 mins. He'd be zooming back past me when I had barely started. But I am just a beginner.

www.parkrun.com.au