Spoke too soon!

Since I last posted I have had a cold...not impressed!

Getting there!

I thought it was definitely time to give you an update on how my training is going. As I mentioned in my previous post I am following the Hal Higden Novice training schedule which is essentially 4 runs a week and one day of cross training. So far, so good although I did stub my toe quite badly just after I last posted which meant I had a slow start to my new training regime! I have been able to manage the frequency of runs although I am still a bit down on the distance of the long run. I've also done a couple of races, races 1 and 2 of the Stevenage 5k series. I finished the first race in just over 30 minutes and knocked a minute and half off the time in the second race 2 weeks later, hurrah!
As I have struggled with getting going with my training I have been pondering the following:

Getting fit is hard

Getting fit when you are overweight is hard

If I didn't already know I could get do it ('cos I've done it before) I would have stopped by now. Over the last few years I noticed that you get people coming to North Herts Road Runners to come and get fit. A lot of them come a long for a few weeks and then stop, I can now see why, getting fit is super hard work!
That said, I have noticed over the last week or two that running is starting to get a bit easier, I am getting there at last!

A new challenge

Right, at the end of my last post I mentioned I needed a new challenge. I am not one to do things by halves so a few weeks ago I entered the Rutland Water Marathon at the beginning of November. Yes, this is madness but I feel like I need something big to get my teeth into! I looked at a few training plans online and decided that the Hal Higden Novice training schedule would be a good place to start. Although I've done 13 marathons (the 12 mentioned in that link plus New York, I haven't trained consistently for around a year now so I would consider myself as a novice. It's quite a simple schedule (essentially 4 runs a week and one day of cross training) which is a frequency I think is achievable.

So the plan for next week is a couple of 3 mile runs, a 5 mile and a 10 mile. The 10 mile could be a bit challenging but I just need to grit my teeth and see how it goes.

Watch this space!

New beginnings!

As you can maybe guess from my lack of blogging, training has been somewhat intermittent of late (there is a positive correlation between frequency of training and frequency of blogging). Essentially, I am still struggling to get going although things are definitely improving, here's a summary:

For those of you know me, we've been homeless for 6 weeks and have been nomadically moving from place to place, I have been getting some training runs in, but nothing much more than a few 40ish minute runs

I've done a couple of Midweek League races, namely the 10k at Royston and the 9k mob match at Trent Park. I was particularly pleased with my trent park race as I managed to run a hilly off road course without having to stop for a walk :-) Of course, it goes without saying that the times for these 2 races are not worth reporting so I won't!


Mob Match @ Trent Park

I guess the important thing here is that although I am horrible unfit at the moment, I have been here before (many years ago!) and I know I can get fit again. But it's very hard and if I didn't already know I could do it I might have given up already.

So where next for this overweight, unfit, motivationless runner? What about a new challenge? Yep, I think that'll do the trick!