Week 4 - Starting to Get Real Now

So this was the first week after the warm up month so it is time to start getting into it. Unfortunately, I came down with a bit of a chest cold with sore throat. It slowed me down but didn't stop me completely.

This week started with a 3k tempo run on Tuesday, followed by 4 on Wednesday. Thursday was supposed to be a running day as well but I begged off this one as it turns out it was my worst day for the chest cold.

I made up for Thursday with a 3k run on Friday followed by about 50 minutes at the gym. The work out was seated chest presses (this machine gives a bit of a upward movement when pressing out instead of just straight out so a bit more of a workout) followed by lat pull downs, then upper abs on a ball, then lateral delts and finally anterior delts. Repeat reps of 20 times 4 sets.

Second go at the gym was pec flys, upper abs, bicep curls, tricep extensions followed by lower abs leg raises (with a ball between the legs). As before repeat for 4 sets times 20 reps per set.

Last missing little bit at the gym was leg curls, followed by leg extensions and one more go at lower abs. Chad called to let me know that one of the appointments for the day had cancelled and invited me to take their place. I declined given the above.

Saturday was my second rotten day for the week so instead of a run took a brisk walk (about 4k) in and about the glenmore reservoir.

Sunday was my first big run with a schedule 9km Run/Walk which is my longest distance yet. Turns out we are going to log 9.5k for todays go but as usual the first two km were hard, I think that this is just going to be the way with me. It seems like the first two km I have to convince myself that I really want to be here and get warmed up. What now is the middle 5 km went pretty well and while the calves were sore I felt quite good. The last two km were the toughest but I guess that makes sense as the objective here is to increase the distance so I would expect the last couple of km's to be the worst.

But guess what ? I made it through the run and am still here to talk about it. Total distance for this week was 19.5 km. Looking forward to another week in paradise.

Week 2 - If I could run the race over 4 days I would be ready to go Now.

I am going to call this week 2 because it is week 2 of the schedule. I missed week 1 because Sherry and I were in Las Vegas attending the consumer electronics show. Take a look at www.yourcalgaryitsource.com for updates on the show.

This was a starting week for training and for me it looked like: Wednesday; 6 1/2k, Friday: 4k, Saturday 4k, and Sunday 6k for a weekly total of 20.5k. The week was OK except for Sunday where it looked more like a walk with a bit of a run rather than the other way around.

It was cold on Sunday morning (about -14) and I don't think I have ever run when it was that cold so I am thinking that maybe it was the cold. I was unable to keep my breath and could only run short periods of time before I had to stop and catch my breath.

Much worse running this Sunday than any other day I can remember.

Looking forward to this week. A few tempo days and a few steady run days coming up this week.