Thursday 23 April 2009

A Tale of Three Runs

This week I returned to the gym for the first time since Easter. Chastened by my weigh-in last week, and with the advantage of an additional free night (because French doesn’t start for another two weeks), I was determined to undo the bad work I’d done in the previous weeks, fun though it was.

I headed to the gym on Monday, fearing the worst. After my 5 min rowing warm-up, my worst fears had been realised. I was knackered already.

It got worse when I hopped on the treadmill for 15 mins of running at 12kph on a 4% incline. After three minutes I had a stitch, but simply thought I’d run through it. But the bloody thing hung around for the remaining twelve minutes and added some more friends, like Breathlessness, Aching and the Loping Gait.

It was a struggle to get through that and I spent much of the remainder of the session recovering from it and re-acquainting my shoulders and abs with weights and core strength exercises.

On the Tuesday I woke in quite some pain, but spent the day at work willing myself to go for my 10km run that night. I ran it too, passing a speed camera on Thomas Road but not daring to run in front of it and hear its controller laughing at my lack of speed. I got puffed and had my second wind disturbingly early in the run and reacquainted myself with the Loping Gait in the last couple of kilometres. I thought I was in big trouble to get through it by then, but I managed to get home.

In fact I came home to an empty house, which was just as well as I was sweating everywhere.

On Wednesday I was back at the gym and when I hopped off the treadmill after 15 minutes I felt absolutely fine.

In a way that was a bit scary – in two weeks I’d fallen behind a bit in fitness, and caught up noticeably within a week. But its very easy to fall off the wagon!

Just to be safe I went for a second 10km run tonight to compensate for my lethargic fortnight, and came home again dripping in sweat.

The result? I'm back on track baby! Down to 88.5kg!

1 comment:

Luke T said...

two 10km runs in a week, massive effort Rossco. Going as well as the Saints at the moment!!!