Intervals

Did some 1:1 intervals tonight… I’m sure I’ve explained them somewhere before so I’m not going to type out the full routine again. Regardless, it felt quite a bit easier today, and my “fast” segments were 1) faster and 2) easier than they’ve been before. I managed to break 10km/h with my early “fast” runs which I know isn’t very much, but it is an achievement for someone who doesn’t run very fast and is still, relatively speaking, quite new to fitness in general.

Next time I do intervals I think I’ll try and up the intensity somehow… perhaps 90 seconds “fast” running followed by 60 seconds of “steady” running instead of the equal split I have at the moment.

8.25km

Did a 5K on Monday but forgot to blog it. This was after a couple of days away when rubbing wasn’t really practical, but I managed to do a ton of push-ups and sit-ups on all the days I was away from home except the day I was REALLY REALLY FUCKING HUNG OVER. Oh my God. Took me the best part of a day to get over that night, but perhaps the less said about that the better.

Tonight it was a toss-up between intervals and a long-distance run. I chose the long-distance one and ran the same “big loop” I did a short while back. It was less windy but I somehow ended up being a few minutes slower. It was late, though, I guess.

10K is probably attainable, though by about 7.5km I was pretty knackered and ready to keel over. It’s not that much further to 10K from 8.5 though, so I just need to work out where to add an extra 1.5km onto that route, which shouldn’t be too difficult. I shall work up to it!

But all in all it’s going well; despite the few days “off” I’m still feeling motivated and the impact on my body is positive too. I am impressed with how well my muscles have taken to the push-ups and sit-ups so hopefully they will continue to prove beneficial.

85 Pushups, 175 Situps

I attempted to do more pushups in one go, as I suggested I might yesterday. Turns out 25 is about my limit in one go, and I can (relatively) comfortably do two sets of 25 with a break in between them. I did 5 sets today of gradually-increasing knackeredness, so it went 25, 25, 15, 10, 10. A total of 85 is still significantly more than I’ve ever done, however they were split up.

Situps I can comfortably manage a set of 35 no problem. Yesterday I did 55 in one go as the last bit of my workout (the 200 Situps app has your last set as an “at least this many” sort of arrangement, so I kept going until I felt a bit sick) but I’m not sure I could do 5 sets of 55. Perhaps I could? Who knows.

I’m away for a couple of days so squeezing in some running might be difficult until Friday depending on what I’m doing. But we shall see; I’ll certainly have time to work out my “pythons”, as I’ve discovered they’re called. (I still hear “python”, I think “penis”.)

58 Pushups, 169 Situps

I’m aware I’m being inconsistent with my hyphenation of push(-)ups and sit(-)ups but my blog, my rules, even if I don’t stick to them.

Obvious improvement tonight as I successfully managed to pull off 20 push(-)ups in a row without stopping and/or dying (which would also cause stoppage, I guess, just a bit more permanent) and 55 sit(-)ups, also without stopping and/or dying. This is Progress. Those two figures felt about my limit tonight, though, as my arms were about to give way in the push(-)ups and I was just starting to feel a bit queasy-vomity by the end of the sit(-)ups.

I wonder if I’d be able to do more if I didn’t have to do the “big batch” at the end of the sets? Who knows. Perhaps I’ll try it tomorrow, given that it’s not a “programme” day.

1:1 Intervals

Decided to try some interval training again tonight in the hope that having cracked that “first attempt” barrier, tonight would be easier.

It was. This seems to be something of a pattern with new exercises: the first time you try something, it is ludicrously difficult, possibly because you don’t know your own limits and try to overexert yourself. This was certainly the case with the first “fast” interval I ran in the previous session. This time, I knew what a sensible pace was and didn’t set off at rocket speed only to find myself exhausted within approximately thirty seconds.

I was out in the dark, so it was difficult to judge how fast I was going, but fortunately RunKeeper on the iPhone keeps track of your average speed for different types of intervals. My Fast intervals tonight (a minute at a time, followed by a minute of steady jogging) were clocking in at an average of 9km/h. I have no idea how respectable that is, but I’m pretty sure it’s considerably faster than my usual “cruising speed” on endurance runs.

With a bit of training, these will help bump my speed up a bit, I think. And they’ll probably help with stamina too.

8.25km

Went out today with the intention of just a “regular” 5K run but started on a different route. By partway through said different route, I decided that I’d continue in this direction and do a big “loop” around to end up back where I started, instead of just turning around and going back when I got to 2.5km. I was curious to see exactly how long said “loop” was and if it was close to the elusive 10K.

As it happens, not that far off. Door to… uh… same door, it was 8.25km. It took slightly longer than it probably would have done usually due to the fact that for several kilometres I was running directly into a headwind so strong it was making my eyes water and my forward progress roughly the same speed as a normal person sauntering along a non-windy road. But tempting as it was to turn back, or possibly collapse to the ground and sleep for a little while, I persisted.

It was just starting to get a bit difficult to keep going by the time I hit about 7.5km, so there’s still some training needed before 10K will be comfortably doable. But yay progress.

50 Push-Ups, 125 Sit-Ups

Same again today. Was going to go for a run but I’ve had an annoying dull headache all day—not enough of a headache to flail around overdramatically going “Aarrgh” until someone notices, but just enough to be a mild annoyance.

It’s also been cold and the wind has been like something out of a… wind movie. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but it was particularly strong today, and I know attempting to run into that sort of headwind (because you just know it’d be going my way) would probably result in little to no progress.

So, just push-ups and sit-ups again today. Push-ups are getting faster, but 10 in a row is still about my limit. Sit-ups are coming along, too; I feel like I can “extend” a bit further now, which is good.

So, weather permitting, it will actually be a run day tomorrow. Hopefully.

50 Push-Ups, 125 Sit-Ups

Today wasn’t an “official” exercise day but I thought I might as well do some of these anyway just so I’ve done something. I didn’t use the 100Pushups/200Situps iPhone apps for these, I just did 5 sets of equal numbers of reps of each. 5 sets of 10 push-ups, 5 sets of 25 sit-ups.

The push-ups were easy-ish to begin with but were starting to feel quite difficult by the midpoint of the 4th set. I could push the sit-ups harder, I think, though sets of 25 were a nice “round” number.

Run day tomorrow I think; my “usual” days have been a bit screwy this week due to weather and timing, but from Sunday I’ll likely be back on my usual schedule.

32 Push-Ups, 137 Sit-Ups

Showing steady improvement on both of these. I was expecting the push-ups in particular to be a lot more difficult than they’ve proven so far… but then it is early days, and I’m not doing that many in one go just yet.

One thing I noticed today is that it seemed somewhat easier to do both exercises a bit “quicker” than before. Either it’s psychological and I’m just believing that I’m doing them better, or I’m actually a little bit stronger/fitter than before and they really are easier.

Still a lot of work to do, obviously, but noticeable progress is great motivation. Let’s hope it continues.

6K

Since I’m supposed to be running 10K in May, I figured it was about time to try upping the distance a little bit, starting by adding an additional kilometre. This was a simple case of running “out” 0.5km further, which didn’t feel like a lot at all, until I had to run back into a strong headwind. Yay.

I managed it, though my legs were just starting to get to the “okay, aching enough to want to stop now” stage by the time I got back home. It looks like gradually increasing the distance will be a slow but steady process—but doubtless doing things like the interval training once a week will help, too.

Dinner time now; push-ups and sit-ups will have to wait until later. Those are going well, though.