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Jogger's Log |
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April 2013 22:33 23/04/2013 Tuesday evening... Hmmm... Well, a friend just asked if I wanted to run a half marathon in about a year's time. I said yes. I'm not sure yet exactly where or when it's going to be, but it feels like just the right degree of challenge for me. A year is long enough to train gradually with minimum risk of injury - bearing in mind I'll be starting from being overweight and not having run at all for many months. A half marathon (21km)is sufficiently outside my experience that it nicely challenges my sense of what I can achieve. (The furthest I've ever run is about 10 or 12 km I guess.) Also, it is not TOO far. I honestly don't think running a full marathon would be fun for me and I don't think it would be good for me either. So, where to start? In a sense it is best to start at the end, but I don't yet know where or when that will be exactly, so I'll start at the beginning instead for now. So, just for now, I can start by establishing a regular running routine. The first thing to train is the mind rather than the body so I shall start by getting that routine established and worry about the specifics of training later. Right now I am significantly overweight (93kg / 14 stone, 10 lb / 150 lb) and I've also only just recovered from a really bad bout of influenza that has lasted three weeks, so for the first few sessions I'm not even going to run. I shall go for daily walks instead. I'll do the first one now, just to 'seal the deal', so to speak, and then I'll start tomorrow morning and from then on every morning at say 7am, which gives me plenty of time before I have to start answering phone calls and so on for work. My first aim then is to establish a regular training routine, and also to lose a bit of weight so that I don't put too much strain on my poor old joints when I do start to run again. OK, so, ...oh, errm... 01:21 24/04/2013 - Tuesday night still... Ok, so, I've just been out for my first training session - an hour's walk in the cool night air, listening to internet radio - mostly Lucerne School of Music Radio, so mostly jazz. Really nice walk, I have to say. To start with, my feet were hurting. Both big toes, to be specific. I've found that when I run, it takes about 20 minutes to warm up, and then I feel more energetic. When I walk briskly, it seems to take about 40 minutes to reach that point. I think it is good to aim to at least reach that point in a training session, although I first need to get my mind used to the routine, and I don't want to make it seem arduous, so even 5 minutes is acceptable to begin with. It would be nice to organise a small mp3 player - or small FM radio even - with some more expendable and lighter headphones than the ones I'm using to walk with. Listening to really good music makes walking much more pleasurable, and it would be nice to be able to run with music too. I could even record training schemes so that I can follow them on the headphones as I run. Not necessary, but might help. 15:31 27/04/2013 Saturday afternoon... An hour and a half or maybe a bit longer. A walk out through the woods, along the river and the canal and back across fields. It's a loop that I think is about 10km. I even jogged a little bit at the beginning because it was cold and windy, and also there was a little rain and hail, but soon settled into full-speed walking. It certainly works - this walking thing. It takes much longer but it does seem to have similar effects to running. I was thinking about that unclimbed (by me) mountain in Norway, and thinking how nice it would be to climb it this summer. Really nice walk today. Mostly mild sunshine. I saw a huge red kite wheeling low over some gardens by the canal. It's good to see those birds in good numbers. Food now I guess... 20:38 30/04/2013 Tuesday evening... This evening I put on my running shoes and went out for a short experimental run. It was only five minutes, and it felt quite uncomfortable in the wobbly belly area, but it's a start. I noticed I have holes in my running socks. I just ordered some new ones. |