Day 26: Newsflash

Okay, I'm still running. But I've got totally off track when it comes to food. I've gained about 2 pounds.

Anyway, I've joined the Hopenhagen - movement today. The goal is to show the representatives of the different countries taking part in the Copenhagen Climate Conference on December 7th that we want them to take immediate action. They represent us, so they have to follow our lead. And we say do something for our planet. Stop talking and do a whole lot of useful things!!!!

There is a facebook-group, join it. Join on the official website. Tell your friends about it, talk about it at work, at the gym, at the supermarket and anywhere you can think of. Write an email to your representative. Help the earth, it's the only home we've got.

My little reforestation project works out fine, I've got 7 (or 6, cause I've already gave one to a friend) seedlings. And I've also have already learned a few things. So it's time to prepare the second round.

Go run.

Day 24: I did IT!

I'm so proud. Yesterday, I had to be at work at 6 a.m. and didn't know, when I would be back home in the evening. So, I stood up at 4:45 (well, actually it was 4:57 when I got out of bed, but you get the drift) in the morning and ran my round.

I got home after work around 9:30 in the evening, which was a lot earlier than estimated. Anyway, it was a hard day and still I feel it. I got into bed early and slept till 8 but I still don't feel that good. But nonetheless I will go for my run now and afterwards I go watching the new Transformers as a treat.

Tomorrow I will go back to the Gym and do a "real" training session.

Go run!

Day 20: Learning how to walk

No, I don't mean walk as in Power or Nordic Walking. What I mean is I'm learning how to walk with heels. For the men, yes, walking with heels needs practice. Especially I need practice since I normally wear sneakers. But I figured since I want to get a new job which is more elite and pays better, I better get used to wearing suits and high heals and tights (which I hate).

So this afternoon I went to the "city" and bought a cheap pair of high heals. Cheap because the small town I live in has this nasty cobble stone pavement and you ruin your shoes within a year if they have even the smallest heel. So, to not ruin my good shoes I bought some "training" shoes. I even bought 3 different pairs of footlets, to test them and also train wearing tights cause it's the fabric I can't abide.

As you can see, I train on all fronts. ;-P

Oh, nearly forgot. I still run everyday, mostly in the evening. Monday and especially Tuesday will proof my commitment. Since I have to be at work at 6 a.m. on Tuesday and it's open end on both days. Which means I have to get up really early for my run, like half past 4. Yikes. I get tired and yawning just thinking of it.

That's it for now. I'll walk in High Heels to the cinema and watch a movie. Training is everything. ;-)

Go running.

Day 15: Still running

though I had to cut back to a smaller round for 2 out of 3 days since my body needs the time to recover.

Yesterdays weighing reveiled a loss of 0,6 kg, which is fine considering I've had my red week last week. During that I normally gain weight.

And I mostly watched old movies at the weekend. The glass slipper with Leslie Caron is one of my all time favourites.

Cheers.

Day 9: 's wonderful, 's marvellous

Yesterday, was the first time I trained in the rain. I just put my rainjacket on and ran for, well only ten minutes. But I can tell you it felt so much longer. Pulse was also really high with 153 bpm and that with only 10 slooow minutes. 

Anyway, today's training was so much better. Not only that I ran over 30 minutes again, I also did lat pulldowns and was 40 seconds faster at rowing, took me only 6:06 min to row 1000 m. Yeah.

So todays stats:

time: 31 min

in zone: 24:55 min

average heartrate: 141 bpm

km: 3.2

Another good thing happened today. A colleague of mine and me ordered seasons 2 and 3 of Dr. Who in Britain. Can't wait to watch them. I absolutely loooove Dr. Who and David Tennant is hot.

Challenge Day 7: Quite okay

Just a short post. Since I don't feel that well.

I did my duty as a European citizen and have gone to the election. I cleaned my room and the kitchen. I had really bad stomach pain, so I had to lay down for 2 hours.

After that I went for my run. But my body didn't like it that much so my pulse went right from the start through the roof, might be the altitude.

Anyway, here are todays stats:

time: 29 min
in zone: 11 min
average pulse: 149 bpm

And I checked my weight on my scale... Bad.

62,4 kg
28,8 % body fat
34,6 % muscles

Day 6: Magnesia deficit and HOME project

To make it short I ran only about 15 min on the treadmill at my healthclub, since I couldn't get myself to run outside. Why only 15? Well, obviously my right calf wants magnesia, it was feeling like pre cramp the whole time I was at the club and is even now. So I only did 15 min. 

Afterwards I did 2 sets of lat pulldowns. They help me to losen my neck muscles, though it is an exercise for the middle of the back. Anyway, it helps so I don't fret.

Then I went to rowing machine and did 1000 meters in 6:48 min. I love the rowing machine, it helps losen up, not only physically but also mentally. Your mad at someone? Go rowing. It does wonders for your mood and your body. 

Anyway, I will drink some magnesia before I go to bed, until then I eat my watermelon and some more chocolate. And watch a dvd since there is nothing on tv. 

REALLY important. Go to youtube and watch the HOME movie its free for several more days and absolutely amazing. As soon as I find a reforesting project I like I will support it, until then I'll become a member of the WWF. 

HOME is right. It's too late to be a pessimist.  (Love that quote)

Challenge Day 5: First training advice and new shoes

Most of the day I was on my bike driving to and fro shops (good cross training but bad for my banking account ;-). I bought some trailrunning shoes (see previous post) and since I couldn't get these nice rock climbing shoes out of my mind I bought them too.

You could say I kept the balance one ugly and one nice pair, yin and yang. I even kept the balance in another way, I threw 3 old pairs (one of them was a New Balance ;-) away. No cluttering in my rooms anymore.

Here you'll see my ugly trail shoes:

And these are my lovely Einstiegsschuhe (you use them to walk from the car to the rock you want to climb. Don't ask me why you need special shoes for this, I just like their looks and they are really comfortable.):

Though the trail shoes are ugly as hell, they are quite comfortable and run well. I found that I had more control on the gravel before the track, which is a good thing. So maybe on Sunday I will take them on their first real trail, depends on the weather or if I just have time for the gym. I and you'll see.

On the track was a football club training and their coach even gave me a bit of advice. Obviously I move my upper body a bit to much, but it's hard to not move with the shoulders. Especially if you try to run through without getting into walking since it's not this demanding. Anyway I'll work on it.

Okay todays stats. Since I pushed the wrong button while running, the total time and in zone are guesses, heartrate is of the last 6 minutes. Sorry, better stats tomorrow.

time: approx 29 min
in zone: most of the time
average heartrate: 154 bpm

I ran about half an hour earlier than yesterday since I couldn't wait to get out there and test my new shoes (I'm such a girl;-)! I think, I'm getting into the drill of running daily. But we'll see how I do next week, when I'm back to work and starting to apply for a new job.

Enjoy your Friday evening, I have to get packing since I go back home by train tomorrow. 8 hrs of Deutsche Bahn! Do I need to say more? I will so need my evening run!
See ya.

Go for your dreams, make them true, only you can do it.

New Shoes

Okay, I'm a girl so I like every excuse to get new shoes. And since there is my hiking vacation ahead I need a second pair of shoes for it. But I'm also lazy, so I didn't want to carry an extra pair of running shoes with me.

Easily solved. I bought a pair of trail running shoes. Asics Trabuco size 8 in US, size 39.5 in Europe and ugly like hell (pics this evening). I will test them on my run this evening. Will be interesting, to see how they feel on the different surfaces.

By the way, I LOVE the Leipziger Laufladen. They are always nice and help you, even if you have to test every shirt and the buy nothing, because they all looked or felt wrong. Even if you just come along once in a year they remember you. I stay with them, even if there is a running shop in the next town I move to.

Same with Tapir which is an outdoor store were I went first for my trail running shoes. They send me away, because they felt that they hadn't the rigth shoes for me. I stick with them to. In fact they had a really nice looking pair of shoes which I can't stop thinking about. Might as well go back today and buy this pair. Even if it's not exactly brainy, but hey I'm a girl, I practically breath for shoes. ;-) Think of Carrie Bradshaw but with sportsshoes.

C you in the evening.

Motivation

To not forget my big goal of the Ironman Hawaii I put a nice picture of a triathlete in training as wallpaper on my desktop. I love Flickr, so many lovely pics. Took it from there. 

I highly recommend putting up wallpapers to remind you of your big goals. It really helps. 

Enjoy your evening.

Go for your dreams, make them true, only you can do it.

Day 4: Lovin' it

Hi there, Day 4 and still going strong! Yeah.

Okay, I'm still a snail and I just ran 1 lap more at the track but hey, no problems with motivation. 

Todays stats:

time: 33:30 min

in zone: 28:26 min

average heartrate: 154 bpm

This is much better than yesterday. 34 hrs of recovery time have done wonders, ran in the evening. My pulse hasn't gone through the roof when I put my running gear on and it stayed most of the time in my training zone, just under the threshold to the anaerob zone. Which is perfect when you ask Dr. Strunz. Yeah. Good day, good day. 

Okay, I have to do some whining too. As I told you, I went to see an old friend yesterday and we ate Dinner together. Well, Dinner was Pasta Bolognese. Well, I know most of you think now: Good for you. (It did taste good.) Because Pasta is runners favourite. But NOT mine! In fact I haven't eaten Pasta for months. I don't eat cereals, since I seem to be allergic to them. Afterwards tortilla chips and chocolate were served. Since I was invited I couldn't say no, could I. The end of it, nightmares, I mean literally I had some bad nightmares last night and I was tired until noon today.  Oh and remember yesterday I weighed 61 kg? Today it was 62 kg again! This SUCKS. 

And what really, absolutely pisses me off is that she laughed at me, when I told her my goal is to weigh 51 kg. You wanna know what is her reason for me to not get to this weight? My AGE. She's the same age as I am and she weighs about 57-59 kg, so that is all I could get down to. She doesn't even consider that I might have another benchmark than her. Yikes. It's a good thing I haven't told her about the 100 Day Challenge, otherwise she would have laughed and talked me out of it. Nonetheless I love her and I'm glad she's one of my friends. 

But yesterdays evening just showed me this: I definitely need new friends! Friends who are also triathletes and runners and can therefore relate to my goals and support me with their knowledge and some fun stories and might even train with me. So, yeah, as soon as I have my new job and moved I will become a member of a triathlon club. There is no club like this where I live and work now. So....

Okay, enough of the whining. I'll enjoy my chocolate iced donut now (yeah, I know it's bad for me, but I love it and I have eaten right the rest of the day) and a long hot bath with "The Alchemyst" (great book, if you like fantasy). 

Go for your dreams, make them true, only you can do it. 

Challenge Day 3: 14 hrs aren't enough

So, I did my run right after breakfast (smoothie) and it wasn't a good run. My pulse was too high, my legs were heavy and it's freezing cold outside. And then the schoolkids had PE at the track, so I quit 1 lap early. Too bad.

Anyway, todays stats:

time: 28 min

in zone: 14:30 min

average heartrate: 148bpm

But there is also a bright side to this day. I've already met my weeks goal regarding my weight.

61 kg (134,48 lb), and it's only Wednesday! 

That's good news! Well, I stay with this goals, since it might be that I just ate or drank less. Let's see if I can hold this weight or get even under it. Next point is that the scale isn't that exact, so come Sunday I have my own scale and then it's the moment of truth. 

Challenge Day 2

Done it. Ran again and it was worse than yesterday. I suck at running, even snails are faster than me. But my muscles were less sore, so running helps. Weird thing. 

You know, when you do such things like this 100 Day Challenge or are just starting running, you look for goals. One of the goals is running a marathon. There are a lot of marathons in Germany, but I don't want to run them. I want to broaden my horizon, so I look for marathons in places I haven't been. I've never been to Boston and the Boston Marathon is really special. You have to qualify for it. Yesterday I looked up the charts with the qualifying times. Yikes. Those people are crazy. I'm 31, so if I want to start in Boston, I have to run 5k in 19:50 min. Guess what, that is the time I need for 2k! So there is no chance that you'll see me at the 2010 Boston Marathon and I don't think in 2011 either. 

Anyway, I've had a little revelation this morning. I was off track on the weekend regarding my diet. Damn it! Today I got back on track, I've had smoothie with lettuce and bananas for breakfast (+bee pollen, raw crushed chocolate beans, milk, goji berries, curd). It tasted surprisingly good. Over the day I ate fresh strawberries, an apple, a bit of beef, a yoghurt, some cheeze and I drank a chocolate protein shake after my run in the bathtub (can you say PERFECT?).

Todays run was slow and short (I ran to the track, did three laps and ran home). It was a evening run again (7:45 to 8:15 p.m.), but I will shift it to the early morning tomorrow, since I meet with a friend in the evening. Only 12 hours of recovery, will see how my body does. 

Okay, todays stats: 

time: 30 min

in zone: 24:53 min

average heartrate: 147 bpm

C ya tomorrow

100 Day Challenge

When we went to the Moritzburg today, I've had a fabulous idea. Why not start a 100 Day Challenge as Bunny Berry did? She made it a Raw Food Challenge and I make it a running challenge. From today on I will run every single day for 100 days. Exceptions, me being really sick and my hiking days in Ireland at the end of August. The hiking days count fully, due to the distances, days missed due to illness I have to add at the end. Other than that no exceptions.

First day is today. I've actually had a bit of a hard time to go out running at 8 p.m., since I have sore muscles from the run yesterday. But I've decided to have this 100 Day Challenge, so I figured today was a good day to start since it's the first of a month. Though my time was not good, I think did well anyway.

Todays stats:

time: 27 min
in zone: 21:24 min
average heartrate: 142 bpm

I did about 3/4 of yesterdays running then I walked home slowly. But we've had a nice sunset to enjoy, so it was a nice walk home. Even though my legs where shaking a bit. I think I'll grant my muscles a protein shake now.

At every ten days point, I will give myself a treat, like a journal or a book. At the end of whole challenge, I will grant myself a new Polar training computer. It coincides with my birthday anyway, so it's nice to go a bit overboard.

The real feat for me is to stick with the challenge, since I have a certain pattern. Everytime something goes well I lose the focus, which leads me to failure. This happened a thousand times and it's making me mad, cause I don't reach my goals. Even though I know that I could reach them. So this whole challenge is about discipline for me, because I need to develop this discipline or I won't ever do a Ironman. Can't have that, so here I go.