 |
Of course I couldn't get to sleep, and then when I did it was only for a few hours.
My coach had said he'd email me on Friday with my training programme for the week, and sure enough, at 8.30am the email came through.
I thought the fact that I'd told him I hadn't run in over 2 months would mean that he'd set me a nice easy programme to get me started... I was sadly mistaken!
My first run was that weekend - either Saturday or Sunday, and it needed to be 2 hours! Luckily I could run/walk because it also needed to be hilly.
I've only been out on the Bibb from Kalamunda once with Scotty so although I knew it would be a good place to go, I had no idea where I was going and wasn't too keen on going by myself.
I turned to Facebook and put the call out for anyone planning on doing a long run that weekend. Unfortunately the people that replied weren't going anywhere hilly enough for what I needed. I'd spoken to a girl Renee last year that was also signed up for Tarawera, so I found her on Facebook and asked her what her plans were. She hadn't been running lately so wasn't feeling fast at all - that suited me perfectly!
We made a plan and she came to pick me up at 7am the next morning. After finding where to park and heading off down the trail and then the road, we realised we'd missed the right hand turn back onto the trail. Geez, this might end up being a long day!
We found a trail, although I'm not sure it was the Bibb, and we were off. We eventually ended up on the Bibb for the rest of the run and on the way back we realised where we'd gone wrong.
We had a great run, walking all the uphills and running the flat. I'd say we were running the downhills but being typical girls it was more of a slow shuffle on the way down so that we didn't end up flat on our bums!
Just over 2 hours later (the trail we'd been on at the start was a lot flatter than the section we ran on to get back to the car, so it took us a bit longer as we struggled up the never ending hills!) we were back at the car. We were tired but both still smiling which is the main thing.
It was good knowing I had the rest of the weekend off - all the travelling had caught up on me and I needed to catch up on some sleep.
Monday rolled around quickly and it was time for an easy 10km run along the coast with my good friend Kate. Me being the amateur runner that I am, and the fact that we've just come from the freezing cold of Japan, forgot to take water with me. The lack of water combined with our non-stop talking meant it was a real struggle! My nonexistent fitness was very clear and I was setting a very slow pace.
Albeit not the best run in terms of pace, we had a great catch up and continued our chatting at Yelo afterwards while enjoying a much needed juice.
One of the benefits of signing up with a coach is that I've cut down the number of days I run each week which is exactly what I wanted. Because I'm getting more quality out of my runs I don't need as much quantity (for now anyway!).
My next run was Wedneaday and I had to do hill repeats. The 35 degree heat made things rather interesting. I decided to go up to Bold Park. I should've really gone out to the trails somewhere but Bold Park was easier because I knew where I was going and knew that Rebold Hill would be long enough for what I needed.
An hour later I was pretty tired but glad to have finished another quality run and knew that I was one step closer to my goal.
My plans for Friday's run changed when other plans for the weekend changed so instead of getting up early in the morning to go I decided to wait until the afternoon once it started to cool down a bit. I had to do intervals so I didn't want to do it in the heat.
Six o'clock came around and I was really lacking motivation. Scotty had just left to go for a run so I knew that I couldn't slack off since he was out running even though he hadn't really felt like it either.
I decided to run around the river because then I can leave from home and don't have to drive anywhere. It was a really good session and although the pace wasn't what I would've liked it to have been (2 months off will do that to you) I still felt like I got a lot out of it, and I know how important it is to incorporate speed work into your training.
Well, that was my first week completed and although my fitness was lacking a lot I was really pleased to have a good week of training done and was already looking forward to the next week.
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment