I love parkrun – the volunteer-led weekly 5Km timed run in a number of locations around the world (over 330 parkruns in Australia alone) – so much so that I’m going to reach a couple of milestones soon – my 50th Parkrun and my 25th volunteer session.
I’ve planned it out for the rest of the year and can reach BOTH of these milestones on the same day – just before Christmas 🙂
Lest I break a leg or get struck down ill. Let’s see how we go!
I decided that when I had the time I would go for a walk to see how far I can go within a certain time. Rather than plan, plot, scheme, re-plan, deliberate, discuss and re-re-plan, I’ve decided to just go for a 10 hr walk this Friday and see how far I can go (roughly the amount of daylight available in Sydney at the moment). It’s been dubbed the Freaky Friday Footslog.
This walk is going to be the first fundraising activity I undertake to support my participation in the Black Dog Ride 2011. All donations will go to the Black Dog Institute to fund their ongoing research into mood disorders such as depression and bipolar.
There won’t be much in the way of structure to this walk but I do have some guidelines:
Let me know if you’d like to join me or recommend any suburbs to try and wander through (and don’t forget to donate if you can! :-))
ADDENDUM: 5:30pm Friday 10th June:
I’m back from the walk! Here are the stats on what I achieved today. Unfortunately you can’t see the entire route as the app crashed after approx 28km, but The big numbers first:
Total: 39.28km in 6:29:45 avg pace 9:54min/km.
This week, I participated in something known as the “CrackOfArse” challenge, set out by Amelia Burton, which is to exercise for 5 days straight between 5:30am-7:30am (The term is an Aussie slang amendment of the ‘Crack Of Dawn’). There was no limit or stipulation on what type of exercise you could do.
Since my departure from full-time work, I’ve felt it important to continue with a routine of waking up and getting stuck into the day and decided to join in. It wasn’t difficult, and it led to me including my boys & wife in some of the exercises!
Monday: 7.5km run
Tuesday: 2km walk/run around my local park with Mr5! (followed by a session with my wife that included Weighted swiss ball crunches, Dumbbell lunge, The clam, Sumo Squats, Kneeling semi-planks and Saxon side bends, along with some sprint boxing.
Wednesday: 7km cycle
Thursday: 9km walk: Brisk at first, then walked the boys to school, followed by a semi-brisk return.
Friday: 30km cycle into the city with my buddy Jeff Marsh.
I felt wonderful for it, and it helps to stick to the routine – I’ve read a few stories & spoken to people who found it difficult to get out of bed when there was no ‘work’ to do. That won’t be the case with me – I still have too many things I want to do to be lying in bed! If you are on Twitter, I recommend following Amelia and keeping an eye out on the next #CrackOfArse challenge 🙂
There are some things in life where size doesn’t matter. There are also some things in life where it does. Many people have noticed the change in me and immediately ask me how much weight I’ve lost. The truth is, I do not know. I cannot tell how how much I weigh today! As I’ve mentioned in the past, weight loss is not my goal. Fitness and health is. And this is where for me, size does matter.
Last year, I bought a slim-fit Medium (M) shirt for the first time in as long as I can remember.
Today, I bought a pair of pants with a waist size of 87cm. 2 years ago I was buying 102cm pants
Today, size does matter to me, as it’s one small way of proving that my approach to a healthier, fitter, more proactive life is working! 🙂
Today I participated in the Warrior Dash in Glenworth Valley, NSW. This is the only Warrior Dash in 2011 outside of the USA, and touted as “The best frickin’ day of your life’, how could you not want to give it a go?
My verdict?
Absolutely glorious fun! Obstacles and mud were the order of the day and there were very happy people all round, in all states of dress (or undress) and covered from head-to-toe in mud. Mud, glorious mud! I ran the race with my buddy Ben and once I got stuck in the mud and lost my shoe, I knew Ben would have gone on ahead. The odd thing is, once I caught up to him he told me he was attempting to catch me as he thought I was ahead of him! Still, the mud pits, water crossings and obstacles were all a great challenge and helped me scoot past some of the field, even with only 1 shoe! I had made the decision to stick with Ben and race together rather than blaze ahead and achieve a great time.
Ben’s friends Alison and Shaun came with us and ran in the next wave, with Alison achieving a sub 42-min run! For some reason the men’s resiults were broken so neither Shain, Ben or I found out our time. It wasn’t a worry as we’d had pies (the meal of champions), Turkey legs and beer and were all very happy bunnies!
What I learnt:
If you get the chance to run in one of these, I strongly recommend it! What’d you do this weekend?
On Sunday, I wanted to go for a swim and rallying the family to get ready to get out of the house was proving too difficult. In order to make great use of the beautiful Sydney sunshine, I decided on a slow ride to the beach (I usually like getting the heart rate up and tearing along as quickly as I can). I left everything at home except a beach towel in my backpack. I went down the path of simplicity – no phone, keys, wallet or other belongings!
I can confidently say I still suck at it and still don’t like swimming, BUT decided to spice things up yesterday by adding in other elements of a triathlon (Cycle and Run)! After my slow and stuttery 350m in the water, I went for a soft-sand run, doping 3.5 laps of the beach I was on (later calculated to be 1.2km total).
As I had done the swim and the run, I was left with the cycle – so I rode home (again, at a leisurely pace).
This was mostly a spur-of-the-moment morning, as I’d only decided to go for a swim the night before; the actual decisions made on the day were mostly free-form and made from a just ‘do it’ perspective. Lesson: You don’t have to overanalyse every decision you make – just make it and move on. 🙂
As you may know, I’m comfortable going for a ride (2010 Gongride) or going for a run (my 2010 City 2 Surf story), but leave the swimming to others. I’ve read numerous articles on how great swimming is for you as it’s low impact but a great all-over workout.
I don’t like swimming.
Let me go back a little to fill you in. At school, when they had swimming carnivals (and ‘everyone’ had to participate) I was one of if not THE slowest swimmer. Always last in the last race and likely the last out of the pool. Although some may say it probably scarred me in some way back then, I don’t think I’ve done too badly today for it. I’ve hardly swum in the intervening years, happy to splash around and ‘knowing’ how to swim should the need ever eventuate!
Have I mentioned how I do not like swimming?
As part of my journey to becoming better, one of my main focuses was on exercise – dusting off my bicycle and getting into the cycling, also including some running (check out my 2009 & 2010 goals). 3 weeks ago, I needed to get out of the house (working from home has one major drawback, sometimes you can go a long time without leaving the house, and it does start to mess with your mind and sanity) – it was a beautiful morning, so I packed up the boys and we went to the beach. I had a desire to just go for a swim. After hating it for so long!
I do appear to have absolutely no co-ordination for swimming gracefully. Mentally I know the moves to make, but together, it just doesn’t work. So I plodded along, making the moves, stopping every 15-20m but continued to work at it for a total of approx 300m. I then repeated this feat the following week, and again yesterday.
After 3 early morning swims, I don’t like swimming. I tolerate it. In the words of the Zombiefit team, this is my “ISuckAtThis” exercise!
What about you? What sports/activities do you tolerate in your journey to betterment? Let me know in the comments below!
Note: It’s OK to not be great at everything, in fact I don’t believe I am great at any sport in particular, I just happen to dislike swimming and enjoy running. Please do not see this post as an attack on ‘swimming’ – it’s my view of one of the activities I’ve been performing of late.
Edit: I have just written a quickie post about my own mini Triathlon – read it here: “My Own Tri”
I heard that one of my friends (Roger Lawrence) had taken up a new challenge in time for Christmas. It didn’t take much for me to decide (being the proactive fellow I am) to join him on his quest to be able to perform 100 pushups by Christmas.
I invested a few $ in the official app to help me stay on track with the challenge, and so far it has not killed me. I decided to do this to help support Roger (and I found out later, our mutual friend Robin Dickinson), but also to improve one of the 2 things I believe everyone should have: health and fitness. I’ve never been one for feats of strength but know this will benefit me in the future 🙂
Last week I decided to look into completing at least one triathlon (swim, run, cycle) in 2011. Many of you know of my exploits on a bicycle or my penchant for a half-marathon or 2, but nothing about swimming: namely because I have a strong dislike of swimming. In our family, my wife is the swimmer, and I’d be more than happy to do the swimming on behalf of…but it doesn’t work like that! Swimming is my “ISuckAtThis” activity, probably through no fault of its own. I know at school I hated the swimming carnival where they forced everyone to have a go, even when ‘having a go’ included near drownings on a regular scale!
To make the most of the great weather we had on Sunday morning, I took the boys to the beach where they played in the sand and I cranked out 10 laps of the swimming enclosure (approximate 300m or so). I know my form is crap and I had numerous stops (no-one said they were nonstop laps ;-)) but did complete what I set out to achieve. I am not sure how well I will go with the swimming in the future as my breathing sucks and my form is bad, both of which I hope to make better in the future.
It helps that the day started out perfectly – you can see from the pics that the day was simply great, weather-wise. I’ve decided to give swimming a chance; what sport, activity or exercise would you say is your “ISuckAtThis” that you could work on to become better at?
* Edit: I neglected to mention that the idea of the “ISuckAtThis” is not new – I was introduced to it through the Zombiefit Workout of the Day.
Yesterday I completed my 3rd MS Sydney to the ‘Gong bicycle ride, as a way of staying fit, being part of something wonderful and raising a few $ for research into MS.
I was riding extremely well and even commented to my riding buddy Kenny that I was riding much better than last year – in 2009 I had walked up a few of the hills as I was buggered! We’d been stopping at the major rest stops along the way for a stretch, a feed and a rest. We’d discussed various topics, commented on some of the gear and bikes we saw along the ride. Up the hills I would power my way past a number of other riders, and hang around somewhere near the top for Kenny (more a testament to having shoes that clip into the pedals than anything else :-))
However, after 70km of the 90km, my right leg cramped up and I could barely ride up any of the remaining hills – some so small you’d swear I was being a wuss! I decided to just keep on pedaling until I reached the finish as I had plenty of gears to help me along. Up the hills I was riding as slow as 8km/h (I’ve famously said that when you ride at less than 6km/h, it’s easier to get off and walk, and I was determined to not have to walk!), but on the flat I was still able to ride above 20km/h. Up the hills I had nothing much left and at the time I thought I’d hit the wall.
I did finish the ride as I don’t stop until I complete my goal!
During the ride I made sure I had a decent rest, food and drink. By the time I had finished the ride I’d drunken more than 4L of water. Perhaps it still wasn’t enough? On the train ride home, Kenny remarked that I didn’t seem my usual self; usually I’d be bouncy and chatty but I just wasn’t – I just wanted to be home lying on the couch. Something was up, but I could not put my finger on it, and I don’t think I worked it out until today.
I have had a headache on and off since the end of the ride, as well as feeling exhausted. This isn’t normal, and am wondering if this is a carryover from the cold/flu-like symptoms I’d had a couple of weeks ago? Tomorrow, if I’m not feeling much better, I’ll go and visit my doc.
So, what lessons did I (and can you) learn from this?
Coming just 2 weeks after my Sutherland2Surf 11km run, was the 40th running of the City2Surf. I was running with a few friends from work this year and one confidently said “keep your red beanie on so I know when I pass you! Confident words indeed!
This year I started in the green start group as I had cracked the 100min mark in 2009. My goal was to beat 75mins in 2010 (see my Events tab). I completed the run in 75min, 51 secs. Although I did not crack a below 75min time, in my last 3km I cranked out 3×5 min-km! This was also a 2010 goal, to eventually run a 5min-km.
Running, (and most sports actually), are a mental game, and I played my own mental game very well in those last 3km. I am very proud of my achievement, and will surely do better in 2011.
If there’s one take-away from my run, it’s to keep pushing yourself that little bit more, and a little bit more after that, as you probably do have it in you! 🙂