Blog

As it turns out, running 15 km after nearly five weeks of not running further than 10 km is not as easy as one-two-three. (I wanted to say “as easy as riding a bike”, but I didn’t want to offend any cyclists.) Despite sticking to a low heart rate zone and not pushing myself, I found today’s 15 km run challenging. Strictly speaking, I did do more than my workout brief - the slightest of slightly more. Today’s workout was supposed to be only two hours long, but when two hours had elapsed, I had two kilometres left to reach 15, so I decided to go for it. ...

Today’s strength training session was… different. We did simple exercises, but many (MANY) repetitions of those exercises. There was no single exercise I couldn’t do or even struggled with - unlike what sometimes happens during a strength session. One would think I would’ve cruised through today’s session, but I did not. It was challenging! By the time of my work’s morning stand-up meeting, my legs were still shaking. Strength training still remains one of my biggest workout challenges. Even, it seems, when the exercises are within my means.

I have to word this carefully as I do not want it to sound pessimistic. I find things don’t work for me as it does for others. When I rest, I become unfit quickly. Although it was hard work training for a marathon, marathon training caused me to run slower. I know we were training to run further, not faster. But still… My experience is that I have to be exceptionally disciplined with everything, otherwise it does not work as it should. But I have been working for years to break my “all or nothing” patterns — which usually resulted in nothing. I try to live by an “always something”-mentality. It doesn’t seem to serve me well, though. As if “always something” is not enough. ...

Today’s training was a 40-minute strength session. My workout included sets of hold, flow and high-energy exercises. I found the hold exercises in each set the most strenuous. There were squat, plank, lunge, pilates-hundreds (I am unsure if this name is correct) and bear-crawl positions to hold for as long as 40 seconds at a time. These exercises were challenging! The flow and high-energy exercises were easier to manage, but I struggled whenever I needed to jump out of a position — someday I will get this right. At the end of today’s session, Jateen said he found the chest-to-floor-getups one of the easier exercises of the day. I do not share his viewpoint. ...

I know a traditional Chinese curse that translates to “May you live in interesting times.” This morning’s run was interesting. And I am unsure if that is good or bad — it is only interesting. I thought I had a 45-minute easy run to complete today — which is what my workout’s description was. However, when I started the session on my watch, it displayed as an hour session. I messaged Jateen, but because I still had to shower and get ready for work after my run, I decided to start running before he sent feedback on whether it should be 45 minutes or an hour. My expected average pace for today’s workout was also quite fast for an easy run: 8:15. I’d love to run comfortably at 8:15, but I am not there yet. ...

I considered introducing myself at our morning standup meeting as being dead. My training today was a 40-minute HIIT strength workout. The only exercise I struggled with was the chest-to-floor burpee, but that doesn’t mean it was an easy session. I had ten different activities to do and 30 seconds for each one, but no rest in between — apart from the rest I could take once I’ve finished each set’s required repetitions. After the initial round of ten, Jateen dropped one exercise from the next and continued like this until no activities remained. The chest-to-floor burpee was the first removed exercise — thank you, Jateen. ...

Today’s training was a lower-body focussed strength training session - I’ve not had a strength training session in a long time. I found today’s workout challenging but manageable. The only exercises I struggled to do were the split lunge jumps. I also experienced cramps in my legs during the glut bridge raises, which concerns me a little bit. But they quickly passed, and I am still recovering from last weekend, so I will not worry about them too much. ...

Graham, our Run Zone club chairman, has a thing about the word “just”. A typical conversation with him after a club or time trial run would go like this: Graham: “Well done! How far did you run?” Me: “Just 5 (or whatever other distance) km today.” Graham: “It is never JUST 5 km! Well done!” But it gives me great pleasure to say that today’s run was JUST 21 km (actually it was a few hundred metres short, but let’s not get stuck on technicalities). The word “just” means that I have worked so hard that I can claim 21 km as being well within my capabilities. I have the fitness, the strength and the endurance to run 21 km, it is only my right foot that is holding me back on pace — and that I am trying to work on as best I can. ...

Who am I? I always start answering this question by saying that I am a software engineer, a happily married mother of four, an avid runner and the author of two books. That is more or less the order these things occurred in: software engineer, married, mother, runner, author. But those are things that I do. They are not who I am. So, if I take all of those out of the equation, who am I really? ...

And it is a wrap! What an incredible three days of running. Thank you RunZone and especially Graham Block. Day 1 - 30 km This was the race I needed to push myself in the most. I’ve never run 30 km, but we heard rain forecasts for the weekend, and I wanted to have the extra 10 km to play with if necessary. Day 2 - 20 km This was the most challenging route of the three days. If I never run this route again, it will be too soon. I could also feel the previous day’s 30 km and it was difficult to push through. ...