2022/2023-Training-Cycle on Mart-Mari Breedt

What motivates me to push harder?

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 13:16:05 +0000

An observation from my run with Michelle on Friday was that I don’t push myself nearly hard enough. There were many times during that run I desperately wanted to run slower. And I would’ve… if it wasn’t for Michelle’s persistent pushing.

I shared this observation with Michelle. She said: “You need to learn to push yourself. It comes from your intrinsic motivation which you need to get in touch with.”

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:37:41 +0000

For the third consecutive week, my Wednesday training brief is a 60-minute run with a 20-minute faster finish.

The first time I attempted this session with a mindset of: I always fail when attempting a faster finish, but I’ll try… I didn’t mess it up completely, but I ran out of oomph when it mattered.

The second time I tried rectifying some of my previous mistakes. I reckon I ran that session rather well. My split graph resembled a faster finish, even though I was still in the red zone and not meeting the last 20 minutes’ required pace.

Saturday, 19 November 2022

Sat, 19 Nov 2022 17:11:10 +0000

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.

Thursday, 17 November 2022

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 15:14:16 +0000

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.

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 15:54:40 +0000

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.

Thursday, 3 November 2022

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 10:07:19 +0000

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.

Wednesday, 2 November 2022

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 14:26:47 +0000

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.

Thursday, 27 October 2022

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 12:25:00 +0000

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.