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It’s happening to me this year:
So I need to get over myself! Actually after a mild shock when I turned 39 that “it” was just around the corner I have come to see the huge benefits of wisdom and insight – the only thing is that what I live and breath i.e sport, fitness, flexibility, agility, coordination and so on – are deteriorating at a rate of knots!!
So that you don’t have to scroll through this post to the end ill give you the details at the start; I lost on a split decision. This means that we didn’t knock each other out nor were the judges unanimous in their scoring. In fact of the 3 judges one had me win and 2 had my opponent win the fight.
Tomorrow night I fight for a European kickboxing title. I feel apprehensive having been out of the ring competitively for a while, my last fight was for a British title 8 years ago. But I have nothing to lose and everything to gain so feel peaceful in equal amounts. I have an audience full of friends – I have been touched by their support, especially the ones who have to travel to get there.
Challenge keeps life fresh and makes me feel alive, challenging myself is the hardest fight so this should be easy in comparison. I will of course write up the night here asap…
So its done! Overall I came 15th out of 41 females and in my best race (10km run) I came 12th. I came 4th in my age category overall. My overriding feeling is that I am pleased with my results but wanted to do a lot better. I am less fussed about the ranking against the other runners and more bothered by my times.
The first day was a 6 km time trial which was a quick hot run in the afternoon on tarmac. They set us off at 10 second intervals and basically we pegged it around the course trying to gauge our pace without getting confused or distracted by the runners out in front or behind!
The second day was an 11 km hill climb with a 600 metre ascent. I arrived 10 mins late to the start line due to getting lost en route and they were kind enough to keep the start open for me. Psychologically being the last and only person climbing worked well for me. I realised on day 1 that what I dislike about racing is the sound of thumping feet and heavy breathing right behind me. So again I pegged it up the mountain as fast as I could without stopping. At 3km I came across the stragglers who were walking the route and that gave me more incentive to keep going and try and catch more and more of them, which indeed I was able to do and in fact by the end I even managed a sprint over the finish – a truely enjoyable race finished in 1hr 18mins.
Day 3 was the half marathon and I felt a little achy! As you know i was hoping for a 90 min time. I was way off, in fact the winner was only 98 mins (her PB is 78 mins)and I realise that this was not the event to choose a PB half marathon as a goal. Firstly it starts with a 10 km ascent of 300 metres, secondly it the descent is treacherous with gravelly, rocky sections of dry earth covered in huge pits and cracks making it very tricky to pick a path out down once you have slogged it out to the top! Anyway excuses aside it took me 2 blooming hours!
Day 4 was a 10 km flat run, I ran well coming in at 47 mins and considering I had done the whole 4 days with a chest infection I felt totally relieved it was finally over as my body was KNACKERED! This is a great event well organised and really friendly, I will definitely be coming back with even more training under my belt to try and smash some of my times and do better overall in the rankings.
OK a brief (I’m sure you are not that interested in my personal training life?!) update:
Running speed is up for longer distances now – knocking out 8-10miles @ 7min 15sec averages this would give me a 1hr 35min half marathon if I ran it today. I would be pleased with the time, however I still have a couple of weeks of training left and think I may be able to do better and get closer to my 7 min mile pace for that distance.
In the meantime an opportunity to pursue my kickboxing training has materialised. I am planning on fighting for the vacant WKMA European women’s kickboxing title on the 21st December – with only 2 months to train for a 7 round full contact fight and a week away racing in Cyprus right in the middle I wasn’t sure if this was wise. However much consideration and discussion has gone into this and I am game on with nothing to loose!
So….without further finger tapping I am back off to the gym now – see ya
I feel training this week hasn’t really been what I wanted. I’ve missed a couple of runs that I wanted to get in and have felt like my sleep has been poor quality which has had an effect on the sessions I have done.
On the plus side I finally hit 7 mins per mile this week – it feels fast for me! I was only able to hold it for 4 miles, the idea of running 13 miles at this pace currently seems a little unrealistic, however I may just have time to work on that!
I need to do some more roadwork as I have been mainly training off road which I prefer, however the event is on hard ground rather than the soft ground I’ve been running on. It is easier to get better speed on road although I dislike the impact and unnatural environment.
The dogs featured a bit this week – on a tempo run and a hill session. They are amusing on the hills, it takes them about 30 mins before they realise that you are only going up and coming down again so they don’t need to follow you each time and can stand in the middle of the hill and still not lose sight of you!
Focus next week is on getting some longer distances in
Training has gone so-so this week. I have started to worry on two counts; Firstly that the half marathon is the day after an 11km hill run and secondly that my half marathon time goal was only achieved by one female runner in this event last year and she was a Common wealth champion!
I managed to kick out a 1hr 20min 10 miler yesterday which although isn’t fast enough was entirely uphill for the first half and still would have given me a 1hr 45min half marathon time assuming an average pace of 8min miles….It’s 7min miles I need to be running so I’m remaining optimistic with 6 weeks training left!
Unfortunately my running companions (2 dogs) are unable to accompany me anymore, the older one who has featured heavily in the “running with wolves” blog series (see much earlier entries) is now 12 and arthritic so despite a huge desire on his part is unable to keep up for more than about 20mins. The other, a 5 year old collie cross who very often is perfect company for these sorts of sessions doesn’t cope well near traffic nor on a lead and I have started to run off AND on road to imitate the race route.
I don’t mind soul searching running, in fact I quite like it, but yesterday I somehow managed to set my Adidas mi coach to report my stats every 1 minute instead of every 10mins. As you can imagine, any thought process and or music track being interrupted every minute by a shrill voice telling you your speed and distance covered would become very annoying, especially as she seemed to take ages to report the info and there was hardly a gap between the end of one report and the start of the next. I practically dreamed in numbers last night!
Training in earnest has begun now for November’s Cyprus international 4 day challenge. The race is in it’s 9th year and looks really cool. You run 4 different races on each of the days; day 1 is a 6km time trial, day 2 is an 11km hill race, day 3 is a half marathon and day 4 is a 10km city run.
I am looking forward to some bright weather there – the event seems to be blessed with sunshine historically and I’m pretty sure ill be sick of the mud and clouds in here by then!
Training is going well; I’m feeling pretty fit and just want to work on my speeds. I’ve got my eye on a sub 1hr 30min half marathon time, however as many of you who know me already are aware, despite running practically for a living I rarely race. What this means on race day is that I will need to be very careful my mental state isn’t affected too adversely by my nerves.
I have run a 1hr 47min half marathon without any training before so I don’t feel the goal is unrealistic, however the course was a flat road race and this one undulates with an overall climb of 400 metres.
Currently I am lifting weights using compound movements, running 4 x week mixing up intervals, hills and tempo runs with longer ones and am just building up some mileage to get into my stride a little. And I have been kickboxing again after nearly 10 years out of the ring for the past 6 months which is totally unrelated but muchous fun and partly attributing to my current fitness levels.
So im feeling good and aim to keep a log here of how things are going over the next couple of months until race day on the 21st Nov…..watch this space!
4 September 2013
Will lifting heavy weights (as a woman) will make me too muscular? I just want to tone up.
Dont worry, the weights you will be lifting probably wont make you TOO muscular unless you are lifting them every day for years and years. We may ask you to include them in your training as part of a metabolic conditioning program to increase the rate at which you burn FAT as well as:
- Increased bone density
- Increased lean muscle mass
- Injury prevention
- Enhanced performance in activity generally
- Lowers your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease
- Boosts confidence
- Improves balance
- Fights depression
Take a look at these 3 photos:
Model 1 will live at the gym, be taking some kind form of steroid drug, will eat huge amounts of food daily and consume various supplements. She will endure enormous mood swings, possess a rare set of genetics and probably exhibit some typically male traits ranging from a large adams apple and excessive hair growth through to an out of control libido. She will be a competitive bodybuilder training on a periodised program and have spent years and years sculpting the physique you see today. You will not wake up one day having done some strength work and look anything like this!
Model 2 Won’t be on steroids, yet will also have to be military with her training and nutrition. She will also be on a periodised training program and will have also had to make huge sacrifices in her life to gain the amount of muscle she has whilst stripping her frame of fat. Women have only 10% of the testosterone (muscle building hormone) that men do, and so to even build this physique would have taken years of dedication and understanding of her body’s metabolism, adaptation rate, water holding fluxuations not to mention monumental mental strength. You will not wake up one day having done some strength work and look anything like this!
Model 3 Depicts most of the rest of us. It is very difficult to build a well muscled physique. Men have much more testosterone than women and often still find it difficult to build a well muscled physique. Ask yourself this: How many of your male friends want to bulk up and pack on some muscle? The answer would be higher than you may imagine. In summary, you don’t need to worry about bulking up through strength training, in order to do this you would have to embark on a hardcore program of muscle gain, revamping your entire nutritional vocabulary, and employ a set of lifestyle rules so strict a sergeant major would whimper!