Saturday 31 March 2012

Progress! #runveeversrun

Well I finally finished my first stage of training and it went rather well, so I thought it was time for a quick update. It's still awhile off to the Great North Run but I've went from not being able to run at all to running 5k fairly easily, so rather pleased with my progress so far.

The weather's been great and that's a big motivator in getting out there; running up and down the coast is a hell of a lot easier to do when the sun is shining and the view certainly couldn't be bettered. The only downside of training has been I caught a pretty bad viral infection for a week and that set me right back. It only kept me out of training for a week and half but I felt like I'd went back to the level I was running four weeks ago and found it really hard to keep my pace and distance up the first few runs after. Thankfully I persevered and managed to finish my final 5k before not being able to do it dragged out too long but it really did bloody hurt. I'm just hoping that there'll be no more illnesses or injuries for the rest of the year now.

I've also signed up to the Great North 10k in July - I've got to run 10k as part of my training, so thought I may as well do a proper event and I think it'll make it easier to raise funds along the way too, rather than just doing mass chugging on the last week. I've not really done much on the fundraising front, just the odd use of social media here and there but i've raised about £45 online so far which is good. I'd imagine most people will donate around the time of the events but my Nanna has kindly donated all the money she'd have received for her birthday presents to me, so that was rather lovely of her.

As i'm writing this there's a story on Sky Sports News about Stylian Petrov being diagnosed with blood cancer and just this week and 18 year old work colleague has been diagnosed with cancer after taken ill the week before. Looks like they'll both be fine thankfully but Cancer really does effect everyone and hearing stuff like that certainly brings a reality check to the minor things in life but I guess it's motivating me to raise as much money as possible.

Overall fitness wise, I've come on leaps and bounds - my stamina has always been pathetic but I'm finding the running has really brought it to a level that I've probably not had since I played tennis every evening and I feel like I could easily play competitive sport again now. I've dropped over 12 pound since the new year and continued going to the gym, so managed to do that while putting muscle mass on at the same time which is rather pleasing. I've not dieted at all and still drinking regularly as well. So yeah, not bad at all really!

Next up is 12 weeks of 10k training, running at about an average of 25 miles a week. Lets hope I'm feeling this good after then too!

A couple of photos i took while running and my 5k route:




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Song for the Day - Another classic training montage song