As expected, this week was one filled with aches and pain in many parts of my body because of the half marathon. My friends were all going for 6 to 7km recovery runs from the day after, and I could not understand how they could do it. I guess this is what separates true runners from 'once in awhile runners' like myself. They've all been regularly training for at least a year to two years, and it shows in the way they effortlessly finish long runs, and in their powers of recovery.
I realised something - in finishing the half marathon, I accomplished another one of my fitness goals for the year! As a matter of fact, I'm even tentatively planning to register for a full marathon in December, and if I'm able to accomplish that, I've have doubled my goal achievement. However, from the extreme difficulty I faced in the half marathon, I know that if I want to do the full marathon, I'm going to need a more focused approach to training on running, and I may not be ready to sacrifice my gym sessions.
This is how this week looked.
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: 25 minute gym
- Wednesday: Rest
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: 6.68km run
- Saturday: 40 minute gym
- Sunday: 45 minutes hiking (morning), 45 minute gym (evening)
I managed to squeeze in three gym sessions and finally felt up to doing a recovery run on Friday.
I tried to do a lighter compound exercise routine on Tuesday but only managed two sets before I gave up. My body just wasn't ready to push and I would have vomited if I continued. Saturday's gym session was also kept light and I did a chest and back routine; although I managed to complete three sets of the routine, I went through the motions and just wanted to get through it.
Sunday was when I finally had the motivation and strength to push. Part of the reason may be that I went to bed relatively early the night before and got a solid 7.5 hours of sleep. I went back to the compound exercise routine and decided to up the deadlifts because I've never ever worked my back muscles to a point where they ache before because I'm afraid of injury. I managed to do 3 sets (10 reps each) of 65kg barbell deadlifts (I currently weigh 58kg) and will definitely ache like mad in the coming week. To counter the my grip issue, I put down the weights and re-grip after 5 reps so I get a 3 second rest in the middle of each set.
The Friday run was pretty cool because I just downloaded the RunKeeper app and used it for the first time. It's a wonderful app which is free and it is smooth, user-friendly and has useful data, such as mapping out your speed every minute, distance, average speed, estimated calories burned (from age and weight). It even has training programs you can follow which will tell you when to speed up, when to slow down, when to sprint, etc, in order to achieve a certain result. I'm loving already and the armband phone holder I bought for Brooks is turning out more useful after all!
Next week, I'm going to continue to try to get gym sessions in, and treat running as secondary. From April 1, I will need to prioritise running to give myself 3 months to prepare for the Standard Chartered half marathon. Until then, I really hope to be able to build some muscle tone.
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