1) I am back in london after 3 years and I am loving it :)
2) I am back in training!
I am not following any plan. I am just started to to build back the mileage and then, when 2010 comes, I'll start training for a spring marathon....whoohooo!!! still haven't decided which one....let's leave it open!
I am living in an area in london that I didn't know and I am enjoying going out there to discover new running routes. there are nice parks around here, but the 'bad' thing is that it is very very hilly and I DO hate hills.
there's one that I call "the hill of death"! yesterday though it seemed to have gotten shorter somehow!
this week I went out 3 times out of the planned 4 but yesterday I did some cross training as I walked for 2 hours in Hapmstead heath!!
how beautiful is that place!!wed: 10k
friday: 8k
sunday 12k!!!!
total of 30k, more than 18miles...I am pleased with it!!
oh yeah!! today was the last day of juneathon and I completed the challenge with a 5 mile run. I am pleased with how it went, apart from the conference week in which I run only twice :( next year it will be much better :)
so here are my stats:
Juneathon summary
1/30: 3.73 miles (run)
2/30: 5 miles (run)
3/30: 3.12 miles (run)
4/30: 5 miles (run)
5/30: cross-training + free weights (50')
6/30: 2 miles (run)
7/30: 7.5 miles (run)
8/30: 12.6 miles (cycling)
9/30: 1 mile (walk)
10/30: 5 miles (run)
11/30: 5.5 miles (run)
12/30: 1.5 mile (walk)
13/30: 3 miles (run)
14/30: 11 miles (run)
15/30: 1 mile (walk)
16/30: 5 miles (run)
17/30: 5.6 miles (run)
18/30 walk
19/30: walk
20/30: walk
21/30: 4.5 miles (run)
22/30: sit ups
23/30: sit ups
24/30: 5.6 miles (run)
25/30: 5.86 miles (run)
26/30: 4.37miles (run)
27/30: 4.37 miles (run)
28/30: 13.92 miles (cycling)
29/30: 2 miles (walk)
30/30: 5 miles (run)
___________
total run: 92 miles
total cycling: 26.6 miles
total walking: 6 miles (approximately)
running days: 18
cycling days: 2
x-training days: 1
walking days:7
sit-ups days:2
calories burnt: 11,958!!! (not telling you how many cals I ate though!)
juneathon hours: 19
I managed to go for a run on sunday along the beach in dun laoghaire and that was really really lovely: beautiful landscape and perfect temperature (13c and cloudy): 4.5 miles
Juneathon summary
1/30: 3.73 miles (run)
2/30: 5 miles (run)
3/30: 3.12 miles (run)
4/30: 5 miles (run)
5/30: cross-training + free weights (50')
6/30: 2 miles (run)
7/30: 7.5 miles (run)
8/30: 12.6 miles (cycling)
9/30: 1 mile (walk)
10/30: 5 miles (run)
11/30: 5.5 miles (run)
12/30: 1.5 mile (walk)
13/30: 3 miles (run)
14/30: 11 miles (run)
15/30: 1 mile (walk)
16/30: 5 miles (run)
17/30: 5.6 miles (run)
18/30 walk
19/30: walk
20/30: walk
21/30: 4.5 miles (run)
22/30: sit ups
23/30: sit ups
24/30: 5.6 miles (run)
___________
total run: 71.55 miles
total cycling: 12.6 miles
total walking: 4 miles (approximately)
we only paid 2 euros each (!!!!!). we could choose to do 6k - 12k - 18k and along the course the drink stations were really cool. one every 3k with water, water and lemon (very good for my stupid tummy), pieces of oranges and lemons, biscuits, toasted bread with jam, sport drinks....2 euros!!!! on top of that the course was stunning. we had access to the gardens of some venician villas (I live just outside venice now) which you normally have to pay to see. my dad and I run together for most of the time and finished together. after we crossed the line, the feast continued with free (included in the 2 euros that is) sandwiches, cherries, water, wine and beer, yoghurt. I was truly impressed. Another good thing about this type of races is that you have all sort of people running it, and walking it...so all the annoying competitive crap that I have to see in normal races over here is not there!!!
I finished in 1:59...very slow, I know, but it was the longest distance attempted after the injury pause. Plus, it was hot, too hot for me...it was 28c and I am not used to that anymore. It's good that they start so early in the morning.
Now I have a nice sun tan :)
my juneathon this week went quite well even though I had to opt twice to just go out for a short walk. Once for girly pain, once because I walked in venice all day, and if you have been there you know that that can kill you!! all those streets and bridges!
juneathon - summary
1/30: 3.73 miles (run)
2/30: 5 miles (run)
3/30: 3.12 miles (run)
4/30: 5 miles (run)
5/30: cross-training + free weights (50')
6/30: 2 miles (run)
7/30: 7.5 miles (run)
8/30: 12.6 miles (cycling)
9/30: 1 mile (walk)
10/30: 5 miles (run)
11/30: 5.5 miles (run)
12/30: 1.5 mile (walk)
13/30: 3 miles (run)
14/30: 11 miles (run)
___________
total run: 50.85 miles
total cycling: 12.6 miles
total walking: 2.5 miles
so here comes a quick summary:
5/30: I decided that 5 consecutive days of running was a bit too much. so I opted for some cross training. as you know (or maybe you don't) I am back at my parents' house for the summer and my mum has got a collection of tools to exercise as she hates the gym. quite handy, really! One of these is a sort of elliptic machine which squeaks like mad. I hopped on and did 30'. I thought I was going to kill myself after that, but I didn't and I am happy to tell you that I am still alive, therefore blogging. but it was BORING and NOISY! after that I did some free weights exercises and I played with the hula hop :)
6/30: short jog
7/30: I attempted 12km. I managed to complete the run but I was really knackered at the end. I can believe I ran marathons!!!! I am very grateful to the friends that stopped along the route (the village is tiny and the route is a walking path along a canal): they gave a good excuse to stop and breathe :)
anyways. I finished my first week of juneathon having completed 26.3 miles!!!! yay me!!
yesterday I was too tired to try and run again, especially after the 12km killer run so I hopped on my city bike and did 20km. I was very pleased with that.
not sure what I'll do today.
juneathon - summary
1/30: 3.73 miles (run)
2/30: 5 miles (run)
3/30: 3.12 miles (run)
4/30: 5 miles (run)
5/30: cross-training + free weights (50')
6/30: 2 miles (run)
8/30: 7.5 miles (run)
9/30: 12.6 miles (cycling)
___________
total run: 26.3 miles
total cycling: 12.6 miles
today I went out a bit earlier than usual 'cause it didn't feel that hot and probably it wasn't. I mean, there were probably 25 degrees. which is not 36....that'll come soon. so anyway I went out at 6:45pm and the first ks were really tough. my legs felt heavy and my breathing laboured. I got unitl the end of the first half of the path, ready to cross the road to get to the second half of it but it was closed due to road work. I turned aroung a bit disappointed and tried to finish my planned 5 miles. by mile 3 I started to feel much stronger but I was sweating so much it was unbelieavable!! my eyes burnt, stupid sweat! I think it's time to invest some euros in a nice hat.
so there you have it:
5 miles in 51 minutes
pace - 10:17
juneathon - summary
1/30: 3.73 miles (run)
2/30: 5 miles (run)
3/30: 3.12 miles (run)
4/30: 5 miles (run)
___________
total: 16.85 miles (run)
I have decided to dust my blog off to celebrate my second attemp at completing juneathon. Last year i failed miserably due to a stupid allergy test. this year nothing will stop me...maybe!!
so 3 days have been done and dusted...three days of running!
1/30: 6km
2/30: 8km
3/30: 5km
clinck on the day for evidence:
so far so good :)
I haven't been blogging in a while so here is an update:
a) I had to stop running for 3 months due to injury (ITB).
b) I am back to italy for the summer....and it's getting quite hot
5k
the race went very well. I did a good time and what I think it's a pb....like last year I wasn't able to see the start line and I might have started my watch a bit earlier or later...who knows. But, considered my lack of training, I was pleased to do a race at an increasing pace with the average of 9:00 minute per mile. Final time 28:00. I was paced by a friend who pushed me really hard...by the end of it I was really dying and my face in this pic shows that, doesn't it??
guinea pig
I did a VO2 max test and with it I will be given my lactate threshold. I don't know the results as yet. I have also received a scan to measure my body fat percentage. Not very good news on that front. 31% was the result and my BMI is 24%. these are normal ranges but I found out that I have put weight on lately and I am not happy about it.
In 4 weeks they'll run the same tests again and then the real procedure starts: for 6 weeks, 3 day a week (1 hour each time) my legs muscles will be stimulated with electro...thing (can't remember the name) and then they'll see how strong they've become and the tests will be done for the final time. I am very curious to see how it goes.
future plans
tomorrow morning I am off to the states (L.A and San Francisco). I am going for a conference/job interview/holiday and to be honest right now I feel more nervous than excited!
If the job interview goes well, somehow, deep inside, the idea of moving to the states scares me a bit. if the job interview goes wrong, though, next academic year I will be unemployed, and that idea scares me too. I should just concentrate on the fact that I will see two amazing places (LA and san francisco) that I have never seen before and I should think about what comes when it comes. dunno....
anyway, I hope your holidays go well.
I might be able to blog from there, otherwise I'll "see" you in 2009
)ciao!!!
for the first time in 3 years and 6 marathons I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the end. my training had been poor and my motivation quite low. the weather forecast had predicted rain and indeed the night before the marathon I could not sleep because of the noise outside: it was pouring down and the wind was strong too!! I said to myself that if the weather was going to be the same in morning I was not going to race.
when I woke up, though, the weather was really nice and I had no other choice than walk to the start line in piazzale michelangelo (there's a beautiful view of florence from there). but once there, I got literally soaked before I set off for my 7th marathon. fate!
From the first minute of my race I knew I was going to finish...not matter how!!! I had a friend along the course who cheered me on on 3 different occasions: 12km, 25km and 41km; I had certainly something to look forward to. my parents were supposed to come to florence too but decided not to the end, because of the weather.
I adopted the same strategy of my dublin marathon: 5 min run and 1 min walk and despite my lack of training, my lack of sleep and the rain I closed my race in 4:56. not my best time, but not my worst either.
The course was nice, even though the stretch from 32km to 38km was pretty boring and looooooong. I had started to get tired by then but at that point I was determined not to pull out. so I kept repeating my mantra ('till the finish line) and alternating walk and run...by then it had become 4 1/2 min run and 1 1/2 min walk. It was a bit discouraging not to have much support by then and some of the people I met along the route kept saying "they must be the last ones", nice!....but I tried to keep positive and I crossed the line with a big smile.
now I am in Italy, at my parents', until sunday and I am eating a lot and relaxing a bit before I start marking exam!
it's really cold here!!!
two days after dublin I finally have some time to blog.
It was my sixth marathon and my first dublin one. after two years in this city and two years of supporting friends and fetchies I finally got to run it myself. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. so, even if my training was really bad I decided to do dublin and use it as a training run for the florence marathon at the end of november.
that was a great choice!
I have been under the weather in the last few weeks. my uncle, who had cancer, got really worse really fast and he died on thursday. I couldn't make it to the funeral and I was (am) worried for my dad (my uncle was one of his younger brothers). I was not in the mood for a race.
I have also been stressed for work stuff and the job applications to the states.
but when I turned up at the dinner with the fetchies and few other people I started to feel the buzz and on monday morning I was ready to go. I finished the race in 4:47, my second personal worst, but I don't care. It was the best marathon ever. The support of the people was just amazing. I couldn't believe it. I keept saying thank you to everyone who called my name or said GO FETCH GO. I was so emotional that everything made me cry, but I felt also very happy. so basically I run the whole marathon with tears in my eyes and a big smile on my face. weird.
I did the whole marathon alternating 5 min run to 1 min walk and that worked very well. My legs feels great now and I am ready to keep training for florence.
there's so much more that I should say about this marathon, but I can always write another post
I forgot to say that I DNF the half marathon two weeks ago. I pulled out at mile 8 :( it was the first time for me and I hated the feeling. It's not fun cheering on people completing their race when you didn't. I know I did the right thing but I did not like it. that'll teach me :)
september was pathetic. I run a total of 72 miles spread in only 9 runs! dublin was getting closer and I was getting lazier. I didn't want to give up the idea of doing dublin, 'cause this might be my last year in this city and I wanted to do this mara once. I love the idea of a race around the place where I live. so I thought: "I'll do dublin as a walk but THERE IS NO WAY I'm doing florence...."
but last weekend something happened. I went to rome for a "running weekend" with some of the people I met on my italian blog. we are now a community of 60 bloggers who leave comments in each others' blogs and we've decided to form a group (a bit like fetch, but smaller). we are the BLOGTROTTERS. the meeting coincided with a 10k that we all run with the same t-shirts.
it was a lovely weeekend. 3 days of eating, drinking wine, chatting and running. what was great about my race was the fact that one of the faster guy, once he finished his race, came back to find me and push me through the last 2 ks which ended up being the fastest ones. even though my time wasn't good (1:00:13) I seem to have found my lost mojo.
Not only have I been out twice this week I have also entered florence marathon. So now the idea is to use dublin as a long run and try to do florence in a decent time. there will be many fetchies in dublin and many blogtrotters in florence, so it's going to be a nice party too!!
BRING IT ON!!
It's now time for another half-marathon. the adidas race series which included a 5 and a 10 miler ends on Saturday with the half. as a celebration I have finally officially entered the DUBLIN MARATHON. so now, there's no escaping it!! my training has been quite random.... some week I have gone out only once for a 5 miler; some other weeks I have gone out once and then attempted (and succeeded) a long run. two sundays ago I managed a 15,73 miler and last sunday a 18,63 one. I still don't know how that was possible. my legs feel fine really but tuesdays have become tough: I feel tired and HUNGRY! does that happen to me only? are the tuesdays after your LSRs tough?? the new academic year has started already and we are now in week 2! after spending the summer months working on my research in the peace and quiet of my flat, starting term with hundreds of students and colleagues trying to talk to me was a shock to the system. I love being surrounded by people and I love my students. it's just hard to adjust to the sudden change; I feel overwhelmed but I know it will get easier and easier. this is going to be my last year at dublin university since my contract expires in august 2009. ideally I'd like to either stay here or move back to england but the situation is gloom. languages are not popular with the university power-that-be (probably none of the subjects belonging to the humanities area are). so the idea is now to apply somewhere else, and after ignoring the states for all my working life it's time for me to acknowledge the fact that I might have a chance to find a permanent job over there. it would be such a huge change for me and it will be difficult to explain this choice to my parents: england and ireland do not seem too far any more, but the states are. well...it might come to nothing, but the filling-the-application-form process has now started....scary!! BUT let's focus on what's happening at the moment and let's hope that the half marathon goes well. I'll meet up with the irish fetchies and I am sure it'll be fun!
yes, I am still alive but I guess my posting goes with my training and when I am not doing much I don't post much.
in the last few weeks my mojo has been coming and going; then it was time to hit the road with some italian friends of mine and go to Longford. They did the marathon and I did the half. my pb is 1:58 but I knew that I wasn't fit enough to beat that. as soon as we started it began to pour down (as you can see from the pic) and it wasn't pleasant. when the rain stopped I was drenched and tired.
I stopped for the first time at mile 3 and then I walked at every drink station. half way through I realised that I wasn't going to finish under 2hs so I took it easy ending up doing a LSR rather than a race. I finished in 2:06' and I was pleased with it anyway.
the race was on august 24th and since then I managed to run only once. I must have caught something on race day and I have been ill with a silly flu since then. I had to skip my LSR last sunday. dublin is getting closer and I am not ready yet. I haven't run longer than 13 miles. hopefully this week will be better.
my press up challenge suffered too last week, but I keeping at it. I am now on W3 D1 and it's getting really tough. but I can see improvements in my upper body strength and I am loving it!!
this is not my bycicle, but this is how my bycicle looked when I went downstairs this morning. I just can't believe it. I live in a court, you know, a complex with a couple of blocks of flats and terraced houses and lots of security. the bike was locked but the wheels weren't. after all the bike should be safe here. the main gate of the complex has been broken for a while now and surely some twat came in and did the job. I am pi$$ed off! it will cost me more than a 100 euros to put new wheels so I am now trying to buy a second hand one and I need to find it before term starts. my bike is the only way to go to uni in a reasonable time and without having to take 2 buses. grrrr
JB will be pleased though...one less cyclist on the roads ;)
what can I say about paula? I watched the marathon live last night, chatting away with a friend on skype and with my fetchie peeps. it was nice to comment on the race and have a virtual laugh. but the laughters lasted up to the 35 k marker. at that point I saw her stop and strecth. she looked in real pain. I thought that she was going to pull out. she didn't. she got into the stadium. she crossed that finish line. great!! but I was very upset for her. I couldn't help crying when she hugged liz yelling and when she talked to the BBC. I can just imagine the pain she felt when her legs stopped working and she had to push herself .... I can only imagine her disappointment.
but today I am even more upset by some comments made on the papers by journalists and random people alike who criticize her for having taken part in the games being injured, for having taken away somebody else's chance of victory (!!) bla bla bla. I have realised for the first time how despised she is by many in UK and I just can't get my head around this. to me she is the greatest marathon runner ever and her inabilty to win a gold medal at the games doesn't change how I feel about her. I am not going to add much. I just hope that she'll recover soon from her injury and that she gets back into racing and winning soon.
as for my race yesterday, that went much better than I thought. I have been feeling out of sorts in the last few weeks. I did the same race last year, same course. It took me 1:36:49. I thought this time anything under 1:45 it's fine really. but I PBd!! by only one minute....but who cares? I finished the 10 miles in 1:35:29 and I am well pleased with that.
COME ON PAULA!!
she'll be running at 0.35 saturday night/sunday morning if you didn't know that. I'll be watching the race live....I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited!!!
it's been raining for days now and it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon. I am so glad I am working from home as the idea of getting on my bike in this weather somehow does not appeal to me :) it's funny how I have no problem whatsover in running in the rain, but I am not too keen in cycling. not that I have been running much these days either. I skipped my long run last week and considering that I have two races coming up it wasn't such a great idea.
Yeah, my training has been a bit lame so far and on saturday I'll be running a 10 miler in phoenix park, and on sunday 24th I'll be running a half-marathon in longford. I was hoping to pb in both races but considering my poor level of fitness I will just go there and enjoy it. they will both be a good social event :)
I have been trying to get back into the habit of running first thing in the morning. every morning I set the alarm and avery morning I keep sleeping. I know that I love the feeling it gives me, but the most difficult thing is to actually start. one day......maybe
One thing that I have been doing quite regularly is the pressup challenge. today is week2 day2 and I can already see the improvement in my strength and in my arms. The only problem I have is my elbow. It starts aching by the end of the 5th set of pressups and I don't know what it is. I hope that it stops once I get used to it, 'cause I want to get to the point in which I can do as many pressups as ILIKETOCOUNT ;)
