Stryka’s BodyBlog

Didn’t run yesterday so I thought I would write about something different. I did train chest last night and even though it was more than I have been doing it was still little more than maintenance.

The thing I love about this site is the diversity of people. There are people on here just getting started on their journey, there are people who are well and truly on the way and give the rest of us inspiration. There are young people and not so young people. Whilst most are from the US if you look hard enough you can find you will find people from every corner of this planet.

But whilst the goals might be slightly different from competing on stage, to running marathons, to powerlifting to getting "swole" or simply losing a few pounds everyone here shares the common goal of being the best that they can be and everyone is positive, noone tells you you can’t do it.  

In fact the more people that you meet that have done or are doing it the more you realise that you can do it too!

Forecast for Sunday: Fine and partly cloudy, with moderate to occasionally fresh northwest winds. Max 21 Degrees Celsius (70F)

And so it was at the start point of the run. 7:30am saw a text from a piker. No matter I knew that I would have at least one other joining me today. He was probably the slowest and most out of shape of the group but easily the one with the most heart! We drive to the summit to do a car shuffle (my knees really wouldn’t take the downhill run), hang on a second, I can’t see the summit, where did all this cloud come from? At the top I literally needed all my strength to open the car door.

We discussed shortening the route but decided as it was our last opportunity for a tough run before the race and most of the road was sort of sheltered from the gale force winds that we would push on. hopefully the wind would blow the cloud away in the hour and a half before I got back to the top. Today would not be a day for PR times but a good chance to dig in hard and get through the run.

On top of the weather my calves have not recovered too well from Thursday run. So knowing what the top was like I set off within myself a little bit, at the first check 4.5km in I am at 28mins, same as last week so going ok, now for the toughest section. The next few kms feel like you are in no mans land, it is the steepest part and all the bends look the same. I reach the chalet at 8kms run at 54minutes gone still ok, but still stiff in the calves and visibility has now been reduced to about 100 metres. The mist has brought a light rain that whilst it is cold, it is actually sort of pleasant, just me and the road with the occassional passing car and the odd walker.

I hit "the big bend" there is about 2.5km to go and the rain has picked up a bit, and so has the wind, it sort of circle round the mountain, I minute it is behind you the next it is pushing you off the road. Then I noticed that my legs feel good, the stiffness has subsided so I pick it up a little, 1km to go - all or nothing now as I wind up the pace. I can’t see the top which usually gives me an extra kick. The last 200 metres were hell, I was breathing heavily fighting to keep the run hard to the end, I turn the corner into the carpark and the finish line.  The wind and rain is so hard at the top, I can’t catch my breath.

The time 1 hour 17 minutes 26 seconds just 20 seconds behind last weeks pr but today was under a lot worse conditions.

Well I have to say I have pulled up a bit stiff in the legs from the last couple of days running but that is ok, as it is now just over 2 weeks untill race day I will probably only do one more mountain training run on sunday morning and then maybe just a couple of light recovery runs (or as stachedwalker caught me out on the other day - easy runs because I can’t be bothered working hard but if I call it a recovery run it sounds like it was planned).

No running today as I want to be fresh for sunday’s run but I am guilty of going a little bit harder in the gym the last 2 nights. I am still unsure how much weights to day for the next two weeks? any ideas?

I know that I will definatly cut out the squats and the deads but I might do a bit more higher rep stuff on exercises that are not too intense for example I worked the guns pretty hard tonight and got a great pump on both tricep and bicep but whilst I might be a little bit sore tomorrow (saturday is complete rest day) it is not like when I go hard on dead’s and wake up feeling like I tried kissing the express train!

I will probably add in a few more rest days to and make sure I eat more carbs. Up until now whilst I haven’t done a full on cut I have been trying to use the extra cardio to get as lean as possible.

Well this morning I ran a 16km loop that pretty much undulates the whole way and includes a couple of short but very steep hills. The weather was a bit of a bugger this morning in that it was a couple of degrees to set off without a jumper but that I knew that I would need to take it off by the time I had finished. I hate running with something around my waist, but oh well that will be enough whingeing thankyou very much.

I have run this course twice before in reverse directions but both times were within 30 seconds of each other so I was keen to beat those times (1hr 27min)

I took off well and very quickly outpaced my fellow runners and was well on track to do a good time at the halfway mark but then it all fell apart, I hit a very steep hill that as hard as i tried i just could not power my way up it, eventually I got there (don’t worry there was no stopping to walk) but from there I just couldn’t keep up a fast pace, I wasn’t particularly out of breath or anything but I just couldn’t get the legs going and every hill I hit just slowed me even more. The last km is downhill and once I got there I made sure I pushed hard to the finish (I think I actually managed sub 4 minutes on that km - yay for downhill) and in the end I was probably within a minute of the previous times which is not too bad and the big positives I can take out of the run is that what feels like a slow pace is still 11kph over the 16km course which is certainly not flat by any stretch of the imagination and also that I didn’t feel too stuffed at the end.

One of my goals this year was to be able to run a 10km and feel that I have worked about the same as if I have done a good weights session. I remember the first time I ran with the group from the gym back around may - we did a 2km warm up and then some 400 metre hill sprints my natural pace beat most of them in the first lap or two but then I was well and truly done (we did 8 laps in the end) and then a 2km cooldown that had me well and truly in submission. Now I can tick that goal well and trully of the list!!

Well Tonight I did some relatively easy squats and then I was planning to do an easy 5km on the treadmill because I have organised to do a 16km loop with some friends first thing in the morning. I started off at a nice pace setting the treadmill to go for 25minutes at 12kph then my ego kicked in a little and I sped it up a little. Having the statistics on the display is not good for me because I sit there and work out how far I will have gone and whether I am on track to run a good time and if I am not then those little flashing lights start taunting me, telling me I need to go faster so I cranked it up a bit and by the time I had finished I had covered the 5km in 22:30 which is about as fast as I go.

Just hope I can get through the run tomorrow!

Today I did a recovery run. I am guessing that I did somewhere between 6 and 7kms. And Tonight I did  a quick arms session and some ab and core work. The gym has gotten some bosu balls which I thought would be pretty easy. 10 mins later on top of feeling very uncoordinated I do feel like I got a good session in.

Well there is now less than three weeks until the big race. I put in my entry form last week and I am starting to get a bit more excited about the whole thing. Up till now it has been more of a what the hell am I doing this for but now my competitive juices are starting to flow. I really felt some improvement on the mountain yesterday so I am keen to keep up the interval training and see if I can get a bit more pace out.

No cardio today as it was crappy weather (vt the freezing temperature you run in is impressive!) and I finally gave in and had a "cheat" workout on the weights. After my scheduled dumbell shoulder presses I gave in and did some lateral raises and cable rear delt raises as well as some ab and core work.

I have organised a buddy to run tommorow so at least I won’t be able to pike out on the cardio two days in a row.

We were down to just two people on our weekly mountain run this week and let me tell you from about 5 minutes in I was ready to give up and walk, I was fighting just to keep going in fact the only thing that was keeping me going was that I had given my running comrade a fifteen minute head start and I would eventually somehow have to get to the car at the top making it physically impossible to stop.

I passed the first checkpoint at 4 km in 28minutes which is about a minute behind a good pace for the first section which is also the easiest. After a brief nature call I continued on just as a faster runner came past. Great I thought I will try and keep him in my sights for as long as possible and I picked up the pace a little, I was holding him for a while and then just when I was start to drop off him he calls out "come on, keep fighting" and he interupted his own pace just enough for me to catch up. I thought to myself that if he helped me there then I would have to push harder and make it worth his while.

After a while the faster pace felt more natural, the 6km halfway mark came just under 38mins which means that I have made up the minute that I was behind my pace from before and back on track. The next checkpoint is at the chatel and came at 52 minutes, well ahead of schedule and feeling good after completing the steepest part of the course. Another couple of kilometres and the course flatens ever so slightly as we go past a hair pin bend for the final 2.5km to the summit. I was feeling surprisingly fresh. By now my stranger has started to slow as we hit a short steep section and we reverse roles for me to push him on. We pass my original partner who had a 15minute start. 1km to go, Then I can see the final bend we push hard for the finish…

… and the result 1hr17:02 a new pr by about 2 minutes and I even felt like we could have taken the last km harder!