Running for my Disney - a PPTR...

[zanzibar138]

Not much to report in the training stakes this week, was a bit of a write-off with Christmas and I've still had to work all but the public holidays.

Since we all had to work Christmas Eve we thought we'd make an effort to do something festive, so we got the company to finance some cooked chooks, chips and salads for lunch. We managed to convince everyone to take half an hour out to come and eat with us.

Christmas Day was fairly casual, we just had DH's family around in the evening for some finger food and drinks. I made some Disney themed bon-bons

I didn't get to transfer any extra money across to the savings account this month with the personal training sessions and the darn annual fee for my credit card! But, still ahead of schedule so I'm not too concerned, and I've still got a lot of work to do with my training. My new training plan starts next week

 

[PrincessInOz]

Merry Christmas! Shame that you had to work.

 

[areweindisneyyet]

Zanzibar, you should be so proud of the achievements so far. Oh put me to shame. My dH has also had lots of problems with shins and running. we would change his Asics every 10 to 12 weeks to make sure the support remained. Pain in shins was always a sign for new shoes. Ice them whenever you finish whether their is pain or not.

Is swimming, aqua aerobics or deep water running an option. Less pressure on legs but still a great aerobic workout

 

[zanzibar138]

Zanzibar, you should be so proud of the achievements so far. Oh put me to shame. My dH has also had lots of problems with shins and running. we would change his Asics every 10 to 12 weeks to make sure the support remained. Pain in shins was always a sign for new shoes. Ice them whenever you finish whether their is pain or not.

Is swimming, aqua aerobics or deep water running an option. Less pressure on legs but still a great aerobic workout

Thanks so much for your support

Wow it must have been expensive getting new shoes that often I don't think it's that for me, I still get pain with brand new shoes, and once they've been worn in.

If I was really dedicated, I would try some water-based exercise. Unfortunately though I can't swim (I know enough not to drown when playing around in water, but not swim laps), and won't usually go near water unless it's 40 degrees out! Our local pool is out of action anyway. I'm happy with my new walking plan for now - will see where that leads me

 

[zanzibar138]

This week I started my walking/strength program in earnest, and I'm pretty pleased with how I'm progressing. My new program is something like this:

Monday - strength training (lower body)
Tuesday - 1/2 hour walk
Wednesday - yoga
Thursday - 1/2 hour walk
Friday - strength training (upper body)
Saturday - distance walk

With each followed by a thorough stretching routine of course (apart from the yoga).

My work colleague and I are still trying to do our lunch time walks (when I did it on my own the other day I clocked it at 1.42km in 17 minutes). Didn't get much of that done this week though due to having a short week and also the weather being a bit too hot at lunch time!

I did a 5km walk this morning. Doesn't sound like that much, but I included a category 5 hill climb (that's the easiest one - still felt pretty hard to me!). I'm glad I did the hill though because I got back feeling like I had exercised It took me nearly an hour, which I was pretty pleased with considering that hill would have slowed me down a bit.

I'm planning to work up to 10km one km at a time, so that it will take me 5 weeks and I'll be finished the 'program' before we go to Europe. While we're over there I *plan* to continue with the weekday parts of the program, and try to fit in one 5km walk on the weekends. This may or may not happen, but we'll be walking a lot more than we normally would anyway, so I don't think I'll fall too far behind.

I'm feeling a lot more motivated again now I have a 'program' to follow and a short term goal to get to

ETA: I actually managed to lose 1kg this week too!

 

[PrincessInOz]

It's too hot to do all that exercise!!!


(I'm Melting!!)

 

[zanzibar138]

It's too hot to do all that exercise!!!


(I'm Melting!!)

It's not too bad at 6:30am for walking. And the strength training I do inside in the air-con

I did get a bit warm on this morning's walk, not having got up particularly early. Had to make sure I lathered on the sunscreen too!

 

[zanzibar138]

This week I walked, walked, and walked some more! Between my training walks, dog walks, lunch time walks at work, and walking between our hotel and concert venue on Tuesday night, I clocked up over 23km!

My legs have been feeling it, I've had soreness in my shins/ankles and have been icing my lower legs. I don't think my legs were really up to that hill climb I did on last weekend's walk. Then on Tuesday I had someone behind me so I felt compelled to walk faster than I should have. Then the concert that night didn't help being on my feet for a few hours in non-supportive shoes. But they've been gradually improving since then and are now feeling a lot better again.

I've actually got an appointment this Thursday evening at a leg and foot pain clinic, because I really don't think it's fair that I can't even walk fast or up hills without pain Hopefully being a specialist clinic they will be able to find something that the others haven't yet.

I've also been continuing with my strength training, doing my lower body routine on Monday and my upper body routine yesterday. Wednesday morning I did some yoga and heard all sorts of clicks and cracks

Forgot to mention this morning's walk! Did the 6km walk this morning with my training pal, Riley. He was very well-behaved so I've told him he can come again

 

[PrincessInOz]

Clicks and cracks are not always a bad thing. Particularly if you're realigning the body!

 

[zanzibar138]

I'm getting some custom orthotics. Apparently they will help me enough that with a lot of work, patience and dedication I should be able to run the 10k I pick them up this Thursday, so it will be interesting to see how I go with them. I'll start by just trying to walk faster, and work up from there as my body tells me it's ready.

In the meantime, I've been going great-guns with my walking! Up to 7km now and it's just starting to get a little tiresome towards the end of the walk. I've been taking Riley (the border collie) with me, and he has been behaving like a little champion - very pleased with him I'm going to start to run out of flat-ish ground soon which is a bit of a concern with my legs, but I'll just see how I go. I did nearly 20km all up this week.

As an added bonus, I lost another 1kg this week

 

[PrincessInOz]

Congrats!


I've been taking some inspiration from you. I don't run....I have never been able to run well.

But I can ride a bike. I'm up to 7 kms round the velodrome within 30 minutes. Aiming for 10 km by the end of January. And I'm hoping to lose 5 kgs!!

 

[zanzibar138]

Thanks PIO!

I would definitely do more bike riding if I lived in a different area - especially if I had a velodrome just down the road! So handy for you

 

[zanzibar138]

Negative this week - my Garmin broke just in time to be completely useless for our camping trip with lots of hiking

Positive this week - I got my orthotics so I was able to do lots of hiking on our camping trip

I got my orthotics on Thursday night, and was supposed to wear them in gradually. Knowing that I was due for an 8km walk on Saturday, I asked if I should wear them for that. The podiatrist said if I could wear them all day Friday with no pain, that they should be ok for the distance walk. I haven't bothered to take them out of my shoes since then.

Last weekend I had quite a good 'walking' weekend, starting with a walk with my SIL to the top of a hill near her house (which was 3.5km), then wandering around the zoo for a few hours, followed by a dog walk when we got home. Plus my 2 x 30 minute walks during the week, and the daily lunch time walks... I got up to nearly 25km this week.

We had planned to go camping for the long weekend, so I was excited about being able to walk somewhere new. Unfortunately it turned out that our campsite was nowhere near any walking tracks Still, SIL agreed to do the 8km walk with me and we drove to a nearby track that disappeared into the forest and thought that would do. It started off quite steep and... um... was quite steep in the middle and at the end too It had been our plan to walk for 45 minutes, then turn around (that being my estimated time for an 8km walk), but as we climbed higher and higher, we felt like it would be a let-down to turn around before we reached the top. It took us about an hour in the end, and it was a let-down anyway - we couldn't see much at all between the trees. Still, we felt like it was quite an achievement getting to the top anyway. As my Garmin wasn't working, and those walk-mapping sites don't show much detail of the road, I can't be sure how far we did walk, but I'm counting it as an 8km anyway! MapMyWalk says that for most of the way up it was a category 1 climb (which is the hardest one behind the Tour-de-France category ). Poor SIL only just made it since she hasn't had the few weeks of endurance conditioning that I have

Yesterday we went for a drive in the area and did a few small hikes as we went. It would have been interesting to record those on my Garmin as well. I've just had to do a rough estimate of how far I think we went and how long we took.

Turns out that when we got home and I was complaining to DH about my Garmin, he went to look at it and came out asking 'so what's wrong with it?' Why is it that every electronic device that I own has some sort of glitch Seriously, my laptop, phone, camera, Garmin, the cross-trainer that I borrowed from SIL (which was working fine for her)...

I didn't get a chance to weigh myself this weekend with the change in routine, so I'll just wait until next weekend. I'm dying to know if I've lost any more weight (or maybe put some on over the weekend with all the junk I ate ), but I really want to be consistent about the time I do it. Still, all this walking can't be bad for me, even if I'm not losing weight!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Sounds like you had a nice weekend camping! Just think......it will be a massive change on the scales next weekend.

 

[zanzibar138]

I'm a day behind this week, but I still did my 9km walk this morning. It took me nearly 1 hour 40 minutes. Starting to get to that tough distance now, but only one more week to go before a little break

Unfortunately for my short walk on Friday I wasn't wearing the right shoes and socks, and I started getting blisters. I decided to put off my long walk to give my feet a chance to heal a bit. They lasted quite well this morning with my best socks and shoes on, but in the last km (which was uphilll) I could feel them rubbing again. On the plus side though, my legs are handling all the walking well, and I'm actually getting quicker, even with the extra distance!

I was a little disappointed to see that I've only lost less than a kg in the last 2 weeks (so PIO your theory has been disproven ), but as long as I'm still losing weight I'm happy Will be interesting to see what happens when I come back from my trip

And another end of month finance update... Although my poor bank account is still trying to recover from Christmas and DH's birthday, I still managed a small end of month transfer, which brings my balance to nearly $900 I NEVER thought I'd be able to save that much in 6 months with the small amount of pocket money that I get, so I'm pretty pleased with my progress there, and just shows what you can do with the right motivation!

 

[Millie12591]

You are doing so well! Keep up the great work, Lana!!

I totally admire your perseverance, you remind me a lot of myself. I'm not one to give up easily either.

 

[zanzibar138]

You are doing so well! Keep up the great work, Lana!!

I totally admire your perseverance, you remind me a lot of myself. I'm not one to give up easily either.

Hey Millie, thanks for checking in I'm well known for being pretty stubborn when I set my mind to something

 

[PrincessInOz]

I'm a day behind this week, but I still did my 9km walk this morning. It took me nearly 1 hour 40 minutes. Starting to get to that tough distance now, but only one more week to go before a little break

Unfortunately for my short walk on Friday I wasn't wearing the right shoes and socks, and I started getting blisters. I decided to put off my long walk to give my feet a chance to heal a bit. They lasted quite well this morning with my best socks and shoes on, but in the last km (which was uphilll) I could feel them rubbing again. On the plus side though, my legs are handling all the walking well, and I'm actually getting quicker, even with the extra distance!

I was a little disappointed to see that I've only lost less than a kg in the last 2 weeks (so PIO your theory has been disproven ), but as long as I'm still losing weight I'm happy Will be interesting to see what happens when I come back from my trip

And another end of month finance update... Although my poor bank account is still trying to recover from Christmas and DH's birthday, I still managed a small end of month transfer, which brings my balance to nearly $900 I NEVER thought I'd be able to save that much in 6 months with the small amount of pocket money that I get, so I'm pretty pleased with my progress there, and just shows what you can do with the right motivation!

A loss and a gain. Seems like alls well in your world!

 

[zanzibar138]

Since I was already in the city this morning, I decided to do my 10km walk at the same time, so I could get some different scenery. I started out doing the 'Tan Track' around the botanic gardens area, but towards the end realised it was only a 3.8km circuit, so crossed over to the river and did the rest of the walk along there. As luck would have it, I got to a train station just as I reached the 10km mark Unfortunately I wasn't that well prepared. It was a warm day today (around 30C) and I was walking in the heat of the day, a good portion of it in the sun, with no water and no sun protection (yes, silly me ). And I was going at a decent pace too. I think I was starting to get a bit heat-affected by the end of the walk and didn't feel very well In the same area as the train station there was a 7-11 so I grabbed an icypole and some cold water, got changed and cooled myself down with some damp paper towels, and started feeling better.

I also did my two 30 minute walks during the week, and managed to do a lunch time walk at work most days. Total kms for the week was just over 20km.

I've decided to weigh myself tomorrow morning instead of today since I had so much water. Hopefully I'll see that downward trend continue.

This was the end of my walking program, so I'll give myself a few weeks of 'rest' while we're away (will still aim for 3 x 30 minute walks per week, plus all the sight-seeing we'll be doing of course!) and start an amended version of the C25K when we get back. Can't wait to see what happens when I start adding in a bit of running! Hopefully things will continue to go well with my legs. I've definitely been going faster in my walking since I got my orthotics, so it looks like they're really helping

 

[zanzibar138]

I'm back! And, yes I've skipped a few weeks

We had a great time on our European adventure. Mum got in a few early mornings runs, but for the most part I just enjoyed my holiday We did plenty of walking, and took it easy on the desserts etc, and I am pleased to report that I am pretty much exactly the same weight now as I was when I left

Now for a couple of weeks building up my fitness and getting back into the routine of walking again, then it will be time to see how my legs handle a little bit of a jog!