2010 Progress Entrant - Iola Wilson

Contents:- -Intro- Report -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9- -10- -11- -12- -13- -14- -15- -16- -17- -Final-

Report 8 - Week beginning 01/03/10

The X-ercise Files - Diary of a 'wannabe better' long distance runner

Week 8 has been a better week - I've managed to pull it back after last week's slump (in terms of motivation, effort and enjoyment) and also got back into a routine with the pilates. I had to crawled out of bed each morning to do my 25 minute pilates routine, but I managed and do feel better for it.

I had hoped to make it to endurance training on Tuesday in Thurso but time was too tight so I made do with a 25 minute run on the treadmill while Katie had her swimming lesson. I hadn't been to the gym in over a month and to be honest was dreading it, but I was very pleasantly surprised by the change in my pace. Having struggled to sustain 12km/hr pace in January I was able to start at 12.5km/hr and was running above 13 at 20 minutes. I still find myself struggling with boredom after about 2 miles though so will continue to limit my treadmill use.

On Wednesday I decided it was time Neil had a go at a hill session so we went out together in the afternoon. We did the usual mile warm up and cool down with 8 reps of the harbour hill in between. It was great having some company as I worked harder than usual (annoyingly even though Neil doesn't go out as often as me he can totally beat me on the hills!) and although our reps slowed slightly we kept them consistently under 9 min/mile pace.

On Friday Neil and I headed down to Edinburgh for the weekend. In the afternoon we wandered around the city (not really fast enough to count as proper exercise though!) then decided to check out the ‘state of the art' hotel gym. Well, it was more ‘state of the ark'... the cross trainer clunked alarmingly each time it went round, the rowing machine chain was rusted and also ‘clunked', the stepper just looked plain dangerous but the bike was ok and the treadmill worked after much coaxing of the speed up button. Oh, and the air-conditioning in the basement gym with no windows didn't work! I managed 10 minutes on the bike, and 2 miles on the treadmill before just about passing out with heat exhaustion. However, the pool was great for a quick cool down and the Jacuzzi, steam room and sauna were nice.

It was a lovely morning on Saturday so we decided on a long run from the hotel to Holyrood park and round the bottom of Arthur's Seat. We unintentionally ended up more than half way up and got lost when we added on an extra loop around the base (as I didn't think our overall distance was going to be enough) so had run 8.7 miles when we got back to the hotel. We both had really tired legs when we finished but felt that we well and truly deserved our cooked breakfast! Our walk along Princes Street in the afternoon was very slow and punctuated by regular tea stops!

We came home on Sunday and I managed to fit in a half hour run before tea (about 3.7 miles). I didn't push too hard as I felt stiff and tight behind both knees but averaged about 8.5min/mile. My overall mileage this week has been over 22 miles, but more importantly I think the quality of my sessions has improved and I feel better on rest days. It's still hard on training days but that is because I'm putting the effort in and my times and endurance are improving consistently.