Well it’s been a busy time, facing new challenges and trying things out, so far this year I’ve participated in two half marathons – Hamilton and Karapiro, I set goal times of 1 hour 45 minutes to complete these and I’m pleased to say i was right around there, 1.44.52 and 1.46.07, pretty good. Since November I’ve seen my V02 increase from 42 to 55, so I feel I am a lot fitter and confident with my progress.
Activity
My next planned half marathon is Cambridge in September, a little bit away, but after Karapiro i strained my hamstrings, over training and getting back into training too quickly after and with too harder sessions, so i haven’t been running at all for two weeks, finding other things to keep active, weight sessions, Hakarimata steps, cycling and walking parkruns. I’ve also delayed any marathon plans until next year. I’ll build into it properly, this gives me plenty of time to recover, plenty of pavement time, and I think it’s smarter than just going for it and sustaining an injury.
Pictures
Some pictures of the past few months, Hamilton half marathon, Cambridge parkrun, Adidas Auckland fun run, Karapiro half marathon.
Goal progress
I’m pleased to say I’ve hit my goal weight and maintained there since December, so the focus has been on stamina and muscle gain, both of which are going well.
Next Steps
So the next step of the journey will be building back up properly to finish the Cambridge half marathon. I’ll set myself a goal of 1 hour 40 minutes, I think, this gives me something I think I can achieve, but still a challenge, I’ve been researching heaps of ideas for training plans, with two main running days, an interval run on Wednesday along the lines of 6x1km at my 5km pace with 60 seconds rest between, slowly building it up to more intervals and longer distances and a long run on Sundays something along the lines of 20 minutes easy, 40 minutes half marathon pace and 20 minutes easy, maybe split up more than that, with warmups, cooldowns and stretching built in too., with recovery runs, easy runs mixed in on other days. So I’m confident with what I’ll start and continue with, hoping to also mix in a good amount of strength training and other things beyond running, bush walks, swimming, and cycling. I’m looking to start this within the next few weeks, once I feel my hamstrings are ready to go again. I don’t want to get back into it too early, only to have them strained again.
Something to look forward to
I’m counting down the days to my holiday trip to Australia, most of the itinerary is pencilled in, with a mixture of fun activities, relaxing, theme parks and shopping. I think it’s needed to get away from the stresses of work and day-to-day life and just have some time out.
Feedback
Have you got any training tips you would like to share? What’s your favourite run for the week? Ideas for future content?
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