From the ashes

It’s been several months, yes. What happened? I’d like to blame this on the bout of appendicitis I had in early March, which led to subsequent chopping out of said appendix and subsequent recovery from said chopping out. But I know that would be a pile of crap. My last entry was about a month prior to that. No, I’ve been neglecting my blog for a far less understandable reason.

Basically? I lost all my enthusiasm for running. I burned out. Sad, no? I told myself I didn’t have anything interesting to write about because I wasn’t doing anything interesting, while ignoring the fact that nothing I do is really interesting anyway, but it’s my job to turn this dull and meaningless chore that is running into a fun-filled adventure.

I would get up in the morning and run, but it was getting later and later because I just couldn’t drag myself out of bed when I needed to go. My runs would get shorter and shorter because I actually had things to do later on, which was why I tried to get up earlier. It was a cavalcade of fail, ladies and gentlemen and other. Maybe this bout of potentially life-threatening infected internal organ nonsense was actually the kick in the ass I needed. Wait, not the ass. A kick in the stomach? Yeah, felt like one.

I was told when I was in the hospital that I wouldn’t be able to work out for a month. This wasn’t an ideal situation, and even though you’d think I’d be relieved to take a little running holiday (and also miss the Canberra Half Marathon, incidentally) it was endlessly frustrating.

It was only about three weeks before I started to work out again, albeit carefully, and at the start of this month I jumped back into the running with newfound gusto and also a newfound lack of fitness. Wow, I deteriorated really, really quickly. Week before last, I could barely manage 5 kilometres. Last week, I managed 10 in a relatively decent time but couldn’t manage sprints. This morning I did 10 kilometres without a rest, and although I’m getting back in stride I still hated it on behalf of my lungs.

One fun part was that I decided to run the last kilometre as fast as I could. Managed half a km before a collapsed lung… Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. It just hurt, so I stop. In any case, I managed the 500m in 2 minutes flat. Not bad.

I have to go out shortly, so I’ll cut this short but I guess half the battle was actually sitting down in front of my computer to write anything. It’s hard to admit that you’ve been lazy when the admission takes effort.

Next time, I’ll get in some egotistical bullshite about how good looking I think I am. That’ll be something to look forward to.

Or maybe I’ll talk about pirate costumes.

At the very least, I intend to come back. I can work out every day, and have done so for the last 20 days (I may talk about that, actually) so I know I can form habits if I’m committed enough.

Butt Kickery

I’ve been so tired lately. I didn’t turn my alarm clock on for this morning, because I was up a bit late last night. ‘Late’ being after 10pm. Yes, I’m Ned Flanders. The secret is out.

Anyway, if I was so determined to wake up late, I probably should have also been determined not to run this morning. But I did run. Wow, 8am is a lot hotter than 5am, genius. What a great idea. Next time, try running at midday and see how you like that. Felt like dashing off and throwing myself in the pond. Note to Gungahlin: Where’s my aquatic centre, bitch? Seriously, you could have made a lot of money by now, solely from me.

I did make the effort to completely smother myself in sunscreen from head to foot, trying to ignore the searing pain I got when the sunscreen went on my eyelids. Yeah, think that might be an allergy. I totally did my part though. Slip, slop, slap, and all that crap. Even though I’m probably going to have a big swelled-up face all day. And what did the sunscreen do for me? Diddly, and shit. The few parts of my body that aren’t lobster red look like I’ve been caught in a tragic spray-tan factory explosion. All blotchy, and weird. I’m hoping that the skin tone will even out when I’ve cooled down a bit. Hopefully the red is just a reaction to the heat, and isn’t actually sunburn.

It was an enjoyable run, though. I got to try out my new toy, a Polar H7 Bluetooth heart rate monitor strap which so far has just been tested out on a couple of Insanity workouts. It integrates with Runkeeper, which is pretty sweet. I don’t need to wear a watch. I can just pair it with my phone and run. Anything which helps cut down on unnecessary gadget weight is great with me. And I just can’t seem to stand wearing a watch these days, for some reason.

Out on the run, my heart rate stayed at about 145 for the first couple of kilometres until I threw in a sprint. Not a hard and gruelling, lungs-screaming sort of sprint, just more of a full, hair-blowing-in-the-wind stride. I call it a hero stride. When your whole body is moving with perfect form, and you glide over the path like a track superstar. It’s ego-boosty, although it probably doesn’t look as good to anyone else as it feels.

At this point, my heart rate hopped up to about 165-170 and didn’t go any lower for the remainder of my run, rather stubbornly I might add. At least this proves my new heart rate strap isn’t broken. After three days of maximum effort in my Insanity workouts and a pitiful max HR of 160, I was starting to think that maybe it was defective. In my run today I got to about 189 while sprinting for a little variety. I love the way that the Runkeeper audio cue voice gave me a hard time when I was in the 90-100% max HR bracket. She sort of exclaimed it, indignantly. As in, slow down, you stupid person. Or you’ll die!

I’ve come to a realisation. Even though I was dehydrated and my knee hurt and it was a little too hot to run, I wanted to get out there because when I’m running, that’s the one day of the week where I can crank up terrible music and listen to it without shame. I can bounce down the road happily blasting Top 40 crap, horrible pop sludge. It’s blissful. This is my one opportunity to hold my head high and listen to Taylor Swift without fear of recrimination. I still don’t get this whole Nicki Minaj thing, and to be honest she scares me a little, but if my streaming radio station plays one of her songs, I won’t necessarily turn it off. I can listen to Gaga, if I want to. I don’t usually want to. But I can. And I won’t feel embarrassed if I do. I can also give Justin free rein to bring sexy back. That’s Timberlake, mind you. Not Beiber. I do have to uphold SOME basic moral code. Ooh, and One Direction. *shudder* No. Never.

But up to a certain point, I can play the most abysmal crap while I’m running, and enjoy it immensely.

When I got in the door after my 12km run (in about an hour and seventeen minutes, not bad but not brilliant) I only had enough energy left to down a quick glass of water, turn on my bedroom fan and stick a towel down on the bed before collapsing in a puddle of sweat. I still haven’t eaten, or had a shower. So I should probably do that now. Because I smell.

Oh, and before I forget to mention. I’ve got a race coming up! Canberra Half Marathon, which I think is in April. I don’t think I can do another full Mara any time soon.

So, yeah. Whee!

This is not the Finish Line

Well, it’s a week later (and I blame the delay in posting on glycogen depletion) and up to about Thursday I had minor difficulty standing up and sitting down. Which is awesome. Because the difficulty was only minor, and my legs still work.

Marathon over, bitches! Yippee!

When I got to Tasmania, I was mostly happy (and ashamedly disappointed) that the race would be going ahead as planned. The air quality was great, and I think the wind was blowing the bushfires back on themselves. I may have drunk a little more than I should have in the few days before the race, and I also may have eaten badly. I was super-stressed about the race itself, and the drinking was as an alternative to thinking about it. When forced to think about it, I didn’t think I’d be able to finish. I anticipated pain.

I put off thinking about it for long enough that the night before the race I hadn’t even finalised the basics, like breakfast for the next morning, or how I was going to get to the race.

The breakfast issue didn’t get sorted until about 9pm on the night before the race, when I stumbled back to the hotel, fairly drunk, with some muesli bars and yoghurt I’d bought from a supermarket up the road. Not my finest moment.

The transportation issue sorted itself eventually, but I really should have planned better. I set my alarm for 3:45 and upon waking and groaning and swearing, I forced a nasty muesli bar and three quarters of a tub of unappetising yoghurt down my gullet before hitting the road and walking to the race hotel in hopes of catching the 4:45 coach to the start line. If not, there was a bus at 5:15, and an absolute last chance bus on 5:30. It was a fifteen minute walk over to the race hotel, actually a pretty good warmup, and I managed to get a seat on the first bus.

The weather was pretty freezing before the race. It was windy, pretty much par for the course as far as Hobart is concerned, and it looked like it was going to rain. I was loathe to check my bag too early, as I didn’t want to surrender my jacket. Man, I’m so not hardcore. Shivering out in the pre-dawn and whinging about the cold, hoping my painkillers would kick in before any possible hangover hit me (a hangover which never actually arrived, so I must have been relatively good the night before).

Before the start, I saw Cathy Freeman out by the portaloos. It was quite a treat. I thought that’d be the only chance I’d get to see her on the day, being as she was all athlete celebrity and everything. Yeah. I was kinda wrong.

I started out not very well. A little too fast, and I could tell it was too fast for me, but my GPS told me I was right on pace. So I felt like that was a fail, straight off the bat. I didn’t expect that I’d make it the whole way. I settled down into 6 minute kilometres, and told myself that I’d reassess a couple of kilometres down the road. My knees started to hurt. My shins started to ache. And I hadn’t even done the first two laps of the Cadbury estate yet, let alone started down the long out-and-back loop.

That really sucked.

I got an early second wind at about 3 kilometres, when the race announcer suddenly called out “And it’s Frankenberger! Frankenberger?”

I smiled and nodded at the guy, because he seemed a little confused. I’d forgotten for a moment that I was wearing my moniker emblazoned on my bib, like an elite. It gave me a little shock to hear someone call it out.

“Frankenberger. Okay then. Way to go, Frankenberger.” He said, after my confirmation. I don’t know why he was so befuddled by my name. It is actually a real surname, after all.

I coasted high on the wave of my own awesomeness for a while after that, mostly because I was heading downhill. A couple of water stops passed me by, I poured some water on my head, and my legs eased up on the niggles.

Then, about 12km in, after walking through a water stop, I saw a lady I’d met before the race and decided to pick up the pace a little to catch up with her and have a chat. Ran alongside her for two kilometres or so before I noticed that an awful lot of people were giving cheers and encouragements. I didn’t really think they were calling out to me. When someone said “Go Cathy!” I turned my head and realised that we’d been running right in front of Cathy Freeman for some time. And I’d overtaken her after the water stop.

That’s something kinda cool. It sort of fell apart later as I had to take a bathroom break, but it was definitely an experience, and the first 20 kilometres were pretty dang fast because I wanted to stay ahead of the olympian. So sue me. I’m silly.

The race went downhill in the second half, figuratively speaking (as the course tended more toward the uphill). It wasn’t so much that my lungs weren’t keeping up, but everything just started to hurt and it seemed a whole lot harder. I got a blister maybe 20 kilometres into the race, on the sole of my right foot. The sock was dragging across it, and it hurt like a bitch. Super fun-times were over.

30 kilometres in, I was pretty much done. It was windy, and cold, and I was on the verge of bonking (if not already there). Between here and the end of the race, I don’t know if I ran more than a kilometre at a time before having to take a walk break.

I do have to say one thing for the Cadbury Marathon, and that’s that the people were super nice. I chatted with a couple of folks before the race, and during the race I chatted with some more. Everyone was supportive, and awesome (apart from the girl who swore her head off at me, seriously, wtf? But I’m not going to hold it against her. She was hurting).

I’m sincerely relieved that it’s over. I didn’t run this weekend, because the lady who took the chip off my shoe at the end of the race while I sat there and sobbed told me that I could have a week off. I may run tomorrow. As much as it hurt, I can’t quite bring myself to swear off running entirely.

I’m just a glutton for punishment, aren’t I?

If I do actually run tomorrow, it’s not going to be great. I’ve been doing the Insanity workout DVDs. Lots of plyometrics. My legs won’t be very fresh.

Here, have some photos:

This is me before the race. The very face of determination. And enormous sunglasses. And horrible iPhone camera.

This is me coming into the finish. Gosh, I look happy. Probably because I know my legs won’t need to be amputated.

And this is me with my best bud. Aww. I think my face was actually frozen like that. Some sort of grim rictus. Lovely.

Welcome to Suck-Town

Heading off to Tasmania on Thursday, so I guess I should be packing my bags right now. Instead, I’m eating popcorn and watching Total Recall.

Yup. Quality time wastery. What can I say? It’s my specialty. I’ve been determinedly virtuous all year so far (7 days, a good enough record). Eating well, exercising, TV and computer off by 9, in bed by 10… But I’ve got too many worries in my head to be Little Miss Perfect tonight. In fact, I think I may well go and pour myself a gin.

I know it’s counterproductive to worry about things that you can’t change. Funnily enough, knowing that won’t help me stop. Here’s a brief summary:

1. On Saturday, I did a bunch of squats and lunges and jump squats and jumping jacks and a whole lot more of the leg-punishing variety. My legs still hurt like a bitch, and they’re still stiff. I mean… Still? Are you frigging kidding me? I did some yoga yesterday and it was seriously uncomfortable. I don’t know why my legs are still messed up.
2. The Tasmania bushfires. I don’t know what the current state of affairs is over there, but at the very least it may be smoky on race day. I hate to admit it, but for a few short minutes I hoped that the race would be cancelled so I wouldn’t have to do it. The fact that it isn’t cancelled makes me sad, and it makes me sad that it makes me sad. And so on and so forth.
3. I don’t think I trained enough. Actually, scratch that. I KNOW I didn’t train enough.

I’m going to finish my gin, and I’m going to finish this movie, and then I’m going to go and lay out all my clothes on the floor and try to figure out what I’ll be wearing in Tasmania. Then I’m going to find my e-book reader charger. If I had a cigarette, then I’d probably smoke it. But I don’t have any cigarettes, and that wouldn’t be very good for my running ability in any case.

Maybe when I’m packing, I’ll start to get excited about the trip.

Maybe I’ll become so overcome by the minutiae of packing and unpacking and checking and repacking, and unpacking again and checking then finally repacking that I’ll stop panicking about the race and fall asleep from exhaustion.

Earlier, Jetstar tried to tell me that my flight on Thursday was cancelled, even though it actually wasn’t (as determined in a hysterical phone call to a lovely young fellow in the call centre). I’ve had enough of this stress for one evening. I think the movie is about done, so I’d better get my butt into gear.

Guh. Not sure why I do this to myself. Would someone please remind me?

Hippo Nao Yarr

So… Ah… I’ve been drinking a lot of water lately.

So that’s awesome.

Need to pee a lot, but I guess you get that when you drink a bunch of water. My new boss must think I’m a lazy bitch, as I spent a lot of today either eating (just fruit and stuff) or getting more water, or going to the bathroom.

I drank like three litres today. Maybe.

…

Where the fuck did December go, by the way? I was rocking my way through November, and then bam, just like that, it was happy new year time and drinking and smoking and eating and being all chubby and shit and I can swear someone stole the last month of my life.

I’m getting my act together, but being healthy is going to suck balls for a really long while until I get back in the zone. The sad part is that I don’t have enough time to get into the zone before the Cadbury Marathon in a week and a half. I need to be more positive about it, probably, but I’m fairly sure I’m gonna be in a world of hurt. Re-reading my entry about last year’s Cadbury Half, I’m only sure of one thing - the need to sunscreen the top of my head. I wish I were more verbose about my race summary posts, if only as a reminder of how sucky a particular event was. If that’s all I managed to take out of it, it wasn’t particularly useful.

That reminds me. I need to buy sunscreen.

You know what I really want right now? The freedom to run without being in training for something. I’d love to just wake up in the morning and be all “I’ma gonna run 20km!” rather than waking up and groaning and whinging about having to run 20km.

Ah well, I guess Tasmania is gonna be fun. I like Hobart. It’s a pretty town.

Getting festive all up in here

It’s been a great week. Ran at lunchtime on Monday, Thursday, and actually managed a long run yesterday.

When I woke up on Saturday morning (late, I might add, although that’s not entirely surprising) I was telling myself that I was only going out there for a ten kilometre stagger. I had a race coming up, so why should I murder myself with a long one? That idea didn’t even last me out the door. If I was really planning on only doing ten kilometres, then why did I take water and nutrition with me?

It was a warm morning, but not too warm heading out at 7:00am. My legs were feeling fine, and the jog out to Lake Ginninderra was fairly uneventful. If I’d have been ten minutes earlier to the lake I would have considered joining the Parkrun crowd, but I didn’t have my barcode with me so I wouldn’t have gotten a time. As it was, I kept pace with the pack up around the lake and when they turned back, I just kept on going. When I got to the skate park at the other end of the lake, I turned back. Fifteen kilometres down, and just another fifteen kilometres back home.

Out and back routes are great for motivation, especially if there aren’t any buses nearby, because you pretty much have to run the whole way back. You don’t realise how hard it’s going to be and chicken out, because you’re not actually going to get tired until at least the halfway point.

Well, things were really starting to fall apart at the halfway point, but I pushed through. It was getting steadily hotter as I went. I was really hating it, and my feet felt weird (probably due to the epic blisters, but I didn’t find those until later). I got my second wind, but it never got fun again. Took a quick bathroom break at the twenty kilometre mark, and caught up with an old work friend who was there to do some fishing. That little respite helped me get back on the road with a little more pep, but like I said, I wasn’t having a super duper time.

I made it home in 3:20:49 for the thirty kilometres. Not a world record or anything, but the fact I managed it at all was a big relief. I’m keenly aware of how close I am to the marathon in January, and how few long long runs I’ve done.

I did make a pretty good discovery, though. I brought these gel chewy energy things along, I think Powerbar makes them, and they’re quite a tasty alternative to gels. One pack lasted me the whole thirty kms. Only thing is that it’s hard to chew when I’m running, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a walk break or two.

Oh, and I even stretched. Just to make sure I could actually walk, let alone run, for the fun run this morning.

So… The Santa fun run. Freaking hilarious. I didn’t know how hard it was to try to crack 30 minutes on a 5 km race while wearing a synthetic material santa suit complete with furry beard. Now I do. It’s pretty hard. We managed it, according to my GPS which tells me the race was actually closer to 5.5 km. Me and my pal Dina ran together, and although I thought I was trying to motivate her to keep running I realise that she was mostly excellent at motivating me to keep running. If I’d have done this run alone, I don’t know if I could have kept the pace up so long. After yesterday’s run, and given the costume, and my screaming headache… Yeah. Definitely an experience, but probably an experience better suited to the northern hemisphere Christmas.

The total menu:

Custard flavoured slime for breakfast.

Kilometres for lunch.

Bruised kidneys for dinner.

Delicious.

I bought this custard-style yoghurt mix, and I had some this morning. Yep. Slime. Tasty. Anyways…

Today I decided I wanted to go for a run at lunchtime. I’ve never actually done that while I’ve been at this job. Gym, maybe. But outdoor running? Nope. I put on my gear and got out on the road, turned around at about 20 minutes and went back the other way. Ended up doing 7 kilometres, which is a pretty good deal for a lunch break. Only issue I had was that I started sweating as soon as I walked back in the building and thanks to my rank running hat (which seriously needs a wash if I ever remember to wash it) I absolutely reeked of sweat. Realised I’d forgotten my towel, so showering was out of the question. I ended up spraying myself with copious amounts of deodorant and went back to work, somewhat more frizzy and afro-fabulous than I had been prior to the break. But it’s all good. I didn’t have anyone to impress, and nowhere important to be.

After my good effort at lunch time, I went to get a massage after work. Made the mistake of telling the girl that I was after ‘pretty hard’ pressure. Ow. I swear, one of these days I’ll stop being such a masochist. It was good fun, but there were eyes-rolling-back, teeth-clenching moments of pure back agony mixed in with the therapeutic stuff. Sitting on my back, going apeshit with her entire arms all at once… We’re talking a direct assault on my kidneys with her bony-ass elbows. Dear god, maybe I should take up wrestling, if this is the kind of shit I do for fun.

She really loosened up my shoulders, so I guess it’s mission achieved.

I didn’t do a long run on the weekend, because I was still feeling shit. Thursday, Friday and to a certain extent Saturday morning. Bad cramps. I guess it happens occasionally. I don’t know how I’m going to swing a long run on Saturday given that I have the Santa fun run on Sunday, but I’ll find a way. Maybe just an easy 20km. That won’t knock me back too far.

Pity party

Wah. I feel like crap. Think I need to curl up in bed and sob. Bad stomach cramps. I get those sometimes. When I stop feeling sorry for myself, I can start feeling proud that I actually managed to get out there this evening and run about seven and a half kilometres (or thereabouts) whilst in horrible pain and feeling like I wanted to stab someone so they could feel my pain too.

I got my santa suit for the Variety Santa Fun Run on Tuesday. Took a bus ride out to Fyshwick to pick it up even though I know I could just get it on the day of the race. I wanted to try it on beforehand, though. Forewarned is forearmed. Forearmed? Like, with forearms. Or with four arms. That’d be useful. I could paint myself gold and run around pretending to be a vengeful god. Then I could stab people.

Uh, what was I saying? I’m really not a psychopath, usually. I’m just distracted.

Anyway, yeah. Santa suit. It’s hard to describe. It’s a thin sort of fabric, so it probably won’t get too hot. It is however immensely huge. The pants (or should I say shorts) have a drawstring so that’s not really a problem, but the jacket is enormous and even with the belt it looks ridiculous. I love it. It’s overwhelmingly tacky and magnificent. If I was in the mood (and I’m definitely not) I would dress up in the suit and dance around until my pants fell down. I did that once, as soon as I got the suit home. It’s a definite mood-lifter. Running in the suit is going to be a real experience. Not this Sunday, but the Sunday after it. I anticipate potent awesomeness.

Run this evening was good. It felt a little slow even though it definitely wasn’t. I’m starting to get a little concerned about my knees, as they’re not recovering from each run as well as they used to. This may be down to the greatly increased weekly mileage. Not sure. I’ll keep my eye on the situation. Maybe I should be considering new shoes after all.

Hi Ho

My week and a bit of holidays is up as of tomorrow morning. I guess it’s back to the rat race with me.

But I don’t want to race rats.

They smell, and they bite, and they carry the bubonic plague. Well, some of them did.

I’m going to be all petty and pouty about this. I know my holiday wasn’t nearly as full-on or hardcore as I intended it to be. I’m fairly sure I’m no more ripped than I was going in. I blame all the cheese. But I did do some cool things.

I ran more kilometres during my holidays than I had done in the entire last month. That’s gotta be worth something. At the very least, surely I’m on track for the marathon in January.

On Friday I did my long run, as I didn’t expect to be able to run on Saturday or Sunday. I was reminded once again that at this level of training, the battle is mostly mental. The physical aspect only kicks in at the end.

I got out of bed with great difficulty, as I was full into holiday mode. But I got up at around 6:15 or thereabouts, the sun shining insistently through my window. I did all the usual pre-run things like dressing (as running naked down the road doesn’t appeal to anyone, let alone myself) and bathroom stuff (my digestive system takes it personally when I wake up early to run, and it isn’t into peaceful protests). By the time I stepped out the door, the sky was grey and full of clouds, and rain was bucketing down. Ever so slightly let down and miserable at the prospect of running in the freezing cold rain - and it was freezing, I checked - in my tank top and stretchy shorts, I turned tail and went back up the stairs.

Part of me wanted to take this as a sign from the gods that I really should go running some other time. Part of me wanted to rip off my stretchy pants and fall back into bed. But I didn’t. I actually spoke to myself at this point. “Get your jacket, get your gloves and get back out there, you stupid bitch.”

And I did. I put on my hoodie and a pair of fingerless gloves (because I’m apparently Rocky Balboa), but no beanie (because I may be Rocky but it’s not the middle of winter). I went out the door and I started running.

About a kilometre later the rain stopped and the sun came out, and it proceeded to be quite warm and rather humid, which was a shame because I had to run for the next three hours or so with a hoodie tied around my waist. This just goes to show that I should have braved the weather to begin with and quit whinging about a little bit of rain.

I was going to aim for twelve and a half kilometres before turning around and going back the other way for a total of 25 kilometres. I got distracted at the halfway point by the prospect of water (as I didn’t bring any water or nutrition along for the run. Probably a bad idea, in hindsight) and I didn’t turn around until my GPS was reading 13 kilometres. Turns out that the GPS was buggy, because I only ended up with a run of 25.5 kilometres. Not that I’m complaining. That’s pretty awesome.

It got pretty hard in the last half because I hadn’t eaten and my muscles were starting to notice, but I kept getting little bursts of adrenaline which kept me going. All in all, I’m quite happy with that long run. It even had a few of those OMG THE WORLD IS AWESOME, I’M AWESOME AND I LOVE EVERYTHING moments, which are always welcome on a long run.

I did another run this morning. Just a simple 10 kilometres. Nothing too flash, but I’m glad I got out there. The real trial is going to be keeping my momentum now that I’m going to be back at work again. I just have to think about Tasmania, and January, and a great big purple floating block of chocolate.

What? That doesn’t even make sense.

Don’t care. PURPLE FLOATING BLOCK OF CHOCOLATE!

I think it’s probably time for bed now. I’m planning to do a little bit of hulking out in the morning before heading to work.

Operation Smoking Hot

I’m currently on a week and a half of leave, as I’ve just finished a major project at work and I’m soon going to start another job. You know what this means? Hooray! Let’s work out!

I don’t have any plans to travel, and I don’t want to waste my time being all lazy. This plan really appealed to me. I get to work out hard every day, and really push my limitations. I’m being full-on masochistic about this. Cardio until my heart rate crashes through the roof, resistance training to collapse. I got myself a copy of the Insanity workout DVDs, and boy are they a good workout. Plyometric stuff just kills me, but it’s gotta be doing me good. By next Tuesday I hope to have achieved some visible results, but I don’t expect anything dramatic. Especially since the original plan also involved a drastic diet, which I decided was a terrible idea. Then I bought cheese. I’m currently eating said cheese with crackers, and drinking a nice chilled Sauvignon Blanc. But my biceps look great, and my abs are pretty fantastic.

On the running front, I’m actually doing quite well at the moment. I had a bad couple of weeks, which got me down (and stopped me from writing sooner), but I did a nice 20km run on Saturday so I know I’m still in the game. The run was fast, easy and verging on fun. There’s a song I’ve been playing recently, guaranteed to deliver that endorphin rush I sorely need at the 18km mark.

Yesterday I ran a slightly slower but still fun 10km. It was a bit on the warm side because I couldn’t drag myself from sleep early enough. 8:00 or thereabouts, but the sweat started pouring almost as soon as I stepped out the door. Yep, definitely need to start waking up earlier. Tomorrow morning I'm going to get up at the crack of dawn and do 20km. Won't be fast and probably won't be easy but I feel the need.

In other news, I signed up for a charity Santa Fun Run at the end of November, the entry fee for which actually includes a santa suit to wear for the run. Awesomeness. I’m really looking forward to this one, if for the exciting new Facebook profile photo alone. I think it’s going to be a great day. Anyone who has a spare $25 and a hankering to do a dash as the jolly fat man should come along.