Still kicking around

Hey there

I posted a while ago that I hadn’t been updating much because I was too busy doing it to write about it, well, that still stands. By the time I’ve crammed everything into my day, all around the rather tedious requirement to spend 8 hours a day 5 days of the week in the office then I am pretty much stuffed and not of a mind to chat.

So, well, running I’ll admit has been pretty hit and miss, mostly miss really, I get in about two runs a week, three if I am lucky and I’ve not cracked 10km yet Why? Well, because if I have the choice between knocking out a 38km commute to work and a 26km commute home or a short run, well, the ride is winning right now. Also if the weather is warm it is easier to head out for a ride than to flog myself on a run.

The way it stands I don’t have any running goals at the moment and don’t really need to be hitting my straps until the winter aths season starts. At the moment I am quite content having cycling as a summer activity and giving way to running as the days get cooler. My mind is at peace with this arrangement so I am not going to fight it. I have entered the Sunset series for the first time in years though, that will be 3 8km runs on a Wednesday night through February and March.

I have some good long rides in the lead up to the 120km Amy’s Ride on the 2nd of January. I am going to ride with Andrew which I am quite looking forward to, we ran Run for the Kids together a few years ago so it will be cool to have a ride together too.

I’d been dreaming up a nice long loop that would cover about 95km from home, via Beach Road and the Dandy Creek/Eastlink Trail. Given that work is a bit slow at this time of year I decided to try some of it out yesterday. I backtracked from home to pick up the Eastlink Trail, I followed this to Carrum (apart from a stupid detour that I don’t want to talk about that added 7km to my journey and wasted time, if I didn’t have my iPhone and GPS I’d probably still be wandering around Dandenong, yikes!), then I picked up Station St to Beach road etc etc until I got to the city, it was 87km all up, the morning was fab and it was a mighty nice way to start the day.

Today was a 6km run in the morning, 26km cycle home and then an arm workout, I barely have the energy to type this post now.

The arm workout was the last of my 12 week program, yipeee!!

I am so pleased with my progress, my arms in particular have responded really well. They are not wussy little sticks any more, they are strong, I made great gains with the weights I can lift and my whole upper body has developed some great definition.

My legs, hmm, well they are nice and strong and I made some big gains there with what I can lift, although definition is lacking. That’s a no brainer, it’s simply a body fat thing, that’s just an honest assessment, not a “oh woe is me, I am so fat boo hoo” insecure thing.

TOH is writing up a new 12 week program for me to start in the new year, I am going to take a couple of days off now and then get stuck back in. I’ll be cleaning up the diet again after going off the rails a little bit over December. I am bored of hating my legs so there will be a big focus in the next 12 weeks on dropping some body fat and bringing out some definition Vain? sure, so what, I like the weight training and goals help.

New Approach – The Verdict

Probably a little too soon to start drawing conclusions, however early data points to a fair degree of success for my new approach to cross training through injury.

Or

Why deep water running can kiss my arse.

I’ve only been back running a month and am technically still in the run/walk section of rehab, albeit coming to the end of it and I haven’t done any speedwork for 3 months.

So on Sunday I set out to run 5km with no break, I should be on something like run 15 minutes, stop, stretch, run another 15 minutes. But frankly I wasn’t stopping and stretching in the middle of a fun run and up until now I’ve been pretty conservative with the rehab stuff. I am allowed a run every second day but I’ve often gone two days without a run, opting for HIIT or riding to and from work instead.

Given that I was pretty comfortable with just going out yesterday and running 5km with no break. No racing flats and no illusions of grandeur, just a nice comfortable 5km trot, I even wore an iPod!
I surprised myself with a 4:44 over the first km, didn’t feel like I was running that pace but I did have a pretty wicked tailwind to help me along, oh well, I was about to turn into the headwind, that’ll slow me down.

Didn’t really pay attention to my watch after that, shuffle was on fire and giving me some great tunes so I lost myself in the music and just kept running comfortably.
Crossing the finish line I looked up and saw the clock, 24:16 (official time 24:13), flipping ‘eck, I was going to be happy if I finished around 28 minutes! That’s not even my slowest showing in the 5 years I’ve been running this event!

It was certainly better than anything I could have managed a month after starting to run again after the last two stress fracture layoffs where I cross trained with deep water running and a bit of cycling on the windtrainer.

DWR has its place and if the type of injury you have leaves you no choice but to head for the pool then it is certainly better than nothing. However to maintain cardiovascular fitness and for all round strength it seems outdoor cycling combined with a good strength program and HIIT on the exercise bike was a much better option for me. The view is heaps better too!

So, to the strength training, it was a big weekend and I slept well on Sunday night.
Saturday was chest, shoulders and back and Sunday was legs, I managed to make some small gains both days over the same session last week.

I rode to work today, so it goes I shall be riding home too, that gives me over 50km on the bike for the day.

I’ve been talked into some spin class word record attempt thingy tomorrow, I have absolutely no idea what we are doing or what the record attempt is, just that the entry fee goes to charity and it’s a darn sight less painful than wearing a 10 pound beard of bees so I am in, so, just going with the flow on that one, although I am currently in denial about the fact that I have to be there tomorrow morning before the sparrows start farting, 4:30am, Jaysus, they will have to tie me to the bike so I don’t fall off.

Pumpkin and Chickpea Stew

I had some pumpkin in the fridge left over from earlier this week, didn’t feel like soup, so I tried something from River Cottage Veg Everyday

This is the North African Pumpkin and Chickpea Stew, the recipe in the book was to serve 6, I halved it and still had plenty for tea with some left over for tomorrow – this is the halved recipe

2 tbsp olive oil
1 brown onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
50 g red lentils
1/2 400 g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed (just freeze the other half in a zip lock bag for something else)
250ml passata
Pinch of saffron threads
Bay leaf
Handful of parsley, chopped
Handful of coriander, chopped
150 g squash or pumpkin. I used butternut because it’s what I had.
25gm rissoni pasta
600ml veg stock

Method

Heat oil and fry onions over a medium heat until just softened.

Turn heat to low and add the garlic, celery, pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger and sautee for a couple of minutes.

Add the saffron, lentils, chickpeas, passata, parsley and 1/2 the coriander. Cook for about 10 minutes.

Peel and de-seed the squash and cut in to cubes. Add to pan with the stock and bay leaf, simmer covered for about 20 minutes then add the rissoni and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Serve with some greek yoghurt, toasted slivered almonds, the rest of the coriander and the carb of your choice.

Don’t forget to take the bay leaf out!

Carbs
Quinoa – one of the only none animal sources of complete protein
Cous cous
Brown rice
Flat breads

My carb of choice at the moment is home made flatbread, really easy to make and you can use your imagination. I do a lot of my cooking by instinct so I’ll try to be reasonably precise with my description, mostly for me it’s go with the flow

1 1/2 cups of wholemeal Atta flour (you can get this with the other flours at the supermarket)
1 tablespoon of greek yoghurt
Pinch of salt
Teaspoon of Nigella seeds
A little slurp of vegetable oil
Water (can’t be exact just play it by ear)

Mix by hand in a bowl until it all comes together then knead for a few minutes until you have a soft dough, wrap in glad wrap and sit for 30 minutes.

Divide into 4 balls, roll out until about 10cm in diameter and cut roughly from the middle to the edge and roll into a cone, squish into a round again and roll out quite thin, this helps create some layers when the bread is cooking.

Lightly oil a fry pan and cook for a couple of minutes on each side

Voila!

The stew was fabulous by the way

Next time I am going to whack in a fresh red chilli and some preserved lemon.

Just popping in

Phew, been too busy getting on with getting on to write about it.

Strength training is going really well, I’ve moved into a new 3 week block which has bought with it a whole new set of DOMS. I’ve made some great gains and have been able to lift more than I did in the previous block and am constantly fascinated by the changes in my body.

Muscles are good, I love feeling strong

Running is coming along. I did 7 minutes run with 1 minute walk by 4 this morning, 28 minutes of running and 32 minutes all up covering exactly 6km.

I’ve got a 5km fun run on Sunday morning and I am going to treat myself and run the whole thing, gently, ’tis ok, I am aware of my limitations.

Still riding the bike as well.

With all that you can see that by the time I sit down at night I am too stuffed to blog.