Core blimey

guv'nor, that's not a very original pun...but I have been indulging in a regular* stretching and core strengthening programme, courtesy of a DVD presented by an Aussie woman named Sherelle...or LeAnni...or one of those New Age names. I read an article recently that claims that your memory starts to deteriorate in your mid forties; I would post you a link, but I can't remember where I saw it...

The DVD is called Yogalates and is, unsurprisingly, a combination of swimming and kite-surfing. They are two activities that, in the comfort of one's own lounge, mostly involve stretches and core work. Leonora (or whatever her name is) is one of those incredibly flexible, yet irritating, people, who have you bending into positions you've not been able to explore since puberty hit and your bones calcified; you, sweating, panting, shaking, hurting; she, comfortable, relaxed, talking in one of those singsong voices that  grown-ups use to small children.

She makes manifold interesting statements during the DVD; 'feel where the breath is moving in your body' (my lungs, mostly); 'keep breathing' (world-class advice); 'this exercise will aid your digestion' (that's a euphemism for 'make you fart a lot' right?)...but it is, amazingly, starting to work. My heels are getting alarmingly close to the floor during downward-facing dog; my 'warrior' is looking more warlike; I almost know my 'balasana' from my elbow. My hips are feeling looser, I'm sitting up taller and I've survived a fifty mile week unscathed.

So is it making any difference to the quality of my running? Absolutely no idea, but I'm going to stick with LaRochelle and her strange contortions for the duration and see what happens.


* remember, regular doesn't mean the same as frequent; Halley's Comet is pretty regular at once every 76 years.

Bad science

I'd like to endorse my new 'Chocolate Biscuit Diet', possibly the most exciting concept in weightloss since fat people were invented.

On New Year's Day, I had a large lunch (beef, Yorkshire puds, the works and very nice it was too) then ate nothing but chocolate biscuits (and drank tea and water) for the next 24 hours.

I weighed myself before bed on NYD and came in at a whopping (sorry, too much tabloid TV) 12st 13.5lb. In metric, that's about as much as a small island off the Scottish coast.

Having been for a run the following morning (after chocolate biscuits for breakfast) I weighed in again (same scales, same spot on the floor) at 12st 9.25lb (in metric, about as much as Rockall) an immense reduction of 4.25lb (one of the Inner Hebrides) in a day! I owe it all to chocolate biscuits.

Send me a one-off fee of £9.99 (or local equivalent) and I'll tell you which brand of chocolate biscuits I ate; send me an extra £19.99 (or local equivalent) and I'll even send you a box.

Now that's bad science.

The most stressful job I ever had...

...was working as a forensic archaeologist for the United Nations. Once we thought we'd found the mass grave of a thousand snowmen, but it turned out to be a field of carrots.

'Now how on Earth is he going to make that relevant?' you ask yourself. Well, it's just that sometimes I make things more complicated than they need to be. My mass grave of snowmen is my attempts to run certain mileages at certain heartrates; my field of carrots is that all I need to be doing is running more than I was doing at an easy pace. This has enabled me to spend some of my holiday running time being outdoors with Squish (aka "The Wife", a name acquired in the world's most convoluted in-joke) and not stressing about the numbers.

Of course, it's also left me 16 miles short of my thousand for the year, but I'm not worried, honest! Next year, if I don't break myself,  I should pass 1000 miles before the end of June...

All that remains is for me to wish you all a happy 2012...and success in whatever challenges you undertake.

Cheers!

"It's all going really well!"...

...as they said on the Titanic about halfway.

I have succumbed to a cold; obviously I'm being frightfully brave and stiff-upper-lipped about it; it was really MANFLU and was positively ghastly.

I've missed over a week of training; I managed to get out for six miles today, but it wasn't pretty; the only good news is that I wasn't as bad as when I first started training.

Back to the drawing board, as this signwriter obviously never said:

I am determined that you all should be outraged by this picture.

In other news, I see that Eldrick Woods (interestingly an anagram of 'do 'er slow, dick') is growing a goatee; the razor becons for Mr. Hamster...

Time for a spot of dirty fun

Last Sunday was the Sodbury Slog, 9 miles or so of extreme squelchery with a little running thrown in for good measure.

It wasn't the muddiest of years, but it was enough to be entertaining. I'm not so sad as to have run it on heart rate, but an average of 154 was pretty good. The sun shone, the temperature was clement, the queues at the signature obstacles were minimal, the showers were cold...and the pizza and company afterwards were excellent.

Two Pirates in a bar; one says to the other 'your round'; the other replies 'so are you, you fat bastard!'...1/4lb off this week, still looking a little rotund in the photo. Pace for HR is improving though; 2:10 off my 10k cross-country route, meaning I've taken almost 11 minutes off since the end of September.

Base training is still working and I'm on course for being as good as I was by Christmas.



Not that my blog has a Dave obsession...

Just thought I'd share this with all Daves out there. More power to your, er, elbow.

Just a minute...

A bloke walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder.
'A pint of lager for me and a half for Tiny, please' he says, pointing to the newt.
'Why do you call him Tiny?' asks the barman
'Because he's my newt.'

And that's the snag with all this heartrate-based training; the improvements from day to day are minute...so it's good to look back through the training log to see if things are getting better.

Today I ran just under seven miles cross country at an average HR of 147 for 10:39 min miling; five weeks ago, I ran the easier 6.25 mile version of the same route (it includes a short road section rather than a longer off-road route) at an average HR of 150 for 11:42 min miling.

63 seconds a mile faster for an average HR 3 BPM lower in 5 weeks; I'm pleased to report that training still works.