Thursday 28 February 2013

I Did It

So I finally completed my morning circuit. 2.3 miles took me 20 mins. Much better than I have been doing but still a long way to go. Running this route from 8.30 on a weekday is not really that good an idea though, spent a fair few minutes waiting at traffic lights.

So that's my first obstacle out the way, i have been really struggling with completing the hill around the 1.8 miles mark but persistence paid off and I got all the way up it before having to wait at the traffic lights. Even with the stopping for traffic I still did it at a much faster pace to a few weeks ago, Maybe it helped.

In other related news I am starting to climb 3 times a week and do Yoga following a youtube video twice a week. So if anyone wants to come climbing on a Saturday or Monday morning (about 11 till 2) let me know, would be great if you could join me. I will continue to climb from 2-5 on a Thursday. My post climbing training is still involving weighted pull ups, I'm currently doing 4 reps at 20kg so not even half way to the 10 i want to be doing. but am slowly getting there. I may try reducing the rest time between sets on one of my climbing days.

The plan. Well you can see the plan for Climbing above. The running plan is to do the same circuit i have been doing on a Saturday and Sunday morning and get a longer route for my Tuesday and Thursday runs, one that doesn't involve crossing large roads at rush hour.

My original training plan was for flexibility to be my focus over these last few weeks, and this ends on saturday changing to a core focused training plan. Instead I am going to be doing more Yoga for at least a few weeks, and probably a month. After that we will see where to take it.

Tuesday 19 February 2013

I'm soo unfit

Didn't really want to post more than one blog a week but wanted to write about this.

psudo science time, not sure how accurate this is, hopefully someone who knows more about it can correct it  for me

So basically I've started running on a morning. Aiming for 4 times a week on a Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. I've got a short route I've been doing before breakfast. 2.3 miles, not far but its a start I guess. But now the problem and looking at ways to solve it. So Saturday, as I've posted before i ran 1.8 miles of the route. following that Sunday I did 2 miles, and I was thinking great, an improvement. This morning, same route, back to 1.8 miles. Grr. Doing cardio you'd expect it to be really working my cardio vascular Systems,  But instead its lactic acid build up in my calves that seems to be the problem. I'm running slow, to the point where when i decided to stop running and walk I was running slower up Blacker road than my usual walking speed. Hills are really hard. So now to my possibly bad science Theory. My lungs and Heart aren't feeling taxed, so I must be taking in enough oxygen for what my body feels it needs. My legs are building a lot of lactic acid though, so my cells are performing anaerobic respiration. This could mean my cells don't have enough mitochondria to produce the energy, or it could mean i need better blood supply to my slow twitch muscle fibers. Or it may be none of the above.

Solving the problem. My plan is to do hill Sprints. I'm going to use a field fairly close to my house which is about 150m long and fairly steep. Running up the hill and walking down. Hopefully this will not only get me better at buffering lactic acid, but faster at running as well.

Feel free to comment either on here or on facebook if you have any better ways of doing this.

Saturday 16 February 2013

Guess Who's Back

Erg, Hate been ill

Hey Guys, not posted in a while because I've not been training. Had a really bad week of just feeling blerg, but Thursday i felt kinda better and went climbing again. Did some really fun routes, some involving leaping across a room and many just focusing entirely on upper body strength over actual climbing skill.

BIG NEWS

I actually went running.
I Know Right.
And the best thing is I actually Enjoyed it. Ok so i'm still rubbish and only managed 1.6 Miles, but that's 1/4 of the distance i'm needing to do for Total Warrior. I made sure I included the steepest hill near me so this hopefully makes things better.
Including the slow walk back home after the 1.6 miles I spent 30 mins on the road, so was probably running for about 20 mins so will have been averaging 4.8 mph, wow i can walk at that speed. that's slower than a 12 minute mile.

My feeling after my run, Great, my calves were hurting running up the steep hill which in the end caused me to stop, and part way round i had slight discomfort in what seemed like the right part of my diaphragm. But that soon faded and other than that i had no breathing trouble and my heart didn't seem to be beating very hard

In a few weeks i may even put a battery into my heart rate monitor and really start to see where I stand, but for now i'll stick to enjoying the roads.

Till next time

Matt. x

UPDATE

so i just went back onto google maps and it was 1.8 miles not 1.6
again estimating it took 20 mins that would mean im 5.4 mph and a 11 min mile :) happier now

Thursday 31 January 2013

Good Training day after a Lazy week


First real day of training since I started this. I have been stretching a bit since Saturday and this showed when i did press ups without pain in my wrists for the first time in ages. But really I haven't trained much at all until today

The day was supposed to start with a cycle to Soweby Bridge, not sure what the distance is from my house but it ain't far, probably just under 10 miles. Unfortunatly it seems that my bike needed some TLC, he really wasn't liking me riding him today. So plan B, get a bus to Halifax Hospital and run the remaining 2.4 miles to Soweby. This also didn't go so well, running is hard, really hard. I feel it was made harder by having my climbing gear in a bag on my back, I think I maybe ran a mile of it, but not all in one go.

Later I went climbing, the session seemed OK and i felt i made some progress on routes I'd been struggling with the previous weeks, and ending up in the climbing gym is always fun, I was previously trying to add 2.5kg to weighted pull ups every time I got to 10 reps of the previous weight, but last week when doing 12.5kg at about 6 reps i decided I'd try and see if I could get any reps at 20kg. I got one, but that was me sold, 20kg is the weight that I'm aiming to get, and so this week upon entering the gym this is what I started with, 2 reps, (i tried to claim 3 but the last rep was not a real rep at all) then 2 more after a rest followed by a single rep. There's improvement. This was followed by some swinging along the chin up bar moving hands along both in a controlled and uncontrolled manner and an attempt at doing a Push up with Luke on my back. Didn't happen, but my wrists didn't hurt, the little stretching I've done over the last few days seems to be paying dividends already. Then into stretching, Trying to stretch every Skeletal muscle from head to foot. Spent at least half an hour on that, should probably time it better next time.

I'm currently looking at doing a bit of Yoga or Pilates for a couple of weeks to really push on this flexibility if anyone is interested in joining me. Will be doing it somewhere in the Huddersfield area.

Week 1 Day 6, Walking and running 2.4 miles with backpack
                         Climbing
                         2,2,1 x 20kg pullups
                        Stretching

Saturday 26 January 2013

Why did i sign up to this

So today makes the start of my training for Total Warrior. A 10k obstacle coarse over walls, hill and tires, through mud, rivers, more tires, fire and electrified wires. It's advertised as "the toughest 10k and 10 miles on earth" and for some reason on the Thursday just gone I signed up to go with a team from Rokt Climbing Gym. If I'd have known exactly what i was getting myself into on Thursday i may not have signed up. but having an attractive receptionist behind the counter encouraging me  to sign up probably gave me that extra push i needed to do it. I picked up the pen and wrote my name down.

So this is going to be fun, in about 26 weeks I will be running around the Lake District, torturing my body in what I'm trying to convince my self will be enjoyable experience. This blog is really not a blog at all, its my training diary getting ready for the pain that is to come. It's my way of having a record of how my training's going and thought, why not, ill put it out there for the world to see.

As people reading this may be thinking "who is this guy," although if you are reading this and don't know me im sorry that your Google search led you to this site. So Here's give you a brief run down. My names Matthew Pape, I'm 26 and Live in Huddersfield. I currently work in a brilliant chip shop in marsh which although may not seem like the best of jobs, my colleagues are amazing and the customers are generally great too. When I'm not at work I spend my time going to Church including helping to run a youth group and playing Bass Guitar in worship. I also love to play computer games, currently i'm spending allot of time on Starcraft 2. And fitness wise I'd say I'm a fitness geek. I love to learn about the workings of the human body, and will read Men's Fitness every time a new one comes out. On top of this I occasionally buy a Science book such as "The Biochemical Basis of Sports Performance" and "Human Nutrition." I find it all fascinating. The problem is, I never really put what i read into practice. Sure for the last 3 months I've been climbing once a week at Rokt and climbing much more sporadically before then, and cycling is my preferred method of transport but i hate getting cold toes so haven't really done that in a while. So this brings us to running, the main obstacle I'm going to have to get past fro Total Warrior is not the Fire pits, the 7 foot high walls or the Electrified Wires ill have to run through, but rather the running itself. So running will take up the bulk of my training in the next 26 weeks. OK 26 weeks may seem like a long time but I really want to be the best I possibly can come race day. This is how i Propose to do it

26th January - 1st March, Flexibility Training. Like stated above most of my time will be running, but as well as that i want to give focus on flexibility for the first 5 weeks of my plan. Years of going to the gym and climbing without caring about stretching has left the range of motion in a lot of my joints far smaller than it really should be, this actually means that when doing a press up i get pain in my wrists because they just don't want to bend that way. Flexibility is much better in other areas, for example i can touch my toes, and although i would be able to complete Total warrior without training flexibility, it seems stupid of me to not try and fix it as part of this.

2nd March - 29th of March, Core Training. Whilst keeping up with my running and flexibility i will be doing body weight circuits for 4 weeks. Ill be using a plan from Men's Fitness for this and is really good because its designed to be beneficial to people of all abilities as it works around how many you can do in an allotted time. So if you can for example do 30 press ups in 40 seconds or can only do 5, you are taxing your body either way due to the speed you do them.

30th March - 10th May, Strength Training. Gym work will probably take up the majority of this training, Squats, Dead Lifts, Lunges, Weighted Pull Ups, Dips, Bench Press, Shoulder Press, Bent Over Row and Planks will take up the majority of the gym work. I have am also playing with the idea of running whilst pulling weight behind me, this will hopefully help in the dreaded energy sapping mud pits.

11th May - 3rd August, Total Warriors training plan. a 12 week plan on their website that i will use as a guide for my training. having already spent around 14 weeks training prior to this i am hoping to be able to step what they're suggesting up a notch, but time will tell really

And so on to today, It was snowing and I was going to meet my mate, i decided to run. She lives just over a mile away from me but as i walked some of the way there i probably did 2 miles in total. It's a start, but its not far and was separated by a few hours spent with her. I also did a bit of stretching of my wrists by placing my hands together and pushing them towards my stomach. A long way to go but it felt really good.

Day 1, 1 mile run x2 untimed
           Light Stretching

Links

Rokt Climbing Gym http://www.rokt.co.uk/
Total Warrior http://www.totalwarrior.co.uk/
Men's Fitness http://www.mensfitness.co.uk/