Category Archives: Running

3:07

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I took a blank sheet of paper and wrote in big red digits (and a letter) 3:07 M and put it on my wall. That’s my goal for a marathon (27th July 2013). The reason it’s 3:07 is because my aunt ran a marathon in 3h 8m. I must run a faster time! Never mind that she’s a former Olympic athlete. My 7 months of training will be more than enough to beat her time 😀 (I just finished my 3rd training month, celebration time?).

Since I need to move my behind a bit faster I decided to add some speedwork to my training sessions. I did some research and introduced fartlek to my 10 and 8K runs. It’s actually something Emily told me about. She said that I should sprint from a streetlight to another one, then recover until the next streetlight and start sprinting after it. Repeat until you’re at home. It’s a good way to learn to run faster.

I really liked my first fartlek session. It was a very creative run, time just passed by. I created several triggers for sprints. For example each time I stepped on a brick I would sprint, a dog barking at me also meant to run faster, reaching a roundabout meant running as fast as possible until the next roundabout.

Every time I was in a park I ran as if dropbears were chasing me until I was out of the park. It was interesting. The last 5 runs resulted in 4 personal best times. Clearly this technique works… or maybe I’m just super awesome. Yeah, that’s probably it! 😀

Dropbears

Since my workday has very early starts (4AM) I need to go running even earlier. During my last 10K run I saw a man in the distance. It was around 2:15 AM and he said “hello”. Then he asked me where I was running. I said “home” and then as I got closer I saw that he was a policeman. I knew I was running a good time and as I got next to him I said really quickly: “10K run, doing a personal best”… and I waived and off I was. I completely blew him off. 😀 He just stared and thought I was a weirdo. 😀 (PS: My time was 43m40s, not exactly superfast, yet!).

Today was my first run in my new compression calf sleeves. Those bad boys are really tight. I hope, I’m sorry, I know, they will be my ticket to a future Olympic gold. 😀 I also noticed that my thighs felt very much left out. They wanted some love too… I guess I know what’s next on my shopping list.

Allrighty, slight change of topic. Yesterday, I applied for a New Zealand Working Holiday Visa and tomorrow I will need to get a chest X-ray to prove that I don’t have any deadly contagious diseases.  All this will cost me about AUD 230.

It’s a bit sad to think about it but it seems that I’ll be staying in Australia only until December. Maybe it’s for the best. You know what? I don’t even want to think about it. Not yet. I will focus on making the most of my last 8 months here.

Ivar

Worth it!

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Don’t you just love those days when you get home and fall asleep before your head touches the pillow? I sure do! Last Wednesday was one of those days.

After work I donated blood. I was very disappointed after my weight was measured. Three months of training and I’m still at 74 kg. I’m eating more, I’m exercising but no weight gain. Sad face. 😦 This was my third time and I used my right arm for the bloodwork. The previous time I almost fainted, I think I got up too quickly after the donation. On this occasion I didn’t experience any dizziness or negative effects. I ate 6 cookies and a chocolate bar afterwards. Totally worth it! 😀 The only side effect was that the next day I ran at a very slow average speed – 11 km/h.

Later that day I had the best Latin dancing lesson so far. It was the 5th lesson and everybody more or less knew what they were doing. We were actually dancing and it looked good. I also learned a “half-turn” which seemed like one of those fancy moves. I like the progress I’ve made.

Among other things, this week I hosted two German girls – Claudia and Steffi – for 3 days (via Couchsurfing). It was nice to have them in the house but I didn’t really get to know them very well. I was at work during the morning/day and they went into the city in the afternoon. So we only had several hours of quality time in the evenings. I think I should plan some activities for my couchsurfing guests.

 

Today I spent most of the day fantasizing… fantasizing about running a marathon in the Olympics. I Googled a bit and found out that a time of 2h15m would qualify me. Not a problem! All I need to do is put one foot in front of the other with an average speed of about 20 km/h. Easy-peasy!

Fueled by my naïve dreams and imagination I bought compression calf sleeves. You know, just to look a tiny bit more professional when training.

I’ll see you guys at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

My first race

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This bald guy passed me and just seconds later was hit by a falling tree branch. It hit his head or neck area but he kept on running. It was a decent chunk of wood about 5 cm in diameter. He surely got a headache from cushioning the fall of that piece of lumber. 😀

Before that I saw rain raining horizontally, which was really cool. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like that before. Today the radio said the wind gusts were up to 90 km/h with 16,000 lightning bolts. It rained 45mm in 30 minutes in several suburbs. That’s a decent storm!

Since I had already finished my first lap (10 km) I needed to pick up some speed to run a negative split. I was glad when it started to rain. I kept up my mantra “I can, I can, I can” and followed the 1:40 balloons. It actually felt a bit easier to run in these conditions because I wasn’t as hot anymore. It took only several minutes for the rain to form 15 cm deep puddles on the road. It was quite exciting because there were leaves, branches and debris flying all around.

The race track turned around and after the big puddles I lost sight of the balloons. I think they stopped running and were helping an injured runner on the street who was probably hit by a tree branch or something. There was no ambulance near them yet. So it must’ve been a very recent accident.

I felt quite bad about running past them. I told myself that other people were already there with the injured person and let’s be honest I know nothing about first aid. What could I do anyways? Yeah… I’m a selfish bastard. I guess I lost focus on what’s important. This was my first half marathon and I wanted to get a sub 100 minute finishing time. I’ll be a better person in the future.

Several minutes later I saw a man waving his arms and running towards me yelling that the race was over. Everybody should move to the finish. The Twilight half marathon was cancelled. As I jogged along with hundreds of runners I passed two ambulances. For a second I thought about what would happen to me if I needed medical attention? I’ve got no health insurance, I’d be screwed. Oh well… that’s the life of a backpacker.

I ran 5 km in 22:04, my 10K split time is not on the website but I crossed the finish at 1:08:53 and ran a total of 14-15 km (I can’t be sure on the exact distance).

What did I learn from this experience? Firstly, there’s a huge piss-line before the start of the race, everybody needs to take a leak. I didn’t expect that. I strategically positioned myself near the 1:40 balloons and passed them but around the 8th km they passed me and I just kept following them. I was going too fast too early. Some people commented on me running barefoot during and before the race. Nobody said anything bad, here are some examples: “I agree with the concept but not on bitumen” or “What are your split times?” or “Do you get blisters?” or “Wow… barefoot”. I don’t think I deserved any of that extra attention. Nor did I want it. I just wanted to run a half marathon.

Getting back home was a bit of a pain because I spent about 40 minutes in the parking building waiting in line to get out. During that time I didn’t even move an inch. Good times!

I was a bit disappointed because the race was cancelled but I probably ran a 10K personal best and got my first racing experience.

It surely was a very interesting day. I’m looking forward to my next half-marathon in Noosa on Apr 28th.

First quarter

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I know you’re all curious about my speed dating results. Well, I made 4 matches out of 20 but it’s not as good as it sounds because they were all “friendship” matches. Clearly I’m not what you’d call dating material.

This is not what I expected. I was hoping for a 20/20 score and hot girls calling me in the middle of the night and yelling “Take me now!” or “Can you be here in 10?” accompanied by an endless stream of sexts on my mobile phone. Man, my fantasy crashed and burned!

So I thought about the only thing I could do in this situation. I decided to take the advice of a self-made self-help guru who’s transformed the lives of millions of people. Ladies and gentlemen this is Jon Lajoie:

I like that quality of life increases in a straight line as you give less of a fuck. 😀 What a great concept!

Funny story about the video, I once sent this link to a French girl and the very next day she was fired. 😀 I couldn’t stop laughing once I heard about it. 😀 I’m pure evil! 😈

Change of topic. Last week I ran four personal best times (5K, 6.5K, 8K and 10K runs). I liked that. I kept telling myself “run like you mean it”, “run with purpose” and “I can, I can, I can”. The last one is from Bear Grylls’ autobiography. All that mantra really helped.

Sadly this week things are a bit different. Since I’m running a half marathon this Sunday I need to take it easy and save all my energy to kick ass during the race. Doing that is a bit harder than I thought… running slower than I could is a bit depressing. Weird! I’m hoping for a good time in my race (<100 minutes) and I know I can do it. Wish me luck!

Today is also my 25th birthday. I baked a cake (it’s a chocolate sponge, a true culinary masterpiece) and made a wish as I blew out the candles. I also received a letter (an actual snail mail letter in an envelope with a stamp and all) from the company where I had a job interview about a week ago. I wasn’t surprised when I read that a different candidate was selected for the position. Happy birthday indeed! I needed to watch the above video after I cried myself a river. I’m all good now.

Stay tuned till next time. I’ll write about my half marathon.

Getting lost

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My training schedule has slow long distance runs on Sundays. This means that the longest distances will be covered on Sundays and the focus is on endurance not speed. A week ago I went for my 14.5 km run. That was supposed to be the longest run up to that point in my life. I was pretty excited about that.

The problem was I wanted to spice up my running and I went on a new route. I covered the first 8-10 km as planned and then I got lost. I took a left turn way too early.

I kept running because I thought the big street I was running on would eventually connect to a street I was familiar with. That never happened. So I used my inner GPS to navigate. That too was a mistake.

I started running at 5AM so there weren’t many people outside to ask for directions. Besides I looked like a crazy person since I run in nothing but my shorts – barefoot and with no shirt. I didn’t want anyone to call the cops on me (several years ago in the US there was a woman who called the cops for much less than that).

I kept running. It felt good. I reached a park and I knew that park was about 8 km north from home because I’ve been there before. I didn’t know how to get back. So I ran some more until I gave up on listening to my inner GPS. Suddenly I heard a noise. It was a train in the distance. That was my a’ha moment. I decided to follow the railroad because I knew it would take me home, eventually.

Once I reached a trainstation I was super happy but exhausted. I knew I was only about 5 km away from home. I tried to keep running but I just couldn’t. That was the first time in my runs when I had to walk. I ran a bit more and then walked again. I’d never been this tired and thirsty and hungry. I actually considered drinking from the puddles on the street. I slowly ran the last kilometer which got me home. Boy, was I glad. The day before I made a cake and that morning I ate about ¾ of it in less than 5 minutes. Nom-nom-nom-nom.

I also stopped my stopwatch which was on my kitchen counter. The display said 3:00:12. I checked on Google Maps and found out that I ran about 31 km – more than double than I planned. I was glad I covered the distance but I was a bit worried because my knee felt a bit odd. Maybe I hurt myself. At least I knew I was able to run a half marathon.

Things were pretty normal for the rest of the day but my knee started to hurt when I walked and my legs got quite sore. This wasn’t good.

The next two days I ran according to my training schedule but my knee was still playing up. So I had to take a rest day. This was the first time I had to deviate from my training plan. I felt quite lousy about that. I felt like a loser. I was a failure.

I picked up a book – „True Spirit“ by Jessica Watson. She is the world’s youngest person who sailed solo unassisted around the globe on a yacht. What made her story so incredible is that she did it all at the tender age of 16. She sailed the seas a bit more than 3 years ago. That made me think… what was I doing at that time? Why wasn’t I doing something incredible with my life? Her story was truly inspiring.

I also watched a documentary about an Aussie bloke who went to the United States and drank nothing but juice for 60 days. He was overweight and sick and got much better after his juicing experiment. After watching the movie I did one juicing day too (thinking that this will help me recover from my running). I bought about $15-$20 worth of vegetables and fruits to juice that day. I didn’t really feel much better but I thought it was interesting to try.

Things got better after my rest day and today I ran 16 km on a new route without getting lost or injured. I’m so proud of myself :D. Exactly 2 weeks until my first half marathon (21.1 km). I’m looking forward to it!

Born to run

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I’ve been doing quite a bit of running. As a kid I didn’t enjoy running that much. I got red in my face (I still do), I got stitches in my sides and I looked terrible during and after my runs (my acne didn’t help me either). Naturally I didn’t enjoy the experience.

Fast forward many-many years. A couple months ago I wrote a bucket list. #34 is to get a six-pack and #57  was learning to surf. I borrowed Emily’s surfboard and whenever I went surfing (read: splashing in the water desperately trying to put two feet on the board but always failing) I also went for a run at the beach. Sometimes where was a national park in the neighbourhood. Perfect! Beautiful girls are running in those parks. If I started running I would see more of them.. so I thought…

And that’s pretty much how it started.

There was a TED talk, Christoper McDougall was saying that people don’t need shoes to run. I thought that was interesting and wanted to put that idea into practice.

Among other things you will find out from the video that women weren’t allowed to run marathons before the 1980’s because of fears of their uterus being torn or falling out of its normal location. 😀 Oh… doctors and their worthless opinions…

Here’s another video. Professor Daniel Lieberman’s study about running barefoot:

In the beginning I ran every other day. After 6 weeks I thought I needed to approach my running with a bit more strategy. I was reading a running magazine and found a training schedule to increase my endurance. I quickly wrote it down and decided that this is what I’ll be doing. So far everything is going according to my training plan.

I also signed up to run the Twilight Run 2013 on March 24th. It’s my first ever half marathon (21.1 km)! My goal is to finish the race in less than 2 hours, ideally in less than 100 minutes. Wish me luck!