7/7 but the good kind though

Did 14k yesterday and while not the furthest I have ever run I get the feeling my running is back on track (forgive the pun: D). I am back to top speed and the best/worse thing I know that there is room for improvement.  A minor but thoroughly avoidable oversight on my part is a downer, but knowing how to fix it is the perfect upper... Thank you Scotty. 

So the Swissball and wobbleboard and El Guapo are due to make a comeback….time to broaden my horizons…. By cutting a video promo for Taryn?

Highgate Hill made me its bitch

On Saturday I ran to Kentish Town….it was about 6 odd miles to get there.  On the way back I discovered my Everest …Highgate Hill in Archway next to the Whittington hospital….That is one steep hill and to be honest it made me its bitch.  My back was in tatters and the joy I had felt earlier by running the hills of Hornsey soon evaporated.

The way everyone at EKBJJ makes me their bitch I was made to feel by this damn hill…and it told me one thing in no uncertain terms while I can run and have been doing as well as my bike work…I have neglected my strength and balancing work…..Like my old coach Jason Kelly taught me conditioning is not just the aerobic and anaerobic but the muscular and skeletal.   Terms like proprioception which Jonny Silmon taught me the value of…I had ignored…..

As long as I did the running I had convinced/lied to myself that I can neglect do the conditioning, the stability ball, the need to do anaerobic…Yeah I was doing my bizarre hyrbrid of yoga/kata/kembagan/wai khru before each run.. The muscles were loosened up and warm…but they lacked the fibre I was demanding but had been… yep too lazy to put into place

Monday I did some of the Steve Maxwell body exercises, used the lat pull down machine and my back felt stronger for the first time in ages. And while I have lost some of the tiger blood (sorry Charlie) ….by heeding the wisdom of Dai Goh Dais like Diamond Stan and Jonny Harimau

I am in a wonderful relationship right now, but that is no excuse for me to indulge my inner sloth…time for me to just bring it..bring on the Bas, just bring it….

There are three emotions that occur within my training

Euphoria, disappointment and most dangerous of all indifference.

I recall back in 03 doing Vale Tudo padwork in Neil Mcleod's class back in St Monica's.  I had been away from Bob's for a while doing a different kind of training.  But I was back hitting pads so crisply, my pad holder  paid me the ultimate compliment, it was as if I had never been away....I must have let it go to me head because the next week I was pants.....

When you do well in training, you raise the bar for what is the absolute minimum you should be delivering...when you do not do as well you could, you need to figure out why and look to redeem yourself....The last thing you want is a shrug of the shoulders.

In my training I have only gone through the motions a few times ...each time it served as a huge wake up call for me to question my motivations

Today's training run did not go as well as I would have hoped...could of been my choice of MP3s which was lazy, the weather, you want one excuse you will end up finding a thousand.  There is no easy answer that will appear immediately to me...

All I can do is make right where I made wrong....

the hardest part

of running for me is the first twenty minutes...your body is cold, getting out of the door is a major achievement...You are struggling to get your groove....

Then suddenly it is so easy.  You run on familiar ground, folks who have no idea who you are nod their head or smile at you as if you are doing something really amazing, when all you are doing is just putting one foot in front of the other just a wee bit quicker than other folks on the street

I am looking forward to the warmer weather, doing early morning and late night runs.

The die has been cast, the wheel is in motion

I have entered in the Dartford Half Marathon for July 11.  And I have found a way to not have to choose between two Breast Cancer Charities!  Saves my guilt!


Now comes the hard bit the the training....yoga, swissball, stationary bike and running....Who knows maybe I can squeeze in some Jiu Jitsu