Jackie D - Week 20

Week 20 - starting Monday 29 January 2007

Scheduled hours 11hr 05 min
Actual hours 11hr 55 min

Yippee - I tried something new this week. I went cross-country skiing. In fact I went twice! First time out it was just for 30mins around a flat course in Ellison Park. There is much more balance involved than I thought and I fell down on the first corner….and many times after that too! It was fun though and I can tell it is a good way of working out both upper and lower body. It was also nice to have warm hands. When I run my hands often still feel cold but working those poles seems to keep the hands nice and snuggly. Second time out I ventured out for 50minutes down in Mendon Ponds. Again quite flat but more corners and slopes enough to feel I was making progress. Still fell over half a dozen times though.

My training naiviety came to the forefront with this second cross country skiing episode. I was due to do an hours run that day and Mary had said to us all that you can substitute X country skiing on a 2.5:1 ratio. Well I figured that 50mins only equated to a 20min run so I decided I had to do my scheduled run as well. Oh boy, by three quarters of the way through I was feeling miserably tired but no where to go but back to the car on a big loop. I guess it didn’t help that I was running the snow packed trails in Mendon which was pretty hard going, even with trail shoes. So….talking to coach later she tells me that I can substitute 1:1 but that it is OK to go up to 2.5x as people tend to go out x country skiing for longer periods and it is less damaging to the body. Duh me Duh me! However, if she knew just how often I was falling down and jarring ankles and wrists I am not quite sure about the definition of “less damaging”! I have got my friends husbands ski’s to use at the moment. After she emptied out the mouse poop I only needed 3 pairs of socks to fill the boots up! Hopefully may try some more next week and actually let it count as part of my endurance training.

Longest indoor ride ever this week too. 2 hours and 15 minutes. It is soooo boring. Good mental training though I guess. I watched a film (movie to you Americans). I have ordered another cycling DVD, the 3hour sinkerballs one (OK I don’t know why but my computer is automatically changing the word s p in n er va ls to sinkerballs). At least I will have that for next weeks long ride.

For the long run this week (which wasn’t so long at 1 hour 20mins) I headed to the treadmill at the gym as it was so cold outside (single digits and still have bad memories from run a couple of weeks ago). It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I didn’t realise the gym would be so busy on a Sunday morning. At a couple of times all the treadmills were in use and I felt slightly guilty about using one for so long - only slightly though (the ones at the Y really used to annoy me about having 30min limits). Luckily there are enough that no one seemed to be waiting. Another minor guilt trip was the food and drink policy. It is only supposed to be water but I didn’t want to just drink water for that length of run so I took some diluted Gatorade. I also took a gu with me but didn’t have to work up the nerve to eat that cos I didn’t have a separate “just water” bottle and I didn’t want to risk a bathroom dash. I was fine and didn’t feel I needed it anyway. I did discover that I seem to be a lot slower on the treadmill than I am outside - I thought it was supposed to be the opposite so that was a bit disappointing. It was nice to be able to run in T-shirt and shorts again though.

Onwards.

24 WEEKS TO GO