My Flog

dory

I have been looking at these for ages and finally decided I need one too! I've even been trying to follow one person on this. She said one of her aims was to run 2km in under 10 minutes. A few weeks ago I absolutely killed myself in the gym doing it in 9.57. I even contemplated calling for help at one stage cause I really thought I was having a heart attack. I haven't had the guts to try that again....

Brief history: I'm 23, female. Once upon a time I was a crazily dedicated swimmer, then ate my way through college and came out fairly chubby at the other end. I'm about 5'9, according to my Wii my BMI is about 22.4. I think I lost about a stone or stone and a half in since Christmas 06 but I still have more to lose.

Oh, and according to my Wii I put on 1kg in the last 5 days!! :rolleyes: It currently has me at 68kg, I'd like to be 65, or under 11 stone.

My diet is ok. I don't drink a lot, very rarely have fast food, but I do snack a good bit. I always have diluted orange in the gym, hate water. Not sure how that impacts my weight loss.

Mostly I'll be doing gym aerobic work out, and swimming sessions. I do spinning a bit as well. Soon to start road running. Oh! And someone wants me to run a marathon in April, will have to see about that!

For starters.....I'll write my times from my last swim session.
Best I did was 4x200m holding 2.50. Far from where I was at a few years ago but not too bad for an old timer!

Any advice would be appreciated!

(Flog = Fitness Blog btw!)

dory

Happy with todays session.

Started with ten minutes on the crosstrainer to warm up; I've always been told to do some warm up before stretching.

Then jogged/ran 5km in 33.54. Wasn't a great time but that is the longest I've run without stopping, or slowing it down for a bit. I usually get bored at about 3km so it was more of a mental thing to keep going.

Next did my floor excercises, some sit ups, push ups, stretches etc. Did a few of the weight machines after that but the ones I wanted to use were busy so I just went to the pool.

Did my usual steamroom, jacuzzi thing. Spent a bit of time in the ice baths, find them really refreshing.

Then finished off with 1k swim. I find it very hard to swim on my own, it gets boring.
That 1k was 2x400, did each of them in little over 6 minutes and then 200m and that took me 2 mins 45 seconds.

Do people usually write what they eat in a day as well? I'd like to keep track so I will. Started with porriage, which today I had with honey and raisins. Had 2 waffles and beans for lunch. I've had about 3 little chocolates from my naughty box (which I am going to share with my room mates to get rid of). And now I'm going to think of something to do with my chicken fillets for dinner. Really need to get some healthy recipies, everything I know how to cook gets cooked in oil. Is that bad? Prob end up turning this into chicken tikka, no idea if that's good for me either. I guess this is where google is my friend.....

EDIT: Forgot, I also had a smoothie, but I made it as healthy as possible. Just orange juice, frozen strawberries and a banana.

dory

Didn't have much time today.

Did a quick 7 minutes on the cross trainer to warm up, stretches and straight into my 5k run. Stupid machine went into cool down at 20 minutes and when I tried to stop that the whole machine stopped. But I know I had 3k done at that stage. Then the next 2k took me 10.30 so 30.30 altogether I think.
Crazy to think 4k took me longer than that 2 months ago. Amazing what clean lungs will do for a person!

xebec

Fair play dory, 30 mins for 5km when starting off is fine. For me one of the biggest challenges was getting over the mental thing of running for longer than that... It's still an issue sometimes, but once you start getting into running you'll love it so much that you'll want to keep going...

One of the best motivators is to set a goal. You've mentioned a marathon, why not go for it? Find yourself a plan online, something like Hal Higdon or one of the many others and give it your best!

dory

Ya thanks! Well, I've been going to the gym a lot since the end of September, so I'm not totally starting. Before that I was travelling for 15 months and went to the gym maybe twice in that time!
I think a lot of it is mental, so I agree, running longer is a mental thing! I find it boring sometimes, need good music!

Didn't get a chance to go today and I'm raging! I'll be back at it tomorrow. That's for the pointers, I'll def think about the marathon.

dory

Just about got in my 5k run again today.
Started as usual on the cross trainer to warm up, wanted to go on the bicycles but people were studying on them! They weren't even breaking a sweat, just gently cycling along reading their stuff...

The did my first 3k in 19 minutes. Had to stop after that - had a sharp pain in my calf.
Took a break, did my weights, abs, pushups routine and went back running when I felt better.
Did the final 2k in under 10 minutes (9.55) and was well pleased with that. Did it in 9.57 about two months ago but it absolutely killed me and I had to keep cutting back to a walk and taking off again. I felt a lot stronger today and ran the whole thing.

Supposed to be going for a 7.30 run with a US Marine buddy of mine in the morning. She'll put me through my paces I'd say!

Diet is terrible. But I'm a poor student who has no concept of cooking so I'm just going to work extra hard in the gym to make up for it.

dory

Been away for a few days getting the bargins in Belfast, but did go for a 30min run around Glasnevin at 7.30 on Thursday morning before I went. Then ate crap while I was away, very hard to stay on a diet on the road. I'll be back in the gym in the morning.

dory

Got back to the running today.
New personal best! 5k in 29.29. And unlike some of the other runs, I didn't stop or have to slow down for any of it. I legged it for the last 500m which kept me under 30 mins. Pretty happy with that but don't think I can do it again for a while!

According to my Wii I put on weight over the past few days. 1kg to be exact. Also BMI is up from 22.04 to 22.33, gonna have to fix that!

G86

dory wrote: »

Got back to the running today.
New personal best! 5k in 29.29. And unlike some of the other runs, I didn't stop or have to slow down for any of it. I legged it for the last 500m which kept me under 30 mins. Pretty happy with that but don't think I can do it again for a while!

According to my Wii I put on weight over the past few days. 1kg to be exact. Also BMI is up from 22.04 to 22.33, gonna have to fix that!

Fair play chick Are you running mainly in the gym or outside or bit of both?

dory

Mostly inside. I don't like running outside for some reason. I like knowing exactly how far I've run and in what time. Also being able to put the speed up and down is cool - it's much harder to adjust your speed 'in the real world'.
I think next week I'm going to properly get into running outside.

dory

Decided to mix things up a bit today. Started with 5k on the bike, which I did in just under 12 minutes.
Then onto my floor excercises. Some sit ups, push ups, lunges, bendy downy things working my triceps. I seem to spend this bit day dreaming and getting caught checking out the other gymmers. I'm just curious to see what excercises they're doing.

Went for my run after. Only did 4k but ut was a good 4k.
First two kms were flat running at 10.6
Then 3nd I put the incline up to one, same speed
I got a text message at the start of the fourth so fast walked 500m to reply.
Ran the second half of the 4th km with 1.5 incline
And then walked .37 of a kilometre to cool down.

Can't remember the time, I know the first 3k was under 19 minutes.

Afraid to get on my Wii, don't want to be told I'm fat today.

xebec

Fair play dory, that's good going... If you find yourself getting bored with the 5km all the time have a look at some plans on the web, there's lots of good ones out there that help to mix things up.

As for the weight thing, everyone's weight fluctuates like that so don't worry about it!! Your BMI is smack in the middle of the healthy zone If you are going to try to lose some bodyfat while doing this then it's a good idea to only weigh yourself once a week and preferably in the same clothes and at the same time. Doing it much more frequently isn't great because your weight does fluctuate.

dory

Yea, I'm going to have to stop weighing myself the whole time. It's just I've never had a weighing scales before so its still sort of a novelty.
I also have no idea how tall I am so the BMI is based on what I think I am. But it's a consevative guess, as in, I'm at least that, if not taller.

Today I stupidly had a bag of peanuts before the gym and felt crap.
Did a 2k run, the 3rd 500metres was with a 1.0 incline, I like how that works different muscles. Then climbed 30 flights of stairs on the stepper! Spent a long time in the jacuzzi after that.

Just when I was despairing that I'd had a bad days work out my friend called over to go for a walk. Ended up walking pretty briskly around the neighbourhood for almost 2 hours. I'm wrecked!

dory

Hope no one minds if I resurrect this. I forgot to log one session on this and panicked and before I knew I was 3 months behind in logging my fitness.

Well things have changed a bit since I last wrote. I met a new fitness instructor in January who has me doing all sorts of crazy things like pilates and tae bo. Any boredom I ever felt in the gym went flying out the window and today I decided to challenge myself and see how 2k under 10 minutes felt. This was my original challenge back in October, and I felt I was going to have a heart attack but finished it in 9;58. Today I did that in 8:50 and felt so good I kept on running. Reached 3k at 13;47, can't remember what time I finished 4, but eventually my 5k time was 23.02. Quite an improvement on the 29;29 from before Christmas.

I think the main difference is the speed intervals my new trainer introduced me to. It gets me used to high speeds and so I was more comfortable running at 13.5k/hr than I would have been before. My one concern is that when I put my hands on the heart rate monitor pads afterwards it was at 189. I have a feeling I should be dead at that rate. For those of you with fancy heart rate monitors, is that normal? Or are the monitors on cardio machines not that reliable?

My main reason for keeping this is because I'll be abroad working for the summer and I want to have a log of how fit I am now, to gauge how bad the summer was for me!

cardio,shoot me

well i dont know if this helps but my heart rate sometimes goes up to about 205, and lance armstrongs max in a race is about 201

dory

Thanks for the reassurance! I was going to say it to someone in the gym but didn't want to sound like a total drama queen.

dory

Well it's been a while since I last wrote on this.

Since then I spent a summer in India, which ruined my fitness but due to an intestine infection made me lose 5kg or so.
Then I came home and had to go on steroids when my left eye stopped working and I put on 8kg.
And now I'm trying to sort out weight/fitness while living in a country that doesn't seem too fond of fresh food. And I'm sharing a gym with 3 working threadmills and a load of soliders who run like Duracell bunnies. But I'm not making excuses, I will be fit again!

So right now I'm 67.1kg, down one kg in the last week or so. And today I ran 5km in 28 mins. And then did some weights and abs work.
Hopefully I can do something every day.

dory

I was doing so well; ran 5km at lunch-time. Little slower at 28.30 but that's because I had a 1.5 incline for the first 3km.

But I have a problem in that I have a generous boss who likes to give me Magnum ice-creams... doh!!