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| Raw lasagna with cashew cheese & broccoli sun-dried tomato pesto (photo: www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com) |
Another disrupted fortnight of training as the festive season ended, next week should be better and more structured. I still managed decent mileage despite not running very regularly. I have started tracking my mileage for the year and hope to do at least 3,000km which averages 58km a week. I am obviously starting off slowly as I build my base but should catch up later in the year when I am training for PUFfeR and will be looking to do around 80 - 100km a week. The first week was unusual in that I did two races and then the second week was unusual as the Lady Falcon and I decided to attempt a raw food challenge, so all in all, it's been a strange but positive start to the year.
Week 1
Mon 30.12 - Run - Trail Race
The second race of the Sabrina Love Challenge was a 10km trail run just outside Plettenberg Bay. The race briefing told us that the first 4km would be relatively flat around the Polo Estate and then we would hit some single track through the forest areas so we were advised to get a decent placing before this to avoid being caught behind a less experienced runner who might struggle on the single track. Not the best advice for a perennial start-too-faster but I took it anyway and went out guns blazing. I managed to stick with the lead ladies for a while and was going at quite a pace until I hit the forest. I really struggled on the single track as it was more roots and ditches whereas I am used to rocks and riverbeds. I slipped a few places here and was feeling quite shod at about 6km when we started a long flat section which ended in a much needed river crossing. From there it was more single track where a stroke of fortune helped my motivation. I was feeling quite tired and noticed my shoelace had come undone so at the next turn I stepped off the track to re-tie. Just as I was done, a group of about 15 runners came back from the direction of the turning shouting that the route markers were off, I managed to sort myself out and jump ahead of them which gave me a nice fast finish. These guys had all had a better race than me and were better runners so it was good to keep pace with them for a while.
I finished in 51:36 and in 32nd out of 288 (top 11% and 6th out of the ladies) which I am pretty happy with for a short run.
10.00km
0:51:36
Ave pace: 5:10/km
Tues 31.12 - Rest - New Year's Eve
Wed 01.01 - Rest - Still New Year's Eve
Thurs 02.01 - Another rest day (what's happening here?)
Fri 03.01 - Run - Road Blouberg
Finally I kicked off my running year and really enjoyed a nice flat route along Bloubergstrand. I was up nice and early and set off from Paddocks centre and ran to Big Bay and back keeping a gentle pace and focussing on my technique and cadence.
17.52km
1:47:02
Ave pace: 6:06/km
Avg HR 156 bpm
Max HR 169 bpm
Sat 04.01 - Rest
Sun 05.01 - Run - Road Race
The Bay 2 Bay is the best way to start any running year and I had a great morning out. Race report to follow.
30.27km
2:42:48
Ave pace: 5:23/km
Avg HR 163 bpm
Max HR 175bpm
Total week running log
Mileage: 57.79 km
Time: 5:21:26
Not bad mileage considering only 3 runs and a huge hangover.
Week 2
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| Lemon and fig cheesecake (photo: www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com) |
This was the week of the raw food challenge, we decided to try and only eat raw food for an entire week. We hit Pick n Pay on Sunday to stock and tried to max out our healthy food benefit (there was moment of panic when we thought we had left the card at home). My decision for doing this challenge was partly to detox after the festive season but mainly to experience what it is like. Most raw food eaters are vegan to start off and although we bent the rules a bit by including raw meat in our diet (salmon and biltong), I could still see where the attraction is. Doing a challenge like this is is really interesting as it forces you to consider the ingredients of the manufactured food you purchase and requires you to be creative with your 'cooking'. The highlight of the week was discovering this blog http://www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com/ which has some incredibly creative recipes with some excellent photographs of the meals. The best dishes that I tried were the raw lasagne and raw cheese cake which tasted much better than actual cheese cake in my opinion. The tough part of the raw food challenge was that the first 2 days wrought havoc on my moods. I was incredibly hungry and the only carbs I was taking in were fruit which spiked my blood sugar a lot more than the grains I usually eat. By Tuesday evening I had already decided to give up but then I awoke on Wednesday feeling refreshed and after an excellent CrossFit session I was back on top of my game. So whilst raw food is definitely not something I could do 100% of the time (it sounds counter-intuitive but the preparation actually takes a lot of time), I definitely want to incorporate more raw into my diet and try and tone down my reliance on grains.
Mon 06.01 - Rest
Tues 07.01 - Run - Road Century City
Normal Century City loop - getting a bit bored of this one now.
12.27km
1:03:07
Ave pace: 5:08/km
Avg HR 156 bpm
Max HR 169 bpm
Wed 08.01 - CrossFit
We worked on our max clean and jerks which was cool as I learnt quite a lot. I am still not thrusting enough and lifting too far from my body but I managed to get 70kg's up even though my jerk was more of a push press.
The met-con was quite short but that suited me fine.
60-40-20 Double Unders (I did single skips and multiplied by 2)
30-20-10 KBS 24kg (I did 20kg)
Result: 4:34
Thursday 09.01 - Rest
Friday 10.01 - Birthday of the Lady Falcon hence definitely a rest day filled with Curry
Saturday 11.01 - CrossFit and Road run
A fun team session, I teamed up with the G of GM@T and we blitzed the competition. Struggled a bit with the odd object carry (being a water canister with only 1 handle) and of course struggled with the sit-ups but my pull-ups came together nicely.
In teams of 2 - 4 rounds for time:
400m odd object carry (water canister)
14 x water canister GTO
14 x Pull-ups
14 x 40cm box water cannister carry-overs
14 x 6.5kg med ball sit-up throws
Result: 18:44
After CrossFit I did a gentle recovery run along the road to Camps Bay and back. I attempted Bizkop steps which defeated me...but I'll be back.
7.00km
0:42:07
Ave pace: 6:01/km
Sunday 12.01 - Run - Road Blouberg
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| Nice route along the cycle track |
20.26km
1:52:52
Ave pace: 5:34/km
Avg HR 165 bpm
Max HR 175 bpm
Total week running log
Mileage: 39.53 km
Time: 3:37:06
