Year 3 March

What a busy interesting month March has been with lots of high's and a few low points, when you look over the month I am more than happy and have no regrets at all. In a perfect world I would have lost weight and this would have been great, we all know we don't live in the perfect world and if we did we would not have weight, health, or fitness problems, life is not easy it is challenging and that's the joy of our journey's as we find the route's that best suits our individual needs and adjust accordingly. This month's blog will be in three sections (I hope) Health (injury) Fitness and Weight.

Lets start with my injury and my calf muscles I have mentioned before about my visit to the podiatrist and the Orthotics I now have for both feet, The first thing to report is my feet ache all the time more so after being on my feet all day at work and or after a training session. Now this is a good ache at the moment as my feet ankle's and muscle's adjust to being corrected and its like life's journey we have to work through this in a positive way, as the pain means that I am improving and getting better towards my long term goal of being able to run injury free in the future. I look forward to my next follow up appointment to see how much improvement has been made. How do I know it's getting better?

This is how I know its getting better, Training Report for March and not one injury in all that time and I have only got a little cramp three times the first in the Duathlon race itself and since then I have only done that race distance or further as I train for race two. The first thing I need to say about my training sessions are that you have to divide by three the sessions as each run bike run is recorded individually sadly. The next thing is how tough these sessions are anyway even without the achy feet syndrome with the orthotics (Just to give you an insight today I have no need to go out and I am wearing my slippers, every time I walk or move my feet or just stretching, my feet ache just as much as if I had worn my othotics all day).

The training sessions themselves are fun and enjoyable as well as tough I love that I can now run the whole distances all the time, I know its a 4 mile run 9.6 mile cycle and a 3 mile run but each has its own unique challenge and getting the best out of all three of them is amazing, for the first time ever I am able to run and push myself to my limits without my body breaking down on a regular basis and this just gives me so much confidence and my fitness which I have mentioned before is at a far greater level than it has ever been in the past. I have a link of of a group of 4 training sessions of the first runs (4 miles) Compared 4 Runs each 2 days apart and each one improving culminating in the last run being my best 4 mile run ever with each mile under the 11 min mile pace I have never had a grouping of times so close together and those 4 runs just show what can be achieved when you train regularly and are fit to run as well.

Here is the link to all my activities All Training Logs I am rather proud of what I have achieved recently and I know this is down to a number of things falling into place at the same time I am also aware that whilst I am injury free at the moment, I hope to stay injury free for ever. I have a way to go to see if the othotics are the answer in the long term (I certainly hope so) my watch word PATIENCE comes into play here and I have to make sure I don't get carried away at the moment. One thing I will take away from this training period is that after my last Duathlon race of this series I will keep up a session in the future to break up the just running or cycling training routine, as much as I love running and going out on a long cycle ride doing the Duathlon training whist hard is also fun and that's what training should always be about. ENJOYABLE!!!

Now on to the least successful part of the month (Notice I don't use the word failure) that's because I have not failed. I have just readjusted my focus/goals this month as I cope with my training and the different pressure's it puts on me during the month. As I have stated at the start of the year my focus was on weight loss, it still is what I did not take into account was how tough Duathlon training would be, or how tough the first race would really be either, knowing I have to run an extra 1.75 miles on the next race meant I have to train really harder than I had before the first race.

I have also had a few bad eating days as well and that's something I can do something about? Go back onto my slimpod get myself back on track with with food again, also training so hard has required a little more eating than I had planned for so we have a combination of things as to why no weight loss this month there is no shame no failure in this course of events because at the end of the day I am fitter than I have ever been, I am running better than ever before I am training harder than I had planned to do and my weight lost a tiny amount, thank you very much I will take that as a very successful month, and a lesson learnt on how to adapt one's goals so that I am as successful as I can be for race 2 of the Duathlon.

My weight is 99.6 kg or 15 st 9.5 lbs a loss of just under 1 lbs on last month. I hope everyone has had a great Easter break.