Sink or swim

Tonight was the key night in my efforts to train for the Great East Swim on Saturday. 60 lengths in the pool and now less. Would tonight show that my training is going well and I'm ready for the swim or would it fail big time and I'd end up drowning in the middle of Alton Water.

The good news is that 60 lengths came quicker than I expected and I even added two more lengths on the end in case I miss-counted (which is quite likely). I don't see myself as particularly stupid but counting the number of lengths I've completed in a pool seems to be a skill I wasn't born with.
Apart from the counting fail, the good news is that I won't be drowning on Saturday and now I can move onto thinking about what time I'll finish the swim in. I think about 45 minutes will be a good time to do, but for my first attempt, just finishing will be an achievement.

What's with the rhymes?

I've been reading some blogs
and they all seem to rhyme,
everyone seems to be more creative than me
all of the time.

I tell myself I'm a programmer
I'm not a poet.
But maybe I have an inner odist
and I just don't know it.

I had a tough day at work today
but I hit my deadline.
If I could just make it to football,
the evening would turn out just fine.

Football? I hear you ponder,
is that proper Juneathon activity?
Why not just go for a run,
get to mile two, or maybe three.

Football is harder than you might think,
5-a-side is my game.
Its short, fast and frentic paced,
running just isn't the same.

OK, I hear you concur,
it definitely counts for Juneathon.
Did you score, did you win?
I suppose its ok, if you had fun.

I didn't score, but we did win.
its been a while
since my face has seen this grin.

We also got some free drinks.
Free drinks? I hear you cry
Start of a new season, they said
why not stop by

As this poem comes to an end
I was wondering if I should get a new job.
I could do this for a living,
the evidence is in the blog.

But really programming is where my talent lies,
I couldn't do this all day.
I think I should finish this blog soon,
I'm not really any good at this rhyming stuff anyway.

But by doing this, I feel included,
part of the group.
And now my poem has gone full circle,
one dodgy, badly rhymed loop.

Nobody cares about technicalities, right?

Yesterday was the day that I technically failed the Juneathon but on the flip side it was the day that I showed motivation and determination to stay in and do well. How can you do both I hear you cry. Well, the bad part about yesterday was that I didn't find time to write this blog entry. I've missed the 24 hour deadline by an hour so that's where the technicality exists. Have I failed or should I just try harder in future? I think I'll just try harder in future.

As for my exercise yesterday, I was in the pool at 6:30am for a (planned) 40 length swim before work. Whether it was my hard 10K run the day before or the sudden change in weather (which can aggrevate my asthma) but I really struggled to complete my swim. This is probably one of those moments when your body is screaming at you to say "stop exercising, just rest for a day!" but I pushed through, finished 20 lenghts and left the pool with my tail between my legs.

I think I might take it as a lesson not to push too hard day after day during Juneathon, so treating yesterday as my rest day, Juneathon is back on today with football tonight. I'll try to blog on time from now on too

Bluewater 10K - 52:47

Today was the day of my first 10K and as I look back, I think it went pretty well. It was more of a fun run with a trainer to warm us up and people on stilts, but it didn't take anything away from the fact that we all had to run 10K.

I ran with my mate Iain, so we made a deal that we'd run together for the first kilometre and go our own ways once we were up the first hill. Once up the first hill, we parted ways and I kicked the pace up a notch to try and get home in my target time of 50 minutes. I made it to 5K in about 24 minutes, so I was well on target until I got to the second half of the course. Undulating is not a strong enough word to descibe how hilly this course was, so I've marked it out with the elevation included.

My time was knocked back a bit with the hills, but I'm really quite happy with my time. I want to do a flat 10K now, just to see if taking the hills out of the equation means I can hit my target time. The dream is hitting my target time with the hills, but thats a little way off at the moment.

Vroom vroom!

With my first 10K coming up very soon and the collection of my new wheels, today was never going to be about the Juneathon. To make sure my motivation didn't slip completely, making me fail Juneathon, I went swimming early this morning. It was an uneventful swim and I managed not to get in any arguments with elderly swimming (like what happened last time) so by 9am my Juneathon activities were over.

Today was all about me and my new car and it's quite frankly amazing. With Juneathon out of my mind for the day, I've been on a very pleasant road trip in my new 2.0 Golf TDI. With a few balls on the golf range, me and my mate James decided that was enough physical excersion for one day and retired to his pool for an ice cold beer and some much needed vitamin D.

So after my road trip and topped up levels of vitamin D, I feel ready for my 10K tomorrow. All there is left to do now is drink a bit of fluid tonight, watch the ever pleasant Katherine Jenkins on tv and get a good nights sleep.

It's all about the 10K

I didn't want to go for a run tonight. I'm doing the Bluewater 10K on Sunday and feel like I should be resting but I have to go running due to Juneathon. Relunctantly heading out into the early evening sunshine, I started to feel better as the sun warmed my legs.
Only 2 miles tonight but with a swim planned for tomorrow morning, I should be in good shape for my first 10K on Sunday.
As I think about the 10K, I'm starting to think about how fast I should run and what time I should be aiming for. Being my first race, I'm going to take it slowly and see how it goes but I think my target time is < 50 minutes.
More importantly though, I get to pick up my new car tomorrow :) I'll apologise in advance for my blog tomorrow because it may have nothing to do with Juneathon

Riddle me this....

Tonight was pub quiz night and like all keen drinkers pub quizzers, we spent the week revising the news and trying to find as many random facts as possible. Add this to the pressure of having to fit in a Juneathon run and it was a busy evening.
Sacrificing time at work to fit in all of these evening activities, I dutifully headed out on my pre-quiz run. Only 2.7 miles but I'm trying to rest a little bit before my first 10K on Sunday, so I'll let myself off.
As for the quiz, we put in a respectable score of 33/60. We also learned a thing or two; who knew Timothy Dalton was born in Wales???