Running off my Easter chocolate

Easter weekend; 4 days off work and lots of chocolate.  

I started out the weekend by thinking I could do some kind of experiment into how many calories I burned off from exercise over the weekend in comparison  to the amount of calories I consumed from chocolate over the weekend and see how that worked out.

However upon realising that a cadburys creme egg has 180 calories I quickly realised I was going to need to be running sone serious miles every day to work off all my calories from chocolate especially when I had 6 creme eggs on friday morning in addition to other chocolate.

So not wanting to depress myself by counting all my chocolate calories I abandoned this idea and just concentrated on getting some good training done instead.

Good Friday

So friday I did a 45 minute circuit training session in the park including jogging to warm up, skipping, press ups, planks, tricep dips, kick throughs and body weight resistance machines.

Saturday

Saturday I had decided to make my return to my local parkrun. I thought this would be a good way of incorporating some speed work into my training as well as getting a sense of how I compared to my times last year.

I gave the race a good go and pushed it pretty hard and although my legs felt string my lungs struggled which I think fairly represented my recent training of boot camps but not a lot of running.

I was really pleasantly surprised with my time of 22.12 as I was aiming to go under 24 minutes and would have been very satisfied with that. 

I was even more surprised when I later realised this time was my second fastest out of the 7 times I have completed parkrun.

I know 7 times isn't a massive amount of runs but I have always pushed for a PB at parkrun and never just turned up with the aim of getting round so my times are all competitive. 

I also did a jog/walk there and back so covered an extra 6K in addition to the 5K parkrun.

Sunday

Again I headed over to the park for some circuit training this time mixing up skipping and star jumps with body weight resistance. I was all set for a long session when the heavens opened and my session got rather washed out so I headed home and did a mixture of legs and upperbody exercises. 

Sunday afternoon I also cooked up my own lamb kofta meal with cucumber&mint yogurt and my own cous cous.

Monday

This is the day my training for my 3 marathons in 3 month challenge really offically started. (See previous post http://idratherbeoutrunning.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/3-marathons-in-3-months-pre-30-challenge.html?m=1 for details)

I headed out early doors for a there and back route to Ingrebourne hill about 12km.

It was the most beautiful sunny morning for a run and although I found it quite hard going I thoroughly enjoyed the run, the weather and the scenery. 

Its the first time I have done that kind of distance since my half marathon in early march other than my commute run home which is a different league as running through the city is so stop/start with all the traffic and much slower paced because of carrying my rucksack. 

I am somewhere off my best pace as I conpleted 12.5K in 1 hour 8 minutes when prior to the half marathon I was almost clearing 13K in under an hour.

I am not too fussed though as my big focus for my training for my upcoming marathons is to run more at a slower marathon pace rather than at threshold or sprint pace.

The weekend was finished off with a delicious turkish meal out. Lamb Iksender  awesome!

Getting back to a healthy routine

Back from holiday its time to face reality; 3 marathons in 3 months the firat of which is in less than 90 days. Time to shape up. 

Step 1 : First of all post holiday blow out!

Major taste, major calories a massive cheat day an awesome foodgasm courtesy of Papa John.

Hawaian BBQ & The Greek

Step 2 : Sweat out the holiday excess

13K run to sweat out the holiday excess, all that alcohol and cheese (http://idratherbeoutrunning.blogspot.com/2014/05/greek-holiday-foodporn.html). I always find I need one workout to sweat out all the bad stuff before I can get back to training normally again and this run did the job nicely.

I was pretty impressed I managed to have a pace of practically 5min/Km for what at the moment is my maximum distance.

Step 3 : Start eating right

A massive stir fry with loads of veggies. One of my favourite things to cook, this was a chicken and prawn concoction made using some garlic, soy sauce and chicken stock.

I have also loaded up on healthy snacks:

And I am making sure I eat right at work:

Step 4 : Start training my ass off

Next I need to start putting some hours in, I got bck Tuesday afternoon and I have now trained 5 times in 3.5 days. A cardio gym session, 2x runs and 2x weight circuit sessions.

Step 5 : Plan out how I am going to knock this challenge out of the park! 

So now I need to put some work into planning out my training strategy. I do love a good spreadsheet so I will plan this out like a geek! My basic plan is to do 15K at the weekend and then follow that up with at least one 18K and one half marathon by the end of the month.

Then in June I plan to have done at least one run in the area of 30K.

So fingers crossed it all goes to plan and watch out for more updates.