Strength training - AnnaTheApple

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

Week #1 Marathon Training

Morning all. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on documenting every single week of marathon training (assuming I do manage to complete all the training without getting injured…there’s confidence for you). But as it’s the first week, why not.

My marathon training plan is HERE. Alongside this I’m also doing the ‘Ab Challenge’ which I started on the 1st June. This includes, every day (except for a few rest days), sit ups, crunches, leg raises and a plank. Each day the number increases (for the plank, the length of time increases). It’s no joke now having done Day 15.

Monday – no running, but I did a 45 minute strength workout after work.

This included:
– 100 weighted squats
– 3x 10 weighted calf raises
– 3mins toe lifts
– 2x 20 of kick-backs, leg swings and hydrant lifts

Tuesday – 3 miles easy run in the morning. For my easy runs I’m trying to keep to around 8.30mins/mile which is a comfortable speed. I also did another strength workout after work.

This included:
– 3mins calf raises (no weight)
– 3mins toe lifts
– 3x 1min side planks
– 2x 1min plank with leg touches to the side
– 3x 30 Russian twists

Wednesday – We had the RR10 that evening. This was an off-road 4.5mile race (the RR10 is a set of league races with all the clubs in our area).

I really wasn’t feeling motivated. I was in a bit of a bad mood anyway. Then they delayed the start by 15 minutes and that just furthered by lack of motivation. I ummed and arred about whether to run with Ben or on my own and push it. I decided to push it. Within the first mile I knew it wasn’t a good run. My hip was niggling (possibly because of the unstable terrain?) and I just felt tired.

One of my team mates who wasn’t running cheered me on but at this point (maybe mile 2) I was considering dropping out. She shouted “just enjoy it!” when she realised I wasn’t feeling it. This really helped. Suddenly I realised, “hey, yeah I can just run this as slowly as I want and it doesn’t matter. Just get the miles in.”. My whole mood changed and I dropped the speed and just ran comfortably. Loads of people overtook me but I didn’t care. Eventually my friend Matt caught up (I was hoping Ben would catch up and I could run with him but he was having a rubbish run as he was exhausted (*cough* and hungover *cough*) after getting back from Bucharest earlier that day). So I ran with Matt instead and helped push him along (well sort of, I’m not sure who was pushing who!)

I finished 39th or 38th position (can’t remember) out of the females. Previously I’ve been 10th and 11th but I actually didn’t mind. I’ve also come to realise I don’t like the RR10s one bit. They’re heavily competitive (you aim for position not time), they’re in the evening, they’re always a very short distance and they’re off-road so there’s a big chance of turning your ankle (which a guy at our club did). To me it’s not worth it during my marathon training. Sure it’s a good speed session but I’d rather do that with the club Tuesday night on road or on my own where the pressure (that I put on myself I hasten to add) is less. I know I sound extremely ‘sour grapes’ but the relief and weight off my shoulders felt when I decided not to do anymore was huge. I felt so much better.

Thursday – another after work strength session:

– 2x 1 min side planks
– 3x 30 heel taps
– 3mins toe lifts
– 3mins calf raises
– 3min bridge
– 10x 3 bridge leg lifts

[I’m focusing on areas that I know I’m weak and also making sue I have strong shins and calves as I’m terrified about getting shin splints – because let’s be honest, that’s the next thing I’m bound to get]

Friday – another easy 3 mile run in the morning.

Saturday – I didn’t get to Parkrun because my uni friends were down so I went for an earlier 3 mile speed run. I was chuffed with this. Not my fastest but on my own not too shabby!

Sunday – 5 mile ‘long’ run (fairly amusing but it will get longer later) I really enjoyed this.

I ran very comfortably, rarely looking at my watch and was happy to see my paces were around 8 minutes. Bodes well!

Total run miles: 18

After getting back from my run and Ben returning from his, we had breakfast and then (without showering – yep we’re that gross) we headed out for a 15 mile bike ride with our friend, Nathan. It was fairly hilly and we didn’t blast the speed so it was quite nice.

I was fairly shattered for the rest of the day. Onwards to Week 2!

Do you put pressure on yourself to the point you stop enjoying something?

What workouts have you enjoyed this week?

What workouts have you hated?

February 19, 2014

Where I’m currently at

I don’t like talking to other marathon trainees at the moment as it stresses me out. I’m not where I’d ideally like to be in my ‘perfect’ marathon training, but in this sensible world I’m currently trying to live in (i.e. avoiding re-injury) it’s just how it has to be.

There are quite a few people in my running club and bloggers training for spring marathons and every weekend they say how far they’ve run for their long run…18, 20, 22miles. It really concerns me. I’m currently at 13. But it just has to be this way as I really need to take my build up slowly. My knee is still delicate. I don’t want to make it angry and flake out on me again And, as I keep berating myself, it’s my training plan and my marathon I’m working towards. It is pointless to compare to others.

But, on a positive note, I do things are going well. Last week I had my highest mileage in ages.

Monday: off
Tuesday: recovery 4 miles (ave. 9mins/mile) // leg strength workout in evening
Wednesday: Core strength workout
Thursday: Personal trainer session (lots of back and shoulders) // 6 miles (1 mile warm-up, 6x 6min tempo with 1 min recoveries) in evening
Friday: Leg strength and Pilates
Saturday: Parkrun (22:30)
Sunday: Brighton half marathon

I’m loving me some recovery runs at the moment. I never used to do them; every run had to be about proving my speed and I felt I failed if the run was too slow. But it just meant all my runs were ‘sub par’ because I’d never really be recovered to then take on a hard run at 100%. So Tuesday’s run was just perfect after my previous tough long run on the Sunday.

I’ve also been focusing a lot on my strength. I want to do one core session a week (planks, side planks, supermans, etc.) and at least one leg strength session (though ideally two) a week. We’re not talking anything crazy here. Just under an hour focusing on what I know are my weakness (hips, bum, hamstrings).

Thursday tempo run was tough, I’m not gonna lie. I was chuffed to maintain speedy paces throughout the 6minutes but it became increasingly more difficult. Also I chose a rubbish route that I looped around twice: two sets of stairs and a nasty hill!

So I might not be hitting the big miles but I’m consistent with my running at the moment and feeling somewhat happy with how it’s going. My knee is still not 100% and it can niggle the day after a run if I’ve been sat down for too long but it’s manageable and getting increasingly better. Fingers crossed it will eventually just bugger off!!

I’ve got a 15 miler planned for this weekend. It’s a bit of a tough call on what to run as it’s the week before Reading half. But I know for a fact that I won’t be getting a PB, or anywhere close, even if I tapered appropriately. My fitness is just not where it was last year. Ideally I’d love to beat what I got in Reading last year (1:41:19) but anything close would make me happy 🙂 So I will push myself but I won’t kill myself. It will be a faster long run.

If you’re training for a marathon, where are you at with your long runs?

What long runs do you like to get in before a marathon?

What was your favourite workout last week?

January 15, 2014

Let there be cake… #WIAW

Hello, you fabulous people.

The weekend gone was amazing. My mother-in-law, who I get on so well with, had the brilliant idea of hosting an afternoon tea party at her house on Saturday. Obviously this is the best idea in the entire world to me. So I thought I’d get involved with What I ate Wednesday!

Check out Jenn’s blog for more details

But before I get to the good stuff…I had a really good workout in the morning. Obviously I would have much prefered to be out Pakrunning (do I say this every week? I think I do) but this was a second best. I went to spin and endured that torture for 45minutes before then going and doing my own strength routine afterwards. I like Saturdays at the gym because I don’t have to rush off straight after the class or worry about time like I do in the week. Though Saturdays are heaving with people furiously running on the treadmills (don’t they know about Parkruns??), using machines or doing personal trainer group sessions.

I did a similar routine to my Winter Workout but I missed off the single leg squats and added instead:

Russian twists with 8kg kettle bells
Planks
Lateral pull-downs
Kettle bell single arm presses
One arm rows

Ahh I fear that the days of my 5 minute planks are gone…I didn’t attempt a lengthy one, I tried to vary it up by moving each leg out and in while maintaining the same core position. And that was tough. Use or lose it!

In the end I was at the gym for two hours. Seriously. I am that sad. But it felt good to take my time and get what I needed to done. I didn’t want to go to the gym Sunday so it was then or never.

Back to cake.

My MIL had done herself proud 🙂

There were sandwiches (ham, prawn, coronation chicken, cucumber and salmon with crème cheese), home-made Victoria sponge, home-made lemon drizzle, éclairs, little biscuits, scones (with raisins & plain)…a feast!

Well, I pretty much had everything. Obviously.

A few sandwiches (I see it as a necessary ‘lining of the stomach).

The coronation chicken was my favourite. I went back for a few more of those!

Then a lovely slice of Victoria Sponge. Positively scrumptious.

A cheeky slice of lemon drizzle.

And obviously a raisin scone with jam and clotted cream (no photo. I can only assume I was too concerned with stuffing my face and floating in cake heaven).

Mmm. Though I must say I was quite stuffed. This was Ben and my late lunch…and dinner as it turned out. We were so full! (How does that surprise me? Three cakes and a platter of sandwiches??)

Sunday was just a blissful day of nothing. I took Alfie on three lovely long walks though as I did get a bit cabin fevery. Sometimes I just have to be outside…I listened to Marathon Talk on two of the walks and walked with Ben on the other one. We were spying on some potential houses that we would love to buy…Fingers crossed maybe to moving out this year!

What would be on your menu for afternoon tea? I’m not a fan of éclairs at all but my dad loves them. Victoria sponge is always a winner for me. And cucumber sandwiches.

Does it annoy you when the gym is busy? Thankfully our gym is quite big so there’s never a queue for machines or weights.

Have you been Parkrunning lately? I have such withdrawal symptoms!!

January 13, 2014January 16, 2014

Winter workout and tasty pastries

Happy Monday, everyone. Is it me or is it starting to get lighter in the mornings? I can’t wait until I’m woken by sunlight in the morning again…such a gentle way to wake up.

During my time off of running [apart from boring the socks off of everyone about how much I wish I was running] I have been going to the gym and trying to strengthen my body so that when it decides it is happy to run again, it will run strong.

I’ve been seeing a person trainer pretty much once a week (apart from Christmas) and he’s been guiding me through lots of exercises that I would never have done on my own. And lifting weights I would never have dreamed I could have done. Now I am by no means comparable to lots of other far stronger people out there, but for me I’m amazed.

My session last week he instructed me to deadlift a dumbbell bar weighing a total of 50kg. This is pretty much my weight! I realise this might seem so easy to some people but I couldn’t do it. I was terrified: it was too heavy, I was convinced I’d break my back or knees.

He took the weights off and started with just 20kg. He tutored my form and then added more weights, I deadlifted, then rested. He added more weights, I deadlifted, then rested. We continued with this until we were back at 50kg. And I did it – all 8 reps of it!!

It’s not running, no where near. But I was so proud of myself.

I also follow workouts that my running coach devised (all those weeks ago) which is mainly focused on lower body:

This took me 40mins to complete. And I looked like a right berk doing the unbalanced squats.

I’m hoping that I’ve been using my ‘non-running’ time well. And when I get back into running I will continue with my strength workouts, hopefully, twice a week. That is the plan anyway!

On an entirely different note, I was sent some pastry cases made by Pidy to try out. Pidy products are made with their award winning pastry recipe that the Pidy family initially created in their little patisserie shop in Ypres, Belgium back in 1952. They have a huge range of different pastries ready for fillings to be added.

I’m not a huge fan of pastry I must say but these sounded very cute and dinky. I was sent three types: mini square puff pastry squares, award winning pastry ‘sponnettes’ and veggie cups. The puff pastry squares were 130 calories per square and the spoonettes and veggie cups under 20 calories. There are no artificial colours of E-numbers and they’re a great source of fibre too.

Because we were feeling lazy on Sunday night Ben and me decided to have a sort of snack plate so we could try out the pastries.

I filled the different pastries with tuna pate, hummus and Brussels pate. We could have been more adventurous I’m sure and made them more exciting but these little things were perfectly delicious just like this and very filling! My favourite was definitely the veggie cups which were with 30% beetroot juice (hence the colour) and they were very crunchy which I loved. Other veggie cup flavours are carrot, spinach and celeriac.

I’m sure they’d be perfect versatile snacks that you could really go to town on the fillings and offer to guests when hosting an evening (ooh er, how posh!). And they don’t just have to be savoury, you could easily fill these badboys with sweet fillings – like fruit and yogurt, or chocolatey yumminess.

Thanks to food PR agency CLIP Creative and PR for the samples!

**I was sent the samples to review, but these are all my own opinions of the product**

Right, let’s get this week started!

Are you good with balancing strength workouts with cardio?

Do you like finger food and canapés? I love canapés. I especially love weddings with posh canapés 😉

What would you fill these pastries with? I was a bit boring with mine but they were very tasty regardless.

November 1, 2013

My Marathon Training Plan

Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiday, where have you been all my ~~life~~ week? And tonight is quite exciting because Ben and me are off out to our running club Christmas meal (shhh, I know it’s only just November – it’s all about dragging Christmas out in my eyes).

This week I’ve been taking things a bit easier on the running front after the Great South Run to make sure I don’t over-do things. I’d love to be able to rock out stupid amounts of miles every week but unfortunately I’m not there yet. Not in this training cycle anyway.

Here’s how the upcoming weeks are looking for me for my marathon training:

There’s a great deal of flexibility though. I’m happy to move things around, reduce/increase miles, or delete workouts entirely if needs be. I like doing spin twice a week as it’s a great speed workout without the pounding on the legs (though after a hard run on Sunday I will drop my Monday one when I fancy). The workouts that I’m least likely to change though are the long runs. This is because this is a whole new territory for me. Long runs used to be 10-12 miles. Now they’re 14 miles plus. That’s scary to me at the moment – I have yet to do further than 16 miles (should I be panicking??). I’d love to have another 20 miler in there to fully boost my confidence and feel comfortable at longer distances but I just don’t have the time to recover sensibly.

Basically this is a guide of my ideal training cycle. But let’s be honest, knowing me, it is never going to work out that way. Ideally things would have gone a bit more smoothly leading up to this point due to my long-standing niggles. Thankfully though things are feeling lots better. The running coaching has definitely helped this, with improving my form and giving me the stretches and strength exercises I’ve needed.

It’s definitely been an eye opener for the stuff I haven’t been doing. Gluteal exercises for instance. Loving those bridges…they’re lots of fun. Not.

These are the top exercises and stretches I’ve been adding into my routine:

Bridges (pulsing and holding for 30 seconds)

Source [Except I don’t look as serene!]

Single leg squats (it really makes it obvious that I’m weaker on one leg)
Pendulum kickbacks
Lunges
Hip flexor stretch <—this one is a big one for me as my hips are always so tight (due to sitting 80% of the day…thank you work)

Source

So I’m trying to do these every day where I can, or every other day.

I have a few goals for this marathon in December. I’m not going to say exactly what time I’m aiming for as I’m a big believer in not trying to jinx things. Plus I really don’t know how my body is going to respond to that distance. I may need to readjust my goals after my 18 mile training run!

But I have three time goals (my ballpark vague figure that I will say is sub-four hours) and then I have a “survive it” goal and a “have fun” goal. We’ll see which ones pan out…

Have you ever run a marathon? Any tips?

When you prepare for races do you follow a plan?

Do you do a lot of strength work?