First Success

Cuz U Luv teh Kittehz (Matty-O)

Well I'm happy to report I actually got BOTH my workouts in on the weekend! That means I completed my FIRST full week of training without skipping anything. I know now that recording my workouts helps motivate me. I haven't been keeping a training log so I don't get to regularly see how much I am slacking. After plugging in my workouts every day, it helps motivate me to get the next workout in. Afterall, if I don't get successive workouts in, then it makes the previous workout more-or-less a waste of time. These workouts depend on each other. Plus I can take pride in seeing my accomplishments when I nail a successful week. It's not so easy to ignore that missed workout when it stares me in the eye everytime I look at the calendar and there is a blank spot in the middle of it. I have to keep this up!


Saturday was an easy day to get out for the long run because it was exciting to finally try to do an entire loop of the Ultra-Trail race loop. I was curious on how I would do.

Damn that was hard.

A single full loop was completed in under 2.5hrs! I predicted 3.5hrs so I am happy but disappointed at the same time. The average finisher time is 4 loops, 50 Miles in about 12-13hrs. Clearly either I ran it waaay too fast and needs to slow down, OR I am afraid that the final couple of laps are done at a crawling pace which may be closer to the truth. I was exhausted after just one loop, I can't imagine doing 4!! I think I could grin and bear one more lap but anything after that seems a bit stupid.

I'm not sure what to take from this.

I think I'll just continue to train hard and see if the loop gets any easier or something. The 50km course seems pretty epic but doable, however 50 Miles now seems borderline insane. It's too early to have doubts though, I haven't got anywhere in the training program so I'll leave the doubting until March-ish and see how I am doing.

I even stopped for about 10 minutes on the loop to chat with my Dad. What were the odds of being in the middle of a large forest on some obscure remote trail and finding my father out on a walk with his girl friend. Too funny!

Sunday was not as fun. I procrastinated and didn't get out the door right away, so that spells doom for any chances of me actually doing the workout. Then I decided I would just jump on the trainer at the same time as the wife, except she jumped on without me AND put Christmas movie on. Forget that, I don't do Christmas movies. Yuck! So She unilateraly voted me off the island and my only other option was to going outside in the freezing wind and endure. She's so mean to me.

2hrs of cycling later and I'm happy to have got outside, but that was just too cold for comfort. Moutain biking requires alot more muscles and different type of intense output, so I felt like I had just done a 1/2 Iron. I was whooped. It never used to be this tough, I suck at MTB now. I have the skills but it's an entirely different kind of fitness. I have come to the terms that my cycling ability requires grave improvement.

As far as the whole 'commenting' problem I have with blogspot - I can't even comment ON MY OWN BLOG! That sucks. I'll try to turn off the auto-login feature, I suspect you guys are right in that it is what's causing my problem. It would be nice to respond to comments on my own blog haha!

TRAINING
Mountain Bike - 2:00hrs
Hilly Trail Run - 2:20hrs