On Tuesday I went for a run in the evening. On my schedule I was due to do a tempo run, where I would have to pace each section of the route; something I am not that good at on the road. Yet I didn’t really want to go to the gym as it was about 6pm or so, and usually it’s pretty busy around then. So, I decided to switch runs around so that I would do my easy road run and tackle the tempo run later in the week.
I set off on my new favourite route along to the Thames and back again. It was OK, but I felt my legs were pretty tired and I just wasn’t really feeling it. I had a few walking sections and decided on the way back to take a cut-through road back towards my house to shorten the run a bit, but somehow took the wrong road and ended up on this huge extended loop! I was due to run for 45 minutes, was planning on shortening this to about 40 with the cut through, but due to the wrong route I kept going until I had run for 50 minutes. I suppose that I actually could have kept going but I really did feel a bit knackered with tired legs, and it was all uphill the last 1.5Km home, so I just walked that bit. In total I ran 7.8Km in the 50 minutes, a pace of 6.25mins/Km.
I had made it my intention to do 14 yoga classes a month for the remainder of the year as 10 just wasn’t enough to feel improvement. The flow class I took on Monday was the 11th of the month and the 117th of the year. I would need to complete 3 more classes to make my intention for the month.
On Wednesday I did 4 rounds of sun salutations first thing in the morning. I keep forgetting to do them and actually this was the first time since last Friday. They say you have to do something for 21 days to make it a habit, and so I might make that a September challenge! I also think that if I leave my yoga mat out when I go to bed then seeing it in the morning will remind me, so I will try that too. I went to a 60 minute Bikram yoga class in my lunch break for my 12th class of the month, but this meant I still had 2 more to go before the end of the Thursday so I either had to do another class on Wednesday or 2 on Thursday. Neither option felt particularly inviting.
As the day progressed I realised that I didn’t feel I could run that day so I would be better off going to another yoga class so I could run and do the last yoga class of the month on the 31st. So I went to a late evening class on Wednesday and actually it felt pretty good, although my legs were tired from the earlier class.
On Thursday 31st I woke up and forgot my sun salutations again!! I went to the gym for a 30 minute cross training session on the bike. In the evening I had to run but I was a bit undecided as to whether I should attempt the tempo run or intervals. As I faffed around at home deciding, and getting ready to go I hadn’t kept an eye on the time and I was beginning to get concerned I wouldn’t make the 8pm yoga class. When I finally got to the gym and started my warm up,which was the same for both the tempo and interval sessions, I was still deciding which run I was going to do!
I settled on intervals as I generally prefer these. I ran 5mins @ 9.2, 5mins @ 9.5, then did 6 x 2mins at 10.5 and 2mins @ 9.0. I was due to do a cool down of 5mins @ 9.5 and 5mins @ 9.2 but I was anxious to make it to my 14th yoga class of the month so cut the cool down a bit short. I got to the yoga class in time but it was a horrendous struggle! I was too knackered from running and did I mention I was also on a 500 calorie day on the 5:2 diet?!
Lessons: don’t try to ram so many yoga classes in at the end of the month, don’t exercise so much on 500 calorie days and plan routes better so you don’t get lost.
Nevertheless I got to the end of August with 14 yoga classes complete, 5 XT sessions done, and 13 runs totalling 90.99Km. Pretty chuffed with that!
