Friday roundup…

Well we’ve been having a bit of rain round here lately, on and off all week, mostly on. It’s not a bad thing per se other than the lack of drainage and the flooding and the mudslides, but other than that it’s all good. That’s why the invented the treadmill.

With Monday being a split holiday in our household; I was off my wife not, I headed off to Santa Barbara Zoo with the kids to run laps around the flamingos and them.

Tuesday night was scheduled intervals, so off to the gym I headed I fully expected to be limited in time but I managed to get my whole session completed in one go 2 mile warm up, 4 x 1200m 400 rest, 1 mile cool down.

Wednesday I should have hit the pool but I didn’t get out of work till 9:00pm and would not be at home for an hour and I had to be back at work for 6:00am the next morning so I just bagged it.

Thursday it was still raining hard so I was back at the gym, it was a short 5 mile tempo run; 1 mile warm up. 3 miles at 6:35 pace and 1 mile cool down.   I was really feeling on top of my game despite not having that much sleep and just let if flow on the treadmill.

I managed to pull off negative splits through the tempo 3 miles and was pleasantly surprised ecstatic with my mile splits, I was actually faster than the prescribed pace and hit a new unofficial PR (previously at 6:15) , yeah it’s on a treadmill, but, well, we’ll see in a couple of weeks.

Tonight I did hit the pool for a 1000m and then polished it off with some weight training on the legs and a spell in the whirlpool! Remaining this week is a long tempo run of 10 miles scheduled for tomorrow, fingers crossed the rain holds off!I have been a bit hit and miss on my Sit up/Push up/Squats challenge  but I am slowly improving, not surprisingly pushups are the hardest!

I picked up this recommendation from Mike over at the DDRTP and placed an Amazon order. During the week this arrived, it’s a spiral bound edition, I have only really flicked through it so far but I want/need to improve my flexibility, typically I do stretch after each run but with the work on my core etc I need to add this in to avoid being overwound, what I do like about the book is that you can make the sessions as long or short as you like, it’s broken down into body areas and there is a section that is divided into focusing on power, strength, flexibility and mental focus. Also in the mail this week was my Brand Champion road racing kit that I ordered from Sugoi including the limited to BCs edition only singlet and arm warmers and a pair of their 42k shorts, so now I am can at least look the part, still there is a lot of value in visualization and the self confidence from simply adopting the attitude of “what would a xxx (insert specialist) do and work it out from there, trust me I have used this and it really works, even in non sports scenarios; think interviews or presentations and the like, the brain is a seriously powerful tool!

This weekend sees the first weigh in for the 20/20 challenge; remember you need to have your number emailed to me by Sunday night, there are 10 players so that’s $200 up for grabs! I’ve been pretty mindful all week and already feel some impact…let the games begin.

Hope you all have a great weekend!