The highs and the lows of learning to run and keep fit
I have had a bit of a rollercoaster ride over the last week or so…
I had 4 days away on the Isle of Mull - absolutely magic and a great family holiday. I took this as a ‘treat’ weekend and allowed myself to drink wine every night and eat 3 course meals too. I tried to keep my carbs low in the evening and not pig out too much. It did feel like a treat but not so much that I wanted to throw all my good work away. The biggest treat was buying fish and chips from the van in Tobermory - that is a bit of a tradition and they are seriously the best fish and chips in the country.
Anyway, I did one set of core exercises and one 30 minute run (including hills around Calgary Bay - beautiful - I felt like I was making a movie it was so stunning).
I came back ready for a really good session on Tuesday - ready to hit my targets for this month and make sure I am not on a plateau. Straight into interval sprinting and I manged to strain my quad/thigh muscle during the first set of sprints. Not sure how I did it - I was well warmed up and fed. It was pretty sore - I couldn’t put any stress on it at all so we had to abandon the training session after 10 minutes. To say I was really pissed off is putting it mildly - I was raging! All I could think about was being out of action for a week or two, losing muscle and getting fat.
I came home and put an icepack on my leg for 20 minutes, then off for 20 minutes and repeat 3 times. By the following morning my thigh was really stiff and I was walking with a bit of a limp but by mid afternoon (ie, 24 hours later) it was beginning to fade. I put more ice on again last night and it seems to be much better. I will possibly be looking at leg training again tomorrow which is amazing. I don’t know if it my desire to get rid of the injury that made it heal so quickly or just the regime of ice and rest.
Anyway - last night I did really focused upper body training - Chest, biceps and shoulders. 4 sets of 15 (where I could) with 2 press ups after each chest exercise and 10 seconds of shadow boxing after each shoulder exercise. I really feel like I pushed myself to the limit and it felt great. Afterwards I did some assisted stretches to ensure my chest doesn’t become too tight - they were bloody agonising. But I do feel good today so they must have done something right.
I’m taking Maximuscle Cyclone (protein shake) within 20 minutes of each training session to build muscle and recover quickly. I’ve been doing this for around 10 days now - let’s see if there are any obvious results at the end of the month. The protein shake tastes pretty good in Orange flavour.
My weight doesn’t appear to be shifting much and I think I have been a bit heavy on the portion sizes in the last couple of weeks. I’ll try to focus on that for the next few weeks too.
All looking good and feeling great now though!!! Summer holiday to France in 7 weeks so it is time to push on for those goals - I want to look great in a red pair of Diesel boardies - call me shallow - I don’t care. I don’t think I’ve ever looked good just in shorts so this could be a life changing moment for me 