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markc7's new training log


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Now that I'm back on VBBF, I think it's time that I started a training journal once again. My training has been poor lately, but I'm hoping to get back into it more regular in the next couple of months. Here's something I posted on another message board in a thread about motivation:

 

This year I have had every reason in the world to lose my motivation for running. We had a terrible winter in Ottawa with record snowfall. I'm approaching the end of my PhD and I'm busier that I've even been. My marriage was on the rocks and we finally split last month. And I'm moving across the province in August. For all those reasons my training was very poor this year. January was decent and I had a couple of nice night runs in the spring when the snow melted. But other than that my training was worse than it has ever been.

 

Despite all that, I've still been motivated to race. I ran a fun 52km race in April, and set a 3.5 hour PR at 100 miles in May. Both races I entered with shamefully low training mileage. The key was readjusting my expectations of myself. Actually, I pretty much eliminated any expectations. I love running intrinsically so much that I entered those races just to have fun. People often sandbag their stated goals and claim to be running just for fun, when really they have a goal somewhere in the back of their mind. I found that I was able to let that go. I think I had to, given how little I had trained (before the 100 miler I calculated that I had run less this year than the amount run by the beginner half marathon training group at the Running Room).

 

Posting here will hopefully help to keep me on track, and maybe I'll even get back in the gym someday soon. I really appreciate comments!

 

This afternoon I did a 9km run at a moderate pace. It was a great day for a run, sunny but with some clouds and not too hot. The pathways near the canal were busy with bikers, walkers, and runners. I've missed running along there.

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i'm siked to follow this. i'm hoping to start running more myself.

i don't know if you aim to lose or gain weight in any way but it would be cool if you posted some current stats

 

Thanks for posting, and good luck with your running. I'm not really at the point where i have any definite goals (apart from the races). It's more important to me that I take care of myself and just enjoy exercising again, rather than looking to many any quantifiable improvement. I would like to get my lifts back to where they were last fall (265 deadlift and squat, can't remember what my max reps for pull ups and pushups where)

 

Having said that, my avatar pic is only a couple months old and I haven't gained or lost any substantial amount since then. I'm around 190 which is where I stay without any effort. I fluctuate 2-3 pounds in either direction depending on whether I'm lifting more or running more.

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I did a quick 5km run this afternoon. Nothing too special to write about. I wasn't too into it, because I ate mediocre today so my stomach wasn't at 100%. But I still managed a good comfortable pace around 5:30/km. I also did some bodyweight exercises after the run. Crapolla am I out of shape! I'm going to do a couple more days of BW stuff before I get back to the gym; otherwise I might embarrass myself!

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I was sick yesterday, so I didn't do a workout of any kind. I've been eating relatively clean for a couple weeks, then made a dumb decision to eat a bunch of refined stuff the day before yesterday. Tasty, very tasty, but it felt like I was punched in the gut. Lesson learned. Yesterday I ate better and so today I feel fine. I just got back from a really tasty lunch of pad-thai. Mmmm.

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After having learnt my lesson about not eating alot of processed crap, I decided to spend much of last night drinking instead. Actually, I didn't have too much to drink and it was spread out over several hours and two restaurants. This morning I felt fine, so the final lesson here is that sugar and cookies are worse than beer and JD.

 

This morning I did a really nice 13km run in just over an hour. It was a bit muggy out, but raining lightly so it felt quite cool. I left my place thinking I might run around 5-8km, but a couple minutes into the run I knew it was going to be one of those days that I would want to just run forever. If I didn't have lunch plans with a buddy of mine, I would have run for a couple more hours. It's days like this that make me so happy to be a distance runner.

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Today was a long run day. I did 21.5km at a very slow and easy pace, since this was my longest run since my 100 miler last month. Also it was hot and I didn't have any food or sports drink with me on the run. But it felt good regardless. Ottawa is such a cool city for running; every Sunday in the summer they close down three or four of the major parkways to vehicles, and open them up to bikers, rollerbladers, runners, etc. It's a nice change of scenery to be running on the roads in training.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to take a day off from running, but I'll maybe go to the gym. Then July 1st is my favourite holiday of the year: Canada Day!!

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I'm excited that once we move to the new place I'll be less than 2k from one of the roads you mention.

 

Bike Days rock! And even when the roads aren't closed, you'll be pretty close to the canal and other pathways.

 

My log seems to be having the desired effect; I exercised today despite not really wanting to. What I really wanted to do was go buy a container of soy ice cream and watch movies. What I did instead was a short and easy workout in the gym. I haven't lifted since January or February, so I just did a couple of exercises (bench, deadlifts, pullups, crunches, plank, lat pulldowns) on low weights to get my body used to it again. It felt good, but I know that often when I go to the gym after a long hiatus the DOMS hits a couple days later. We'll see.

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I was a little bit sore this morning, but nothing too bad. I had been planning to do a Canada Day run with a friend of mine this morning. We had talked about doing a 10k loop along the Ottawa River, then maybe adding a km or two depending on how we felt at the end. Well, I seem to have gotten my metric and imperial systems mixed up, because the route I had in mind was actually 10 miles, and I didn't realize it until almost 8km in. So we ran a bit further than planned, maybe 17km total, but it was a really nice day for a run so I didn't mind.

 

Happy Canada Day!

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Not to be outdone by other people's Canada Day pictures, here are a couple of me enjoying Canada's birthday in Ottawa.

 

This is me with Terry Fox's van. This is the actual van that drove with Terry as he attempted to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. If you don't know much about Terry, give this a quick read.

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00022a.jpg

 

Here is me with one of my least favourite politicians, Stephan Dion, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, just not exactly PM material. I mean, who wears a suit outside on Canada Day?

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00028a.jpg

 

There was a cool BMX show going on down on Rideau Street. I got a couple good action shots. Here's the best one:

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00031a.jpg

 

More coming later...

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I went to a couple concerts during the day. This one I only stayed at for a couple minutes.

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00012a.jpg

 

Here is me heading to the evening concert with the crowd behind me.

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00001a.jpg

 

Veggie dogs from street vendors. The best part of Canada Day?

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00003a.jpg

 

The last concert of the evening, which was followed by about twenty minutes of fireworks.

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00014a.jpg

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I haven't posted for a while because I've been out of town the last little while. Yesterday was my birthday, so I spent the weekend in Toronto at my sister's. I wasn't planning on going for a run during my trip, but ended up doing about 8km Sunday morning. I didn't have my shoes with me, so I started the run in my brother in law's shoes which were a couple sizes too small. So after about 2km I took off the shoes and ran barefoot for the next 5km. So now my feet are a bit sore from both the shoes and the barefoot running, which I haven't done in a couple months. Then at my birthday party in the afternoon we had vegan cupcakes (of course!).

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It's great to follow your running blog. I hope to be running very soon. I wish you the best with those trainings!

 

Btw was it you walking by Bloor and Spadina just at the corner of Fresh monday afternoon or did I cross with a lookalike?

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That was probably me! Damn, I wish I had seen you. I had been planning to go to Fresh again, but decided to eat at Urban Herbivore instead.

 

I'm back in Ottawa now, and am planning to do a quick gym workout sometime today.

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Some pictures from my birthday weekend.

 

Here's me at Fresh on Bloor on Saturday. I ate the "Power Bowl" with tofu steaks, avocado, sprouts, rice, tomato, nuts, etc

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/00001.jpg

 

It was my nephew's birthday a couple days before mine, so he got a cupcake with a candle to blow out as well.

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/n28126003_43230058_8279.jpg

 

My friend Johnny from high school was there as well.

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/markc7/n28126003_43230060_8611.jpg

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Not the most impressive workout this evening. I ate couscous and veggies for supper, then waited about 1.5 hours before doing a workout. I guess I was still digesting, because after a hard 15 minute bike ride I felt a bit upset to my stomach. I did a couple pullups, dips, and some ab exercises, but wasn't really feeling it so I cut the workout short. Meh. tomorrow I'll eat better and hopefully will get some better work done.

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That was probably me! Damn, I wish I had seen you. I had been planning to go to Fresh again, but decided to eat at Urban Herbivore instead.

 

Good eye Lena! Wow! Mark if you ever are back in Toronto again we should work out! or eat at a vegan restaurant. I drove through Ottawa last weekend.

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OK, enough of this goofing around in the gym, it's time to get into some kind of actual workout plan. I'm going to start doing a three way split: Chest/triceps, back/biceps/core, legs/shoulders. On each of these days I'll start with one of the three big lifts (bench, deadlifts, squats), on which I'll do 5x5's. The rest of the exercises for each day, I haven't decided what they'll be or what reps/sets combination to do. I'll work that out as I go along.

 

So, can you guess which of the three days I decided to start on? Back and biceps, of course! My numbers are embarrassingly low, though I hope they are not shamefully low.

 

5x5x185 Deadlifts (I need gloves!)

4x8x95 bent over bb rows

3x5 medium/close pullups (ok, this one is shameful)

3x10 incline crunches

3x10x35 back extensions

2x5x65+2x5x45 reverse BB curls

2x5x65+2x5x55 BB curl

2x90s plank (I'm actually fairly pleased with these, it's been a long time since I held a plank this long)

 

You might be wondering where all the running is in this log. Well, my blisters still haven't healed from my run on the 6th, so I'm waiting a couple more days before I do any running. But I hope to do a run this weekend, and then a very long run sometime during the coming week.

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I did a chest and tricep workout today. I have to be careful on some of these, as well as some of the delt exercises, because both of my shoulders have been injured in the past and they sometimes act up.

 

Smith bench press - I prefer DB press, and I'll probably do those instead from now on. Not sure why I used the smith today.

tricep pushdown

decline db press

dips - I feel so weak when I do these after having done pushdowns.

machine fly - my shoulder doesn't like these

straight arm pulldown - or these

reverse grip 1-arm tricep pushdowns - I love doing these, especially in big drop sets.

 

I might go for a run tonight or tomorrow morning.

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