Lesson Learnt

When I am in a crap mood walking/running makes me feel good. Without fail it works. The only problem being that when you are in a shit mood and you go walking in 39 degree (centigrade) heat (about 102 Fahrenheit). I started out OK but then stupidly decided to start running. Yes hindsight is a wonderful thing and if I were to think about it again I would not go out but I did and it was a dumb thing to do.

Trent was going to meet me along the way at various places to give me some water (we were going to visit my parents) but at about 2km I started getting dizzy, blurred vision and feeling like I needed to vomit. Not a good sign! Once Trent met me I had only walked 2.63km and it had taken me 32mins which shows how the heat was affecting me (I can do about double that distance in the same time frame).

After drinking 2 Gatorade drinks and litres of water I started to eventually feel better. Massive headache though, so I believe that I had heatstroke or something. So after all of that yes I did get a walk in but no I didn't feel any better, if anything I felt worse. My lesson has been learnt so from now on no walking/running in anything over 34 degrees and walk at night!

Distance travelled today: 2.63km
Distance travelled so far: 203.5km
Distance left to travel: 25,550.5km

200km!

Yesterday my parents came home from visiting my sister in Sydney. They catch the bus from the airport, so I had to drop the car off at the bus stop for them to get home. I decided that I would walk from the bus stop home in the hopes of reaching 200km before the end of the year.

I had Nic join me on my walk. It was quite a slow walk by our normal standards but any walk is better than no walk. Our slowest km took us 13.17 mins which is a very slow time and even our quickest km wasn't that fast at 10.29mins.

After 1hr 17mins we finished our walk which turned out to be 6.68km making me pass the 200km mark! I have to say that 4mths ago I didn't imagine that I would still be walking let alone running (to be honest I think there are other people that probably thought the same). I plan on reaching various goals in the new year and hopefully Nic will continue to walk with me to motivate me and push me when I need pushing etc... I hope to walk 600km in 2011 (bring my total to 800km), I also hope to walk a 50km challenge walk in September with Nic, so I will have to start training for bigger walks. So heres hoping the motivation stays and I can reach these goals and more I set along the way.


Distance travelled today: 6.68km
Distance travelled so far: 200.87km
Distance left to travel: 25,553.13km

Christmas Eve

We have traveled to Trent's Mum's place for Christmas and I decided it was a good opportunity to take Trent out for a walk. I went a different way to where I walked when I came up here a couple of months ago, but because Trent was with me he was fine with me running along the river.

Trent is not a fan of running so I wasn't sure he would overly enjoy himself. He still doesn't understand why I enjoy it so much. I started off running and as it was down hill I thought it would make it a little easier for Trent. He still didn't enjoy it though. I think I went out a bit hard too early though. I ran the first 1km in 8.51mins (I am sure the hill helped though).

After the first km it went down hill. I blame the bugs, the copious amounts of bugs. It was horrible. Mosquitoes, moths, and any other flying sort of bug. There were so many bugs. There were places on the run that I felt like I couldn't inhale for fear of inhaling my weight in bugs. If it wasn't the bugs it was the revolting stench the lingered around the river. It seriously smelt like we were running around in a dirty old service station toilet. It was truly disgusting.

After the first 2.5km my leg started to hurt a bit, I am not sure if it was because I went hard early or just my leg flaring up a bit again. I then decided to slow down a bit in the hopes of not making it worse.

As we were heading home I decided to do a bit of sprint (so much for saving my leg). There is me sprinting whilst Trent just jogs along side of me. Damn him for having longer legs than me! My leg was hurting even more after the sprint, so the walk wasn't as long as I had hoped.

I have been icing my leg since we got home and hopefully I will be good for my next run. Not far off 200km, so I have decided that I have to do that before the end of the year. Shouldn't be too hard hopefully.

Distance travelled today: 4.16km
Distance travelled so far: 194.19km
Distance left to travel: 25,559.81km

Laps

Today Nic & I went back to running laps. I met him after work to run at the oval near his place whilst Robyn & Trent took the kids to play in the playground. The oval was a little overgrown, I guess the school gardener is on holidays til school goes back. It was a little annoying due to the long weeds and it was making my legs itch.

I have been in the mood to do some proper running all week but today was the first chance we had to get out. We would walk a lap and then run a lap. I was using my phone again to track how far I was going and it counts 1km as a lap. We ended up doing 7km. My slowest lap was 12.03min and my fastest was 9.43min. It is weird the more I run the easier I find it, so at the start I get puffed quite quickly but at the end I could keep going. I assume I have passed th 'pain barrier' so it gets easier from there? I have no idea.

Was an awesome run tonight and I am glad I went out, I love it wen my legs and hips hurt afterwards (odd I know) but it is a good pain not a bad pain.

Distance travelled today: 7.02km
Distance travelled so far: 190.03km
Distance left to travel: 25,563.97km

Sunday Stroll

This afternoon I went for a walk with Nic. I am still a little wary of over doing it with my leg, so I decided that we would not do any running today. We just walked in a random direction until we had had enough or arrived back home. It turned out to be quite a nice walk.

I had never walked the area we went before and we ended up walking past a creek, it was almost like we were walking in the bush. Nice and quiet and no exhaust fumes it was good. Surprisingly we ended up walking 6.31km. We were out over an hour but like I said I was taking it easy for the sake of my leg. I don't know if it will help or not but time will tell I guess.

The app I use on my phone (Endomondo, I highly recommend it) maps out where you have walked and after our walk today it looked like we had walked around the border of South Australia. It wasn't planned that way it just turned out like that. I didn't push myself overly hard but it was a good walk all the same.

Distance travelled today: 6.31km
Distance travelled so far: 183.01km
Distance left to travel: 25,570.99km

Sunlight

I had organised to go out for a run with Nic tonight and surprise, surprise he turned up before it was dark! We actually started and finished the run in daylight hours!

I have been doing so much housework this week that I think I have walked a million km but not actually gone anywhere. It has however put extra strain on my leg. It was a bit tight before we started out so I took the first couple of km a bit slow, so I could warm my leg up a bit. I did do some running but definitely not as much as on Monday night. My legs started to get quite tight but I decided to keep going. Probably not wise but I have been icing it ever since and it seems to be helping.

Nic also made me do 50 sit ups at the end of our walk/run, pity I can't add those to my tally. I ended up walking just over 6km, which is better than I thought I would do but now I will rest my leg til at least Saturday.

Distance travelled today: 6.04km
Distance travelled so far: 176.7km
Distance left to travel: 25,577.3km


Here is a question for you masses of readers out there (yep all 5 of you). I am going to start swimming in the new year, am I allowed to add my swimming distance to my walking distance?

I'm Back Baby!

I have been doing major housework all day and had been tossing up whether to go out walking tonight or not. One minute I would want to, then next I would think nah I will go out tomorrow. In the end I chose to go out.

I had planned on doing laps of the oval at the end of our street but ended up getting a phone call from Nic asking if I had made a decision or not (I had messaged him to see if he would help me make a decision). I ended up meeting Nic at the oval I found last week. I decided to start doing some running and it felt so good. My GPS tells me when I have done 1km and how long it took. My fastest 1km was 8.56 mins, I was very pleased with this. This shows I am getting fitter which is great to know, especially with two weeks of not much exercise.

My thighs are sore from the running but in a good way. I am starting to do more running than walking. It feels so good to be feeling good pain again and I look forward to going out again on Wednesday.

I'm back baby and it feels good!

Distance travelled today: 6.86km
Distance travelled so far: 170.66km
Distance left to travel: 25,583.34km

Leg Check

I have been waiting for today for the past week. I never realised how much I enjoy all this walking/running, considering I went through a 2 week period of not really wanting to go out anymore.

It has been absolutely pissing down today and I decided early on that considering I was only going out for a 2km walk to see how my leg was I would go out no matter how much it was raining. I was actually kind of looking forward to going out in the rain (maybe the child side of me coming through).

When I went out it had stopped raining and was nice and cool. I had to resist the urge to start jogging as I knew I needed to build up to it again. I did jog to get across one rd and it still pulled on my leg quite a bit, so that kept me to walking. I really want to get back out there properly so I am not going to over do it.

On my walk I passed yet another oval and playground that looked like it would be good to go to with the kids, I didn't check the oval out properly as I was just walking past but will definitely have to go back there.

I am loving having a GPS tracker in my phone as it means I don't have to work out where I am walking with Google maps before or after my walk, I can walk where ever and I will know how far I have gone. Today I ended up walking 2.46km. I know I won't be going out again until probably the weekend but it was good to know walking wise my leg is good, a few days extra rest can only be a good thing.

Distance travelled today: 2.46km
Distance travelled so far: 163.8km
Distance left to travel: 25,590.2km

Struggling

It has almost been a week since the fun run and I am still waiting out my week of no running/walking due to the shin splints. I have been on pain killers/anti-inflammatories since Monday.

I am struggling to deal with the pain. The pain isn't that bad, I am just struggling with the fact that it is still there. Some days are worse than others. I am starting to dream about going running! That is not something I thought would ever happen. I am missing going out. It is weird I feel a little lost on the nights I would go out running as I feel I have nothing to do.

I am hoping that by Tuesday my leg will be ok and will be able to go out for a short walk to see how my leg is. Three days and hopefully all will be good again.