Jenny's Running Blog

Monday, October 23, 2006

Week 8, Day 1 - My Fitness Ran Away With My Virtue!

Check out today's stats and tell me what's happened to my speed and stamina? Very poor show. I just had no energy again. The week before last week I ran three times but last week I only ran once but I feel as though my fitness has jumped back about three or four weeks. I can only hope that it will be easier tomorrow.

Stats:
Distance - 3.57km / 2.22 miles
Avg Speed - 7.14 kmh/4.44 mph
Min/Mile Pace - 13.52
Hours so far this week - 0.30
Miles so far this week - 2.22

posted by Jenny at 10:01 AM

4 Comments:

  • Don't worry too much. I'm sure you'll get back in the groove very quickly. Just be patient. Hey, you just did 2.22 miles. That's awesome. Keep remembering where you came from and looking forward to where you want to be and enjoy the ride.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 4:18 PM  

  • Jenny ... Your lack of energy could be caused by a lot of things. But you might want to take a hard look at your diet and sleep habits first. Make sure that you are eating consuming enough good calories; particularly carbohydrates. Second, are you drinking enough water (or other non-diuretic fluids)? If you are anything like me, you imbibe from time to time which tends to dehydrate you. You need to replace all that water that the alcohol is stripping out of your body. A poor diet and a generally dehydrated state can certainly lead to sluggishness. Stress may also be playing a role. I assume you are doing any other physical strenuous activities, so I doubt it’s physical stress caused by over training; but the stress associated with your new job could be impacting you a little. Finally, are you getting enough sleep? A tired Jenny is a sluggish Jenny,

    Also .. Vic may be right. We all have down weeks. To counter this, especially while you are building up your weekly running distance or time, you need to take a rest week every 4 weeks or so. Just cut back 25% for a week and then continue your assault on your new level of fitness. You need to keep telling yourself that you can be just as fit as those other people on the treadmills at the gym; however, it just takes time. But you’re young, so you’ve got plenty of time. I drifted through my first 47 years telling myself that I was generally fit. It turned out that I was wrong. I spent the next 4 years getting into reasonably good shape only to discover that I could actually do a much better with a little more effort. That’s when I decided to take my weekly mileage up from the 18-20 miles a week range to 40-45 miles per week. It would have been far easier to figure this out when I was 27 instead of 47. So you are already way ahead of most of us.

    So don’t get discouraged. You’ll look back at these days with wonder and amazement. The new Jenny will be able to accomplish things that the old Jenny could only dream about and you’ll be that girl on the treadmill pounding out the miles to the astonishment of the newbies in the gym.

    By Blogger Phil, at 10:01 PM  

  • Thanks for this Phil. You've hit on a number of things that are a problem for me. My diet is... a joke! I don't think you'd believe how bad it was if I told you. I certainly don't drink enough a lot of the time - I'll often go the whole day before thinking to have a drink in the evening. I'm hoping that my lazy week last week will act as the rest week that you mentioned. I'm going to work on a better diet and fluid intake.

    It's funny how everything we do ultimately links in with everything else. I was sort of hoping that if I started running I could ignore my terrible diet for a while but it turns out that it's come back to bite me on the ass!

    By Blogger Jenny, at 8:27 AM  

  • Thanks ofr visiting my blog. I don't know my fitness tanked at the marathon so what do I know?
    It will come back though.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:13 PM  

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