Was that Venus this morning?

Hi everyone,

Yes, in fact, Venus was high in the sky this Halloween Morning. I was out running just after 7 AM and was greeted by the morning star hanging about 6 or 7 degrees above the pre-dawn horizon. Nice!

And, yes, I was out for a 5 km run this morning. Very nice - we are expecting a warm day and it was 8 degrees this morning. I was wearing gloves which came off at around the 2 km point. My pace was about 6:32 and I ran it pretty much straight through. Good news is that my heart rate is never getting all that high on these runs.

Anyway - for a 5km run I am sort of getting up near my target heart rate. It's all good!

Song of the day: Call Me Al by Paul Simon.

Will update after next run. Take care until then

Paul

Ah, squats...

Hi everyone

Andy dropped on by at lunch today and worked me over a bit. Squats. So, here is how this works: take a 45lb Olympic Barbell, add 45 lbs of weights, place on the shoulders of a 49 year old marathon wannabe and have him bend at the knees such that he squats all the way down and then come back up again.

Repeat 29 times

Take a 60 second break and do it again. Your goal is 150 squats.

After a while you will start to get a bit tired, sore - but don't worry, you won't get angry - you are way too exhausted for that.

Anyway after that horrifying experience, then do the plank on the Bosu for a while. Maybe 20 seconds? Maybe four times? Then we could migrate into a farmer's walk - grab two 25 lb dumbells, hold them over your head and march around the room for 60 seconds. Follow that up 20 mountain climbers using a medicine ball to balance yourself with. Do both of those twice.

Not tired yet? Well, how about 10 "Toes to the sky", 12 bicycle crunches and 4 inchworm crawlouts. - do that twice as well.

Now you are tired.

OK so, no run today because of the heavy squats. Therefor no song of the day. But some new on Prague. The titanic treo are back and going. Harvey and Dieter, my cheerleaders from last year, have agreed to join me again in the Czech capital again in March 2009. Thanks guys.

Got to go, back with you soon.

Paul

6 km down, 1500 to go...

Hi everyone,

Run club this evening - same route as last night. I shaved a full two minutes off of the pace by going at tempo speed which came in at 6:15 per km. I need to shrink things down but we are seeing progress.

Some problems with my iPod but suffice to say that the song of the day was Kodachrome by Paul Simon. Great Song!

Tomorrow, we have Andy and Squats!!!

Paul

Offical training launch!!!

As of today (181 days to go), friends, I kick off my formal training for Prague half 2009, Ottawa half 2009 and Reykjavik full 2009. My running room 1/2 Marathon clinic began this evening. Nice clinic - 12 people, mostly ladies, but an enthusiastic bunch as is usual with Running Room Clinics. We had to state our goal for the 1/2 Marathon and mine was to complete Prague in under 2:15. As a stretch, I would really like to come in around 2:00 but will be satisfied with 2:15. After that we walked through some of the scheduling, runs, events and tools and then we were off for a 3km straight run - no walking breaks. Completed 3.15 km in 21:43, a pace of 6:54 - I could have done better but was pacing myself with the rest of the crew.

We will be running the same route tomorrow night and I will report again then.

As for the rest of my "workout day", Tuesday is double duty with a trainer session and a run. The workout with Andy, my trainer, was, err, fun. I did the following circuit work:

• 60 steps
• 40 squats with 65 lbs
• 60 steps
• 30 pushups
• 60 steps
• 20 dumbell swings
• 60 steps
• 10 burpies
• 60 steps
• 10 burpies
• 60 steps
• 20 dumbell swings
• 60 steps
• 30 pushups
• 60 steps
• 40 squats with 65lbs
• 2 x 30 second plank on bosu
• 15 x each side - kneeling axe choppers with bands

It was hard. The intention here is clearly to work on my endurance, my leg strength, my core and my mental toughness. Thanks Andy - I will hate you later.

Song of the day from today's run: Mony, Mony by Billy Idol

Paul

We have a date!

Ladies and Gentlemen - Start your Engines!

The Prague Half Marathon is running on March 28th 2009 - 183 days from now.

I formally relaunch the Prague 1/2 Marathon blog and with my running clinic starting in 2 days on the 28th, now seems to be a good time to update things.

I ran three 1/2 Marathons this summer - Prague, Uxbridge and Ottawa. I also ran a couple of competitive 5 km runs and the Toronto 10 Miller. It was fun but I let myself drift from the end of July through to the end of September. I am now building it up again - we will get there. I will be running Prague and Ottawa as part of my training for the Reykjavik Marathon in August of next year.

I will post my runs and my routes as we did last year. Today I ran the Howl on the Hill, a 10 km run here in Aurora. Nice run, a few too many hills given that I am recovering from a cold. Anyway, we begin...

Song of the day: Raised on Robbery - Joni Mitchell

Bye for now.