Slow is smooth and smooth is fast

For the past three days I’ve been going to the gym in the hotel and running for half an hour. My wife wasn’t too pleased about this, because it means the bathroom of our hotel room has been gradually filling up with more and more smelly running kit, but with remarks being made about the size of my gut, and with the doctor telling me I need to reduce my cholesterol, it was clearly time to get more regular exercise.

Oh, and there’s the little matter of a half marathon in three months time.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I thought I’d go easy and just run at 155 bpm, but having read an article today that suggests you actually want to do aerobic conditioning at a much lower level (180 – your current age) I went downstairs today and tried to run at a lower rate.

It was difficult; several times my heart rate would spring up above 160 bpm, although whether that was because I was overtrained, or there were passing Martian spacecraft disrupting the signal from my heart rate monitor, or because I’M GOING TO DIE IN FIVE MINUTES TIME I just don’t know. However, after half an hour of running I wasn’t as utterly drenched in sweat as I had been during my previous sessions, and perhaps more importantly, I didn’t feel like I was going to keel over and die of exhaustion at any point today.

So for the next two months, I’m going to try to just chug away at a placid 145 beats per minute, and hopefully see my pace speed up (8 km/h on a running machine doesn’t translate to a wonderful time in the half marathon) while my heart stays the same, and my waist and my HDL shrink just a little bit. The idea behind this is that lots of lower volume work won’t burn you out so quickly (definitely a problem I’ve had in the past) while the consistency of effort will translate into a body that can happily cope with the same level of effort for a long time, and a more efficient output.

Whether this means I bounce up and down less as I run is anyone’s guess, as is the wisdom or stupidity of trying to maintain a constant heart rate and listen to Motorhead at the same time. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Starting from scratch

It’s Valentine’s Day today, so what could be more romantic than abandoning my wife in our apartment and running laps around Victoria Park?*

For some stupid reason, I thought that because I read about the Singapore night marathon in January, that meant it was still January now, which gave me a good 20 weeks to train. Except of course it’s now half way through February, which makes me glad that I only signed up for the half rather than the full marathon.

This year I’m trying for a more gentle, consistent approach to training, so I had to resist the temptation to sprint round the jogging track for one lap and then shamble the rest. Instead, I bumbled along at a steady 155 beats per minute, encountering little traffic, as most people clearly had better things to do that be in the park.

Not everyone, though. There were still some couples who for Valentine’s night had chosen a walk in the park with either some wine glasses, a sulky expression, or an enormous cat shaped mylar-coated balloon, or once (the ‘trifecta’!) all three.

There was also a very angry couple walking the wrong way round the jogging track. I suppose everyone celebrates in a different way.

The dirty air is back in Hong Kong; I got home, my throat a little sore, remarking on the beautiful red glow that the AIA building cast over Tin Hau. Is that red for romance, or just a corporate identity?

Anyway: 26 minutes, 3 miles. It’s a start…

* For future reference, the ‘correct’ answer is “a candlelit meal and a new kitten” but who would have guessed that?

Done, for 2011…

Burning out

Today I went for a run in the hotel gym, as I have the last two evenings. I made the mistake of eating beforehand – just a salad and soup, but previously I’d waited until after I ran. I think that caused some of my problems, as did the temperature in the gym, much hotter than yesterday, and the gibbering crowd of teenagers horsing about in the swimming pool.

The last two nights the swimming pool has been deserted, but tonight it was packed with giggling youths, splashing one another or jumping in or trying to duck each others’ heads. Or running in and out of the gym and leaving the door open for the hot night air to get in and the air conditioning to bleed out. Or incomprehensibly getting on one of the machines, running barefoot for a minute, then running out again. Were they all drunk? Was there an event they were celebrating? Had they gone mad?

I was going mad, trapped on a running machine with a mind of its own. A mind that seemed to have one thought: running is unhealthy and has to be stopped. After it decided for a third time to go into cool down mode when I had another twenty minutes left to run, I got fed up and packed it in. I was tired from last night’s run, and last night’s late night, and today’s stress, and perhaps with that salad I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

I was meant to do 5 miles today: only did about 3, in 27 minutes or so. Let’s hope the weekend goes better. Just slightly better, anyway.

1:05:19

Last week was awful slack for training; the most exercise I got in the week was walking to the office from the hotel, and walking back. This week didn’t start much better from the running perspective; sure, I got in a couple of hours of martial arts yesterday, but since I’m spending most of it teaching, it’s not a proper aerobic workout like I should be doing.

1:20:55

Tonight was a series of experiments. I was testing out another gel (Stinger) that instead of being made from space age plastic, is nothing but honey. I was testing out whether I could run in the dark quickly, after last weekend’s debacle. And I was testing out whether the batteries on my head torch were going to last all through the run or not.

Morning paranoia

This morning I got up as early as I could, then ran 3 slow miles around Victoria Park. I was tired, my legs still sore from Sunday, my body sluggish after eating late last night. I had a conference call to be fresh for this morning. It was hot. There were lots of people walking very slowly around the jogging trail. I have a whole litany of excuses. Why use them all up today?

Alone in the Dark

I woke up at six this morning, couldn’t face doing 11 miles, went back to sleep. This will never do. So twelve hours later I got in a taxi and headed up to the hills.

26:54

Having put on seven pounds since I left Hong Kong, and hardly having trained last week, I was a bit worried about my progress. Perhaps that’s why I woke up so early this morning, and hauled myself down to the jogging track in Victoria Park.

33:43

540 calories, 4 miles, 1 cookery programme.

Today I ended up pulling a thirteen hour day, although I suppose once you take out lunch it was only twelve; but still, that’s a long time to be spent cooped up in a building staring at a computer. Last night I hadn’t slept well, and that was made worse by a random Hong Kong telemarketer calling at 3am to gabble Cantonese at me. So after scarfing down a quick Thai meal with my colleagues, it was time to get some fresh air and exercise.

By, well, walking across the hotel plaza to the building opposite, and doing 4 miles on the treadmill.