A little extra

My morning commute is a bit short so have tacked out a little extra 3ishkm detour near the start - giving 12km on the way in. Nice to have the fall back short course if I'm running short on time.

No running the last three days had soreness in right arch since Sunday so having a small rest. If I have time tomorrow might get out but work has been pretty hectic - bit of a blur really.

BikeWise Challenge

Now this - http://www.bikewisechallenge.co.nz/ - is pretty neat.

The Bike Wise Challenge is a fun and free competition to encourage more people to have a go at cycling!

Organisations across New Zealand are competing from 1 - 28 February 2010 to see who can get the most staff to ride a bike for just 10 minutes or more.

Apparently our work division won it's category in Auckland last year.

For Auckland there is a ride to work separate challenge from 18 Jan through to 9 April. http://www.bikewisetowork.co.nz.

Needless to say have entered :)

Run Auckland 5 Reprise

This morning did the Run Auckland Race 5 Course with fellow hapkido instructor J. J brought along his dog for the run which was something different. The two hill climbs were a bit fierce for a Sunday morning. J is a faster runner than me so it did push me along a bit. We forget to start timing until approx 90s into the run so the time is estimated.

9.9km / 47:00 / 4:43min/km.

My feet a little sore now due to running three days in a row. No running tomorrow rather a rest instead.

Off to the beach today - should be good.

Progress

Some progress...target weight = 80kg.

Lunchtime Running

Really a bit too hot for this (mid 20 deg C). Nice sweaty self portrait after a 8km run round the domain on Friday...



Going to try to do early morning runs it is easier! Bit tired this week, first week back at work and it is pretty hectic but I think it is more the hot weather.

On the exercise front going well - the last two weeks have done 40+ km in running and getting close to the 120km/week on the bike. It is starting to pay off too my weight has dipped back into the 84's.

Still stuck on Week 4/Day 1 of the hundred push up program though but plugging away at it.

A couple of weekend runs

Nothing too exciting but made the most of the weather.

Saturday: 10.97km / 57:55 / 5:16min/km
Sunday: 7.95km / 38:34 / 4:50min/km

Sunday especially was a negative split and I definitely ran the second half faster. No running today but some bike commuting as its my first day back at work.

Auckland City 50k Cycle Route

Yesterday afternoon I finally got my act together to do the 50k cycle route around Auckland. Best intentions of getting up early to do this had failed miserably.

I had always wondered about the little signs on a number of streets around Auckland.



There is one on Shackleton Road which is the next street over from my house. According to the internet this route is around 20 years old and is intermitantly signposted. 50k isn't that far (on a bike)... I figured it would take a couple of hours and change on my hybrid.



The first 1km or so was modified from the signposted route because of holiday roadworks.

Took 2:12:53 for 51.9km (23.4km/hr). The little bit extra was me getting onto the route from my house and probably the detouring. The first half I was averaging about 26km/hr but started to fade at the back end. Not used to longer rides.

The route itself was a mixed bag. The first 15km meandered through Balmoral, Western Springs, Westmere and Herne Bay. Parts of it were quite familiar from running training routes and part of Run Auckland Race 4. The section through Herne Bay was nice and I can see why this is an expensive suburb. Along the waterfront from Westhaven to St Heliers was part of the Auckland marathon course. That sure brought back some memories! I stopped for a water break at the top of Cliff Road at Achilles Point. Great view from here.


Looking back towards the city from Achilles Point.


Achilles Point Boardwalk

The rest of the ride was not all that exciting save for the heart in the mouth stuff through the Panmure roundabout. It did get a bit windy in the second half which made the hills fun. I'm not familiar with this part of Auckland so it was interesting to tiki-tour this way. A mix of industrial and less well heeled suburbs through here.

The last 5km or included Cornwall Park and this was as pleasant as always.

If the route signposting can be refreshed and prominent this route would be more popular and well known.

Bit sore last night but a good little two hour adventure. Now to plan this group run this morning. Hope I can keep up.

Another Short Run

Seems like I've been doing shortish runs in my holiday break but that's OK. A 7.95km round trip to get the mail and then back home again. Got a bit hot and sweaty even at 8am in the morning. It is certainly warm outside.

7.95km / 38:56 / 4:52min/km

I didn't get up early enough for the big bike ride (yet again). Running out of time because I'm back to work next week.

Hot

Hot today. Short run in the morning (5.51km / 26:53 / 4:52min/km) followed up by a cycle in the evening (27.8km @ 23km/hr) and a short home workout. A bit tired now but felt like it was a good day at the "office"

I didn't wake up early enough today to go for the "big" ride. Maybe tomorrow?

Found the trailer for "Spirit of the Marathon" movie I mentioned recently on YouTube. A good summary of the film...

Quiet

Not much today. A short bike ride to the post office and back (14.4km @ 22.8km/hr) and a home workout. If I can get up early enough tomorrow have a longer bike ride planned.

Hapkido starts up on 11 January. I've been chatting with one of the other instructors who is a good Half Marathon runner (PB of 1:32 ish) and we are going to introduce a club group run for Saturday morning. Should be good fun! Our first group run is this Saturday morning.

Like a Bought One

Here is a picture of my holiday painting endeavours.



Difficult to quantify in terms of brownie points but my wife seems happy enough with the results.

Yesterday went for another 13ish km run again the same one to Cornwall Park and back. Run it a bit harder today: 13.74km / 1:08:46 / 5:00min/km. 5min/km pace felt harder than expected. No running today but a bike ride and home workout planned for later.

Two Day Roundup

Raining this morning so here is an opportunity to catch up on logging some exercise and also some thoughts on how to log said exercise.

January 2nd. Spent the morning doing more furniture staining. Put a second coat on the table top and the first coat on three of the four chairs. The chairs are quite fiddly and in typical fashion underestimated the time it would take. Later in the day we headed to the beach to catch up with family. Did a little swimming in the sea probably about 200m worth, only really getting my feet wet. Pretty hard to measure distance, probably going parallel to the shore and marking out a landmark would be the best bet?

In the evening did the first home workout of the year which incorporated Week 1/Day 1 of the two hundred situps and Week 2/Day 3 of the one hundred pushups (I decided to repeat week 2 with better form). I am still tweaking the weight program and will post about that separately.

Just before dinner went out for a short bike ride (12.7km @ 24km/hr avg. pace)

January 3rd. Early morning run (6am) to Cornwall Park and back. Legs were a bit stiff from yesterdays bike which says I should've stretched even after a short ride.

Anyway the run itself was at a pretty easy pace - 13.74km / 1:12:30 / 5:16min/km. Great time to be out and about. One thing I learned from 2009 is not to run too quick during training. Going slower is a good thing.

Later that morning did the second coat on the bottom and legs of the table and the first coat of the fourth chair. Also scrubbed the canvas covers which was an arm workout all on its own. One more session of painting to go when it fines up.

In terms of logging exercise I've been using www.mapmyrun.com and overall it is pretty good if a little unweildy. The big advantage with mapmyrun is you can litterally map out a run (or bike) on a google style map and it will calculate distance. I use the free account you can pay a monthly fee for extra features. At the moment I end up doubling up though by entering activities into a spreadsheet as well. I find this gives more flexibility in terms of tracking weekly goals, best times on a training course, tracking weight etc.

Rain has stopped so about to head out for a run...

New Years Day

A pretty quiet New Year's Day this year. We just had some of my in-laws come round for lunch. Today should be more eventfull we are off to the beach.

Spent a good part of the morning putting the first coat of stain on the outside table. It'll definitely need at least a second coat but I'll probably give the top surface a third.

Even though I'm doing the staining outside I definitely needed some fresh air after that so went for the first run of 2010 immediately after. Just a short one following the same route as our "big" walk the day before.

4.29km / 21:28 / 5:00 min/km

Big King Reserve is a dog exercise area. Plenty of people out with their pets which was good to see. I even had a four legged running companion for a short stretch. Four legs are faster than two.

In the afternoon I tackled the job which I had been putting off. That is cleaning all the crap off the chairs that go with the table. Absolute pig of a job which took a good couple of hours. They have scrubbed up well though and are ready for staining this morning though.

After dinner headed off for a bike ride round Cornwall park, local streets and then down to Onehunga and along the Waikaraka cycle way. Good fun.

27.2km @ average speed of 23.4 km/hr

All in all a good start to the new year.