Juneathon

Juneathon
I'm taking part

Saturday 18 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 18

Goodnight Crocket...

Sadly this week my Juneathon mission came to an end, no blog on Thursday and no exercise or blog on Friday. I was determined to push through and keep up with exercising and blogging every day. Sometimes life has a funny way of messing up your best laid plans.

My Uncle Dave (Crocket) has been very unwell for around 6 months now and on Thursday night he took a very big turn for the worse and at around 20:00 on Friday evening he passed away in his sleep, he was only 46 years old.

My Brother and I had already arranged to attend the gym today and despite the situation with our uncle, we both decided to make sure we went.

So today I hit the gym for a great bit of cardio. Although I slept well last night I woke up this morning and felt completely drained and thought I would get a boost from a bit of cardio, while I was working out it was all good.

I started with a set time 15 minute run and managed to get in 2.5km which given my lethargic state I was most impressed this was followed by my favourite kettlebell workout, as I found the 12kg too easy last time around I decided to start my move up to the next weight 16kg the p, oh my days that was a big big difference the plan was to do 1 of the 6 sets with the 16kg, I ended up challenging myself and my body by doing the first 2 sets.

Swings - 1 minute
Snatch - Press - 30 secs each arm
Single Arm Swings - 30 secs each arm
Snatch - Squat - Press - 30 secs each side
Alternating Swings - 1 minute
X 2 16kg kettlebell

Swings - 1 minute
Snatch - Press - 30 secs each arm
Single Arm Swings - 30 secs each arm
Snatch - Squat - Press - 30 secs each side
Alternating Swings - 1 minute
X 4 12kg kettlebell

Stats
Run -


Kettlebell Cardio -

Goodnight people

JP

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 15

Ouch...

Yesterday my Wife was home from her mini-break and a little bit of normality resumed sadly including going back to work.
On a positive work note I applied for a new role within my organisation and have been waiting for date for my 1st interview/assessment day, I opened my emails at work and there was the great news, 30th June is my date which is good as I could start training in August if I'm sucessful, the bad news for this is as well as keeping up the fitness stuff I now have to study and prepare for this assessment, I had no idea just how much simple maths I had forgotten since leaving School 18 years ago! It's going to be a lot of hard work, but if I'm successful it will be so worth it.

As I wanted to spend some time with my Wife yesterday I had to do my minimum 1 mile run after work, I chose to do a 1 mile stretch of the VLM route backwards up to where I leave my car during the day, the downside to this is it is predomanently up hill! I have to say it was definitely a struggle, stats are on yesterdays very short blog.

Sort of back to normal today in the gym for just after 6am and on the treadmill, managed to bang out 4.27km in 30 minutes, the furthest I have run since the Silverstone Half Marathon in March, so I was quite pleased with my efforts, this was followed by a 40 minute Spinning class, today's profile was "race day" which meant no recovery periods and lots of sustained high resistance sections mixed with flat road running and sprints, I have to say this was hard work today. Still I enjoyed it.





Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter

The weight is still coming off too which is pleasing, the actual total is around 8kg as I put in an incorrect starting weight, should have been 106kg to start not 103kg.

Off to work shortly so hopefully no more exercise until tomorrow.

JP

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 14

Need sleep, early start tomorrow, I'll leave you with this and do a more comprehensive blog tomorrow.
JP

Monday 13 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 13

Nice new shoes :)

Anyone who is a Mother or Father will understand and appreciate the joys of teething, my youngest son is 18 months old and has most of his teeth, he has 4 more to come and typically they have picked this weekend to try showing up, my Wife is on holiday and out of the country so I'm having to deal with it all by myself this has meant roughly 10 hours sleep in total across Saturday and Sunday night. Despite this both children and I have been pretty awake and lively, that was until this afternoon, the youngest became very moody and I kept falling asleep while playing with him, which is always the sign of great parenting.

On a big positive side I had a package arrive today containing my shiny new Asics Gel-Nimbus 12 trainers.
The orange in them is a lot brighter than I thought it would be, but I love them, did my first run in them tonight and they're amazingly comfy, I ran the London Marathon in a pair of Asics but then won a pair of Adidas which were nice but not as comfy, I don't think I'll be straying from Asics again.

Tonight's run was quite enjoyable and I probably could have carried on for longer but didn't think it would be fair on the child care, done a new pb for the mile taking another 20 seconds off my previous pb for this year, hopefully this means I'm getting a bit better at this running stuff again.




Created by MyFitnessPal - Nutrition Facts For Foods

JP

Sunday 12 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 12

Lazy day.

Not much to write today, not that what I normally write is all that interesting anyway.
Had a lazy day of sofa hugging, but managed to do an impromptu and unplanned run while at a children's birthday party (things you had no idea people have in their garage) I also came in 4th in a group of 7 Dads.

No Garmin with me so no exciting and interesting HR stats for you today. Back to normal tomorrow evening for day 13 as I have a planned run in the rain.

Bye for now

JP

Saturday 11 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 11

Busy day....

I would like to start today's blog by congratulating my very good friends Tammy & Steve on becoming Mr & Mrs Long today.

Bearing the above in mind and the fact that my Wife is still on holiday I had to leave the kids with my Mother-in-law and hit the gym.

Today I was planning to do my first attempt at a proper (ish) brick session, so I jumped on the "Espinner" put all the info in and set it up on "race day" setting for 45 minutes, a couple of hills and sprints here and there, very few flat roads. I managed to do 14.1 miles. I had my trainers all set up and ready to go near the bike so managed to get my SPD shoes off and clean the bike while putting the trainers on and doing up the laces, before jogging over to the treadmill farthest away from me and starting the run, oh my days! I had no idea how hard this would be, thankfully I have found out now so I can work on it, I managed to plod along for 11 minutes and get a whole 1 mile done. So tired when I was finished that I thought I would fall asleep on the stretching mat area.


Tomorrow will be a nice easy simple 1 mile run.

Night night.

JP

Friday 10 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 10

A nice surprise.

My Wife is on a girly holiday now, so I had to get my exercise for the day done before she was due to leave for the airport and as a result I had to cancel the usual Friday Spinning class, so instead I headed to the gym for the usual 6am start to a Friday hoping to add to the amount of cardio I have put in so far this week. I pulled into the car park to be greeted by my little Brother/PT a sight that in nearly 5 years of attending this gym at it's old and new location I have never seen at that time of day, big positive though as I would now have my part time PT standing next to me, this always helps motivate me to work a little harder than normal.

Today's Juneathon.

Run 1 mile, 10:52, Av HR 149 (81%), Max HR 172 (93%).

Kettlebell Cardio, 41:39, Av HR 148 (80%), Max HR 163 (88%)
Swings 1 minute,
Snatch - Press 30 Seconds each arm,
Single Arm Swings 30 Seconds each arm,
Snatch - Squat - Press 30 Seconds each side,
Alternating Swings 1 minute.
12kg Kettlebell 6 times with 1-2 minute break between each set.

Goodnight all,

JP

Thursday 9 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 9

Early start early finish?

Not much to write today really, early shift at work so  was up at 4am and at work by 6am, had a pretty dull day at work mainly revising for a promotion interview I have coming up soon. Finished work at 3pm and rushed home to see my youngest son awake for the first time in 3 days which was nice, but sadly I think he may have forgotten me as he didn't really seem to happy to see me :( so I took my oldest son to his dance class and while he was in there I went for a quick (slow) run (ha ha, a man who multi-tasks).

Today's run, well I say run, was a lot harder than it has been since starting Juneathon, I guess I must be a tiny bit tired from waking at stupid o'clock, so I managed just over 2k in 14 minutes, I haven't had a chance to upload my Garmin data so no dull HR stats for you all today.

I do however have a choon of the day:



I absolutely love this song and this band.

JP

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 8

Tired, so very tired, but I will push through.

This mornings Juneathon was incredibly difficult, woke up feeling as if I only went to sleep 10 minutes earlier! Got some breakfast down my neck and headed out to Leisurezone, on today's agenda a kind of brick session starting with a run and then moving into the Spinning studio for the cycle part of the brick.

I started off with a gentle run planning to just run for 20 minutes non-stop and upping the pace as needed, I ended up 1.67 miles, not too special but I was happy with that, after straight into the Spinning studio and cycling 15 miles, good morning all round although also very tiring and all this before heading to work for the day.







Created by MyFitnessPal - Nutrition Facts For Foods

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 7

Back to work :(

If there's one thing that can always get in the way of exercise it's work, I've had a great 9 day period of not working but fell straight back to reality today with the worst shift of my pattern, 11-7! I really do hate this shift, I have to leave home at around 9am and if I'm lucky I get back home around 7:30, today was OK as we were let out early and I got home at 7:20 which allowed me to jump out for a quick run with the Wife. I even managed a 2011 pb for the mile.

Run - 1 mile - 10:43 - Av HR 160bpm (86%) - Max HR 178bpm (96%) - 173 calories burned.



Oh and I dropped below 100kg today too, so I'm very very happy :)

JP

Monday 6 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 6 - Run - Kettle - Run why?

Run - Kettle - Run why?

I wanted to get in a cheeky Kettlebell work out today and as my Wife was finishing work at 3 I happily picked up my oldest son from School and then handed both of them over to her and headed to the gym.

Started today with a nice 1 mile run on the treadmill.

Once that was finished it was time to start the Kettlebell "fun".

Today's kettlebell:
Swings - 1 minute
Snatch - Press - 30 Secs each side
Single Arm Swings - 1 minute
Snatch - Squat - Press - 30 Secs each side
Alternating Swings - 1 minute
All of the above 6 times, 40 minutes, Av HR 158bpm (85%), Max HR 174bpm (94%), 606 Calories burned.


Treadmill Run:
1 Mile, 10:59, Av HR 152bpm (82%), Max HR 179bpm (97%), 161 Calories Burned.

Street Run:
1.3 mile, 15:22, Av HR 164bpm (89%), Max HR 178bpm (96%), 254 Calories Burned.


Today's Choon of the day, poor quality vid though.



See ya.

JP

Sunday 5 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 5

Another day of rest.

No gym again today allowing my body to recover fully before heading back, should hopefully get a round of kettlebell cardio in tomorrow.

After yesterdays fun with the Garmin, it would appear it was my fault as I hadn't charged it properly, I decided to take both my iPhone and Garmin with me today to track the run, thankfully both worked I clocked in 1.39 miles in 14:58 putting in a 2011 pb for 1 mile at 10:50, so I'm quite pleased with that. Hopefully I can carry on and start shaving more time off these runs while extending the distances.

While taking part in this years Juneathon I am also attempting to drop some weight off my big fat fatty frame I started about 4 weeks ago with a starting weight of 106kg, i weighed in today and am currently at 100kg, hoping to get down to around 80-85 by September, I will continue to update the weight loss progress here too.

I am currently training towards my first ever triathlon in September this year, it's a nice short one (apparently) 400m swim (in a pool), 23k bike and a 5k run. I am looking for some triathlon kit to help me get through this and improve my training, nothing too expensive as it is still a possibility that I may not like it after doing this in September, if anyone has any recommendations please feel free to comment etc.

Ideally I'm looking at swim/bike shorts and SPD tri shoes for the bike so I don't have to fiddle around trying to get my shoes on at the transition.
Today's choon of the day:



The Prodigy - Voodoo People

Saturday 4 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 4

A bit of a rest.

After the last couple of days I felt that I should avoid the gym today as pretty much every part of my body is aching ion some way.

I started the day being woken nice and early by both of my children, the first was sent back to his bedroom (05:00!) the second reassured and given back his cuddly toy so he could go back to sleep.

Around 07:00 I got out of bed and sorted both kids breakfasts and mine, home made oat/apple/cinnamon pancakes with strawberries, very nice.

I spent some quality time with my older son today as we visited the good ol £1.00 pictures, Tangled was today's film of choice, if you haven't seen it I would recommend it.

I managed to squeeze in my run, I can only assume it was a 1 miler as it was the same route I took earlier in the week, I had to guess as my (normally reliable) Garmin seemed to have a day off and not record any details of my run!

Oh and England's footballers showed us all how it should be done again! Oh dear Fabio!

JP

Friday 3 June 2011

Juneathon Day 3

Mini Triathlon.

Up early again today ready to hit the gym nice and early, feeling it after yesterdays exertions, had my normal brekkie cereal and a protein shake before heading out the door.

Thanks to yesterdays kettlebell workout I have a lovely set of blisters on both of my hands one of which rather helpfully burst during the day, this made it an easy decision on what I should be doing before today's Spinning class, so no weights or resistance training, just a standard 1 mile run on the treadmill before heading into the Spinning studio.

Today's profile was "enhancements" this is my fave by far, you do a specific amount of time (45, 60, 75 and 90 seconds) going as hard as you can at the highest resistance you can load onto your legs and then flat road at a fast pace for 1 minute between each set usually 3-4 per track, with 1 short track for recovery.

Spinning class finished I headed to the pool hoping to do 400 metres somewhere around 12 minutes, his was really only an excuse for me to try out my new goggles. Astonishingly I put in a time 08:09 for the 400m which I was pretty pleased with, I'm pretty sure that with a bit more work I could get that down even further, so all in all I was pretty happy with today's work.

Stats -
Run




Spinning


Sadly no stats for the swim.

See you tomorrow.

JP

Thursday 2 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 2

Epic day of activities.

Up at the crack of dawn and in the gym for opening time (6am), started off with one of my aims for Juneathon and completed a nice gentle warm up 1 miler on the treadmill, 11:55 not really the quickest I've ever run a mile, but enough to get the heart rate up a bit.

So I moved onto the main part of the morning gym session, Kettlebell Cardio, it goes as follows:

12kg Kettlebell
Swings - 1 Minute
Snatch-Press - 30 seconds on each side
Single Arm Swings - 30 Seconds on each side
Snatch-Squat-Press - 30 Seconds on each side
Alternating Swings - 1 Minute
Rest - 1 Minute
Repeat 6 times.

Once you have completed this drink a tasty protein shake as your body will be desperate for it, have a nice stretch and remember to drink plenty of water through the day to aid muscle recovery.

Then repeat this 5 more times, give it a try you may like it, however hardcore I find this I bloody love it, if it was possible I'd do this workout every day.

That was my morning session complete

Stats:
Run - 1 mile 11:55 - Calories 178 - Av HR 149 bpm (81%) - Max HR 175 bpm (95%)

Kettlebell - 37:22 - Calories 578 - Av HR 157 bpm (85%) - Max HR 173 bpm (94%)


For some strange reason I didn't feel this was enough for today so I headed back to the gym for the 12:30 Spinning class, today's profile was endurance! Man if I'd known that before getting there I may have changed my mind, especially as I haven't been Spinning for over 1 week now, surprisingly the class wasn't too bad, some nice 1 leg isolation thrown into it to keep it interesting, you should try this, it makes you realise how much your stronger leg dominates the weaker leg. I even managed to keep my cadence up at 110 through out the class, all in all a very good class.

Stats:
50:31 - Calories 667 - Av HR 137 bpm (74%) - Max HR 171 bpm (92%)

Spinning again at 07:45 Friday, and then hopefully in the pool to start working on the 400 metre time.

Goodbye for now.

JP

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Juneathon 2011 Day 1

So here we go again, Jog Log and Blog for the next 30 days.

My aims during Juneathon are simple.

  1. Run at least 1 mile each day.
  2. Remember to blog each day.
  3. Get in at least 20 miles on the bike every week including 1 brick session.
  4. Get back in the pool and nail 400 metres in under 10 mins.
I have spent the last 2 days spending some quality time with my family starting in sunny Great Yarmouth and moving on to Wroxham today and an amazing place called Bewilderwood, oh dear what a great place. I spent the whole day walking and running around in some great woodland surroundings, if you haven't been I would highly recommend it Bewilderwood.

So for the last couple of days I have eaten bad food, for instance I did the Harry Ramsden challenge (really didn't expect a piece of cod that big!) ending on a long drive back to the lovely shire of Essex.

I convinced the Wife to come out and join me and for a change I told the truth and only made her run 1 mile, felt really good too, I'm pretty sure I could have gone a bit quicker to at a push, so maybe during this "festival of activity and excuses" I could get my average mile time down, I hope this could be the case as I have a triathlon to do in September and the run (5k) is a serious weakness and worry for me.

To all Juneathon participants, good luck and "bring it".