Filed under: 10k, British Military Fitness, Bupa Great Capital Run, Nike Human Race, food, gym, nike+ sportband, running, running gear | Tags: 10k challenge, British Military Fitness, Bupa Great Capital Run, Nike Human, running
I pretty much run at one speed: 10k/6 miles per hour, whether I’m running 5k or a half marathon. I’m a great pacer at that speed and can slow down other people if they set off too fast, or speed them up if they’re lagging. But that’s been my speed for the eight or so years that I’ve been running reasonably regularly, and I’m not exactly progressing. It hasn’t bothered me much in the past, but seeing the likes of my little brother doing a 40-odd minute 10k with apparent ease only months after taking up running makes me think I should push myself a bit more.
Doing British Military Fitness classes is starting to take me out of my comfort zone, making me sprint and do hill reps that I wouldn’t normally bother with. I’m already noticing a bit of difference when running, and am definitely capable of tackling hills with a bit more gusto than previously.
So one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to get my 10k time down during the course of the year. I’m aiming for around the 50-minute mark, but I haven’t got a clue how feasible that is. I’m going to use the gym to gauge my progress, because I can accurately measure the distance. (The Nike+ Sportband really isn’t that accurate. Maybe I should have asked Father Christmas for a GPS thingy).
I do try to get into the habit of writing down my times, but don’t always remember. Here’s a few:
20 July – 57:35 (Bupa Great Capital Run)
31 August – 60:14 (Nike Human Race)
13 September – 60:00 (gym)
30 September – 56:02 (gym)
today – 55:24 (gym)
The times over the past couple of months do indicate I’m going in the right direction, but there is clearly some way to go. This morning’s effort was hard work, especially around the hip flexors/top of my quads – perhaps I can do some work on stretching those out more. I had a long hot shower at the gym but, by the the time I got home, I felt weak and shivery. I don’t feel unwell in any other respect, despite the germs flying around my office, so I guess I just needed some food. I walloped down a power smoothie (banana, Skippy peanut butter, yoghurt, milk) followed by scrambled eggs on toast, and am feeling much better now. 
Filed under: GRIM Challenge, half marathon training, running | Tags: GRIM Challenge, running
“Expect to get very wet,” the race pack said. “-2.0 degrees”, my car said when I got into it on Sunday morning to drive to Aldershot for the GRIM Challenge. Oh good.
Arrived in plenty of time, met my brother and his two mates – one of whom was about seven when I last saw him. He is now about 6′7″. (I didn’t think he looked that amused when I said “oooh, you’ve grown since I last saw you”. Realised that statement made me sound about 45). We ambled unenthusiastically over to the start area, witnessing a passing motorist stop, lean out and chunder all over the path.
The start was delayed by half an hour, so we spent an hour in total hanging around asking ourselves why we weren’t tucked up in bed with a cup of tea. Then decided to get some tea from the fast-food vans to warm up a bit. I seriously considered a hot dog too, but was distracted by some hippies playing drums on tin bins, like something out of Stomp. That was very entertaining.
All of a sudden, we were off. Dan, Olly and Lawrence jogged off looking all fit, while me and P bobbed along at the back, trying to work out why three blokes were dressed as a bride and bridesmaids, and another team were wearing bermuda shorts and armbands and carrying inflatables.
It was a jolly affair, and we had a lot of laughs around the muddy, wet course. We decided against ploughing through the first few puddles, on the basis that there was nothing to be gained from getting too wet too early on and concentrated on trying to find a rhythm – a bit tricky when the pack kept bunching up around the puddles. After four miles, some camouflage netting and a pee stop among some Christmas trees, we were rewarded with a bottle of water ice at the half-way point. After that, there was no tip-toeing around the water: it was time to wade in. And f*ck, was it cold – even if it only came up to your knees. A very odd sensation to be quite hot underneath all the layers of clothing, but have feet so cold you couldn’t feel them. The mud bog was a relief, with its comparative warmth. Miles five to seven were fairly uneventful – felt a bit weak for part of that – then recovered enough to attack a few gentle hills, before jogging round the start area to wade through another generously proportioned puddle to the finish line.
Billed as an eight-mile race, a running acquaintance registered 8.7 miles on his GPS watch. The distance and time didn’t really matter that much to be honest – but, for the record, I came in at 1:36:30.
All in all, a surprisingly enjoyable race – great atmosphere, reasonably well organised with a hot dog at the end. Glad I got out of bed after all.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, bleep test, circuits, running | Tags: bleep test, British Military Fitness, running
Already aching from yesterday’s DIY circuits session, it was with a degree of reluctance that I struggled into my tights, thermal top, windproof jacket, gloves and hat for tonight’s British Military Fitness class. I don’t know what had got into the instructors, but they were really mean.
Very quick warm-up, then straight into hill reps on a steep grassy slope about 30m long (my estimate; could be way out). At the top, we had to do press-ups facing back down the slope, sit-ups facing up the slope, and so on. Basically all designed to cause maximum pain. God knows how many reps we did, but I was seriously starting to flag, when we finally stopped for a quick water break. Ooooh, I thought, half-way – the second half always goes a bit quicker.
That thought was shortlived. Instructor #2 took over, and announced we were going to do the bleep test. BOO.
He’d sneaked out his iPod and a set of speakers in his rucksack and set up little lights to mark out the distance on one of the football pitches. And off we went. It’s fairly easy for the first few levels, then it gets really sodding difficult. Particularly when you’ve done umpteen hill reps, squats and lunges; you’re carrying several kilos more than usual in mud on the ends of your feet; and running on uneven ground. In the dark.
I got to about level 5.6. Pathetic. Particularly because I know I got to 8.7 about eighteen months ago. That was in a gym, with clean trainers. And I hadn’t done a gazillion hill reps first. And it was warm. But still. Three whole levels below where I was and I thought my lungs were going to explode…
Well done to number 19, who almost made it to level 12. He had longer legs than me though. By some considerable margin.
Filed under: GRIM Challenge, circuits, running | Tags: circuit training, GRIM Challenge, running
Phil’s ankle was sore this morning, so a run was out of the question in order for him to be in with a chance of running GRIM Challenge next weekend. I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t too disappointed not to be doing the uphill slog for two miles to the Heath.
However, after a lush meal at tapas-style Indian Imli last night – and to be in with any kind of chance of squeezing into the glam little black number I’ve bought for the Christmas party – I had to do something today. So we did a gentle jog up to the park and then a DIY circuits session. We used trees, benches and lampposts as stations, and took turns to dictate the exercise – which we then did for a minute before moving onto the next one.
We did tricep dips, press-ups, sit-ups, burpees, lunges, squats, the plank, spotty dogs, back raises, horrid press-ups with feet up on the bench, a bit of sparring and ran backwards round the park. A man out for a jog said “well done” to us as we embarked on another set of sit-ups and some middle-aged people on their way to church looked at us as if we were insane. We managed to avoid any dog poo.
Filed under: Pulse8, gym, running | Tags: gym, Pulse8, running, treadmill
Missed British Military Fitness yesterday as I was feeling a bit under the weather, but felt sufficiently better to go back to the gym today. Ran for 45 minutes on the treadmill, but didn’t get an accurate distance because I paused it part-way through to talk to an instructor (“oooh” she said “are you back into the swing of things?” – code for “haven’t seen you for a while”). Can’t imagine it was more than a standard 7.5km – averaging out at 10km or 6 miles per hour – but after Sunday I was just glad to be still standing at the end of it. No further tantrums either.
Treadmill gets bad press among runners, but I quite like it sometimes for the following reasons:
- It’s warm in the gym.
- And dry.
- The people-watching possibilities are almost endless. Spotted this morning: super-fit young lady running at 17.9km/hour – I thought she was going to go pinging off the back and across the gym; man on exercise bike wearing combats, cap, hoodie (with hood up) cycling with his arms folded; man singing to himself on the treadmill; man jabbering away on his mobile while half-heartedly lifting dumbells with the other hand.
- I stretch properly afterwards.
- The showers are lovely.
- I always gym it in the morning, and am way more productive at work that day.
Occasionally I forget to take my trousers, which is rather inconvenient, but all in all it’s a good start to the day. Off to spinning tomorrow…
Filed under: British Military Fitness, GRIM Challenge, St Albans, cycling, gym, muffins, running, spinning | Tags: British Military Fitness, GRIM Challenge, hampstead heath, muffins, running, spinning, St Albans
Headed up to Snorbs to meet my little brother for a British Military Fitness class on Saturday morning as planned. Dad came along too – out of genuine interest rather than a desire to embarrass his two sproglets – and luckily the camera was playing up so the episode was not recorded for posterity.
It was a really tough class – much more running sprinting than my normal class and fewer press-ups, sit-ups and burpees which tend to be relentless in Reading. It was a bigger group in general, so I went straight into a group of all reds, meaning there were no blues to keep me company when I was lagging. I struggled to keep up for much of the session, and when it came to trying to carry anther girl the length of a football pitch in a fireman’s lift, I felt like crying.
It strikes me as rather odd that I’ve been running for more than eight years yet this is definitely the weakest link in my BMF classes. And – despite the title of this blog – I do go off running periodically, which is why I take up other things from time to time. The gym, circuits, spinning, cycling, swimming (rarely) and BMF add variety.
Nonetheless, I’ve got the eight-mile GRIM Challenge coming up in two weeks’ time, so I did need to get out on Sunday. Phil and I headed up to Hampstead Heath for a six-miler. My legs were already pretty sore after the über-difficult BMF class the previous day, though I was happy enough for the first couple of miles which is all uphill. That’s progress I can put down to the strength training – a couple of months ago, I struggled to do that without stopping to catch my breath.
But, my newfound power did not last long, and before long I was throwing a bit of a tantrum because I was struggling again. Firstly, I was annoyed because I’d expected to feel much much better having been doing the BMF classes (despite actually not doing a lot of distance running recently); but secondly, I was irrationally pee’d off because Phil didn’t appear to be in the slightest bit uncomfortable and claims to have done hardly any exercise recently. Hmmm – I wonder if he’s been putting in secret hours at the gym.
The reality, of course, is that I just need to rack up a few more miles, and will enter a few more races in the New Year to force myself out to put one foot in front of the other.
In the meantime, I’m going to make some muffins.
Filed under: 1500m run, British Military Fitness, fitness assessment, running | Tags: 1500m run, British Military Fitness, fitness assessment, running
My fitness assessment results still hadn’t been posted on the British Military Fitness website this morning and – thinking I might have fallen off the bottom of the scale – I emailed them. A nice man called Keith emailed me back immediately, and sent the results back within an hour.
Hi Jo
Here are the results of your fitness test.
1.5km run 8min27sec 17 points
Press-ups 37 reps 54 points
Sit-ups 34 reps 33 points
Burpees 35 reps 76 points
Shuttle run 76 secs 100 points
——–
280 points
Good score Jo, that is definitely a red bib result.
Well done – see you in the park!
That was slightly surprising, I must admit – blue is for novices, red is intermediate and green is advanced. So when I reported for class this evening, it wasn’t without some apprehension. Iasked the instructor if there had been a mistake. He said not. So I donned a red bib – accepted a few congratulations from my friendly BMF classmates and jogged off in line getting gently soaked in the drizzle.
The instructor was a bit mean. After a hard “warm-up”, and some shuttle runs mixed up with various exercises, he split us into groups by colour, put us on three corners of a square in the middle of one of the football pitches – then told us to do 10/15/20 press-ups before moving onto the next corner to do 9/14/19 press-ups, then onto the next corner for 8/13/18, and so on. The idea was to catch the next group, at which point the group was out. We might have only been doing five more press-ups than the blues, but that’s five more EVERY SINGLE TIME. I could barely pick myself up off the floor by the end. Then we had to repeat the exercise with star jumps. Cue wobbly legs, and a funny looking recovery run to the other end of the pitch and back.
After a very short water break, we jogged off to the other side of the park in two lines. On a shout of “contact” we had to run away from the line and hit the deck; “reorg” run back into our lines; “sniper” hit the deck and commando crawl (elbows and knees, bum down); and – for greens only – run away from the lines and do five press-ups on the “enemy” call. Please let me never be a green.
We got to the edge of the park which has 10 trees lining the fence, did five press-ups/sit-ups/squat thrusts, ran to the next tree and repeated the process – until we got to the tenth tree. I really couldn’t move my shoulders now…but there was just time for a mini-game of touch rugby. I was utterly clueless. Didn’t understand the rules, took possession of the ball once and ran in completely the wrong direction, fannied around for a bit on the outskirts of the action, decided to try one more time for the ball, got a bit scared when it headed in my direction…and completely missed it. This is why I don’t play ball games.
The good news is that the pain is starting to pay off. I tackled a six-mile run on Sunday, and found the initial two miles uphill a little easier than I had done previously. I’ll try to keep going with the red team (one blue-bibbed bloke admitted he had passed the test to join the reds but found the red workout too much) and see if I can improve my test results next time. One of the interesting things is that my 1.5km run was actually my worst score – well within the blue parameters – yet I’ve been running for years. I need to learn to run faster than I ever have before.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running | Tags: British Military Fitness, hill sprints, running
Keiran took today’s British Military Fitness class. One of the girls told me at the end of the hour that uphill sprints are his speciality. If I’d known that in advance, I wouldn’t have gone to the class. After a short warm-up, we found a “suitable” hill and started sprinting up and jogging down as a recovery. Within seconds, I was flat on my face for the second time this week, having tripped over a log that was hiding in the shadows. If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up with the same clumsy reputation as I have at work. I’m hoping that – in the dark – no one will have noticed it was me falling over twice in two sessions.
The hill was horrid – about 100m, steep, on uneven ground. Just when you got near the top, it looked like it was flattening out, but actually went up a bit more. I hated every second – but acknowledge it’s got to be good for my regular running. After about 20 mins of those hill sprints, my legs were screaming, but it was time to jog out to a flatter bit for some shuttle runs combined with double sets of floor exercises. Nastiest ones were V-crunches (ab crunches with the hands and legs out straight) and some particularly tough press-up where you had to roll over on one side as you came up with the outer arm outstretched.
I’m not sure I like Keiran’s classes, and was almost relieved when he said he’d only got a handful more to do with us. Until he said he was being posted to Afghanistan, which was pretty sobering.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running | Tags: British Military Fitness, running
In a somewhat belated last-ditch effort to be ready for Commando Challenge on Sunday, I signed up for my trial British Military Fitness class tonight. A neighbour recommended these sessions a while ago as a means of getting really fit really quick. Ideal.
I went along with a female colleague from work (all of the boys bottled it) and we turned up as instructed at Prospect Park in Reading, to find a cluster of be-bibbed people milling around the car park. Spotting the newbies a mile off, a chap called Steve in proper combat trousers and boots swiftly introduced himself and gave Emma and I a blue bib (blue for beginners, red for intermediate, green for advanced). We were split into two groups, and our group jogged off behind Steve towards the dark football pitches.
Before long, we were scrabbling around on the (wet) grass as if under netting, jumping maniacally to avoid (imaginary) mines, wriggling around on our backs pretending to be dead ants – and doing thousands of press-ups, sit-ups, double-leg squat thrusts, burpees, squat jumps, star jumps, jogs and sprints around flashing rucksacks. Number 33 (Emma) and number 11 (me) kept getting told off for not doing quite the right thing, but it was all done in good humour and wasn’t too intimidating.
I have to say, I had a great time, despite feeling completely knackered now. I’ve plateaued at the gym a bit recently, and doing this might get me out of a bit of a fitness rut and have the added bonus of forcing me out of the office a bit earlier than usual a couple of times a week. It’s not cheap – £38 per month for unlimited classes, though in practice I’ll do a maximum of two a week. I wouldn’t really want to give up the gym membership to compensate.
I have to make my mind up overnight to take advantage of the joining fee waiver which applies for 24 hours after your trial class. But I’m very tempted to give it a go for a few months.
Filed under: gym, healthy eating, running | Tags: gym, healthy eating, running, spinning
No really, it is. Not a drop of alcohol has passed my lips since about 2.30am on Friday morning. Pretty impressive for a weekend. Exercise-wise, after my session at the gym on Monday, I did my five-mile Twyford/Dinton run yesterday and a spinning class plus a few weights this morning. And I’m on a bit of a health kick to get my digestive system back on track after my holiday. Not to mention trying to shift a few pounds that crept on when I wasn’t looking. :-/
