Saturday paddle

After a relatively boring Friday (conditioning, walking, walking, and lots of walking...) that wasn't really worth blogging, this morning I went out for a brisk paddle with my club crew. It was an amazing to be out on the water. I was intrigued that I have forgotten how to paddle, and forgotten how much I loved paddling. It was not until today that I realised paddling is, my sport of choice. Running, swimming, crossfit, dancing (insert the next distraction) I all love, but at the end of the day I will always come back to outriggers paddling.

It’s a strange love affair – you love it, but you cannot stay with it all the time. However, you will, somehow, always go back to it. A bit like, family...umm...

The water was so calm this morning, with some headwinds on the way back, but no dramas. I was on a heavy 25KG canoe (doesn’t seem much when I am doing oly lifts, but it’s a lot when you are dragging it over many Ks…). I struggled to find rhythm today, but it is a leisurely paddle so I get away with been crappy ha ha.

And the perfect way to wind up the glorious morning is with an egg benedict with smoke salmon for brunch.

Shopping night

It is amazing how stress at work plays havoc on your body. I didn’t end up running yesterday due to the amount of work I had, and all the errands I had to do. I managed to clock around 13k on my pedometer san running and conditioning work. I guess
I will treat it as my rest day. I also attended my weekly dance class. It's tough work but at the end of the day my body feels amazing after class. As if you are "whole" again. Must have been all the spins I did ha ha!

Well today I finished off my work, and managed to sneak in some gym time. I did a short 2km jog to warm up for my gym class. It was seiously a jog (7.5km/hr?) - I was running with my phone in hand talking to my mates bia-tching on my work day so that explains my low speed.

It is also Thursday shopping night here in Sydney, where every bogan flocks to the mall to unnecessarily spend their hard earn wage. So did I, except I didn't find what I was looking for. I was looking for a pair of boy shorts for running (you know those ones that hugs your arse with a zipper back?) so I can slide my pedometer in while I go running?. I ended up leaving empty handed because they don't come in my size, and the colours were ghastly...(see picture below...)

...so i made a beeline back to my computer and ordered some gears online. I decided to select Under Armor....the brand has suddenly became very popular...well maybe because I keep seeing it everywhere as soon as I became aware of the brand.

So it was a shopping-ful day. A bit of a stress relieve after a week of long hard work.

Pedometer Challenge

Today is the first day of my work's team pedometer challenge. The challenge is to do as many steps as possible within 56 days. The team with the highest number of steps in total wins the challenge.

However, my pedometer reset itself during my gym session this morning. Luckily I started using my pedometer a week before to "rehearse" for the challenge, so I know I would have done around 4000 steps when I was in the gym...

...until I realise I do, on average, around 30,000 steps per day anyway. The maximum amount of steps that we can enter is 37,500…so I am thinking whether I could be bothered adding that extra 4K...geez the Lazy one is one big stepping machine!

At the conditioning session today we did a finisher that involved 5 rounds of burpees and 200m run. I didn’t fare too well because I felt I could have ran faster and burped faster. I must still be tired. My back was also in pain too. Maybe I am finally a runner...because I always have some niggles somewhere on my poor body.

Despite the pain, I did a 10KM home today. I passed this park called Pioneer Park at Marsfield. It’s an awesome park that has some outdoor fitness circuits. I stopped for about 5 minutes to do some pull-ups. I love pull ups...I am so glad I can able to do them. Pull-up is such an incredible form of exercise, along with push ups, lunges and squats.  Your body tones up so quickly with these simple exercises.

It also keeps my core and legs in tip top shape for the marathon too.

So 9KM down and three more shorty runs to go. And the Sunday long run of course……

 

My local pull up bar

 

 

Rope...I think they are for kids because the ropes are so skinny...

If I start climbing it, it might **snap** 

Moaning Myrtle Monday

UGH~

Yes I am in pain. DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). Duh. As a rookie runner, I am totally not conditioned for anything more than a brisk jog (>6min/k), so of course I will be in pain. And guess what? Despite how ridiculously in pain I am, I still crawled out of bed and off I went to the gym this morning. What a keen bean Lazy is...

Thigh killer

As much as I want to gloat how A-M-A-Z-I-N-G I feel after my session today, I won’t because now that the adrenalin has passed, I feel like crap. I am tired. I think I am less stiff now than I would otherwise be, but still, I am tired.

Tricep killers

I have no plan to run today, but I plan to do some browsing at the shops. Walking. Any form of walking will be awesome to get that stiffness out.

UGH~

Let's Push those Rock hard legs

The run today is called the "Rocks Push". It is basically running around the city and parts of the Lower North Shores near Milsons Point. Some sections also cover the Sydney marathon route, so it was a good preview of the types of terrains we are going to get.

I remembered seeing something similar to this near the finish line when I did the Half Marathon back those years ago...

  And this....

The parts we covered today are generally flat with a few steep hills.

Flats are not my friend...

But I felt the worst part were these stairs after the 30K run:

 

Those stairs, aka calves killer...

 
A mate of mine suggested I try this fueling method during the run. GU every 45 minutes and then a lolly or two every 15 minutes when ur not GUing. Well Lazy wasn't quite that disciplined - I ended up GU-ed at 7.5K in (first GU) and then at 25K and then a lolly every time we stopped: at the stairs or at the drink fountain (plenty of those around city by the way...). It wasn't particularly precise but I felt this fuelling method made me happier (psychological boost!), partly because those strawberry jellies tasted so yum...

 Yum...GU...**drool**

Result: Classic sprint finish. If I felt like that at the 42.2K mark then I will be over the moon.

We winded up the run with a well deserved scramble egg breakfast at Bowan Island. I love their scramble eggs. Its soft without being fatty. Perfect flavour. Love their bread. What a perfect way to wrap up my long run today.

 These fluffy eggs are to die for.

Paddlerunner, RunPaddler or PadRunner?

So what do you call someone who enjoys both paddling and running? Paddlerunner? Parabo(w)la (that would sound awesome for someone that paddles and bowls...) I think I like Padrunner...reminds me of a certain Thai dish...

Pad thai from Chai thai...

(silly) Ideas welcome.

I didn't end up running last night. After I finished my gym session I was knackered. There is no way I can handle more load. My poor biceps are still hurting from those stupid arms-only rope climbs. On the bright side, if I did fall off the Harbour Bridge during the bridge leg of the run then SES can rescue me by chucking a rope in the water and I can just climb up with my arms...(assuming my legs will be too tired...) Okay, I've used up my silliness quota today and my biceps are still hurting like crazy.

   

Bicep killer

Well I just finished my conditioning session. The workout today was some classic workout where parts of it involved 400m x 5 sprints. Which means Lazy will give the 5K easy a miss today (typical Lazy excuse)...

...until I got home and saw my obese pooch looking at me. I thought - all right, I take you out for a 2Ker in a jogging speed since I don't think she should go more than 10km/h given her level of obesity.

I'm kind of run jogging...with my obese dog...

  

There is something about running that is so damn difficult. I don't know what it is. The sheer physical trauma that you know you will put your body through? Or that mental game that your brain plays on you?

Seriously, you ask me to go and paddle on most days (assuming fair weather of course!) for 5K and I will go - sure. Too easy.

You ask me to do 10 legless rope climbs followed by 100 pull ups and 100 sit ups, 100 squats and then walking around with more than my bodyweight of kettlebells, and I will go - sure. Too easy...

 

Great things come in small packages...

  

Swing this baby!

You ask me to go for a run? 99% all times I feel a sense of reluctance. Every. Single. Time. Every time I will try to think of an excuse to not go running. But I force to put on my running shoes and go for a run. It's such a mental exercise this running business.

The hardest part of running...tie my shoe lace. Wish they are all Velcro. 

But once you get going its okay. Your body becomes a well-oiled machine.You can just keep going until your brain tells you to stop. I hope tomorrow's run will be a good one. Think like a machine.

Yes yes I am about to go for a run...  

Lazy Paddler and the Marathon

So today marks 30 days till my first marathon (that Sydney one that finishes at the Opera House). What's a better time to start blogging about exercise-related stuff on my lazy blog? I have been training...rather...intermittently IMO. It's quite difficult to juggle my other sporting and recreational endeavours with marathon training. Marathon training is, very, very taxing on my time and yes, on the body too. But time. Gosh! Burns away time! (along with muscle mass, fat, some money (not to the extend of paddling thank goodness...), food, food and lots of food). Anyway I hope by honestly blogging away will help me get back on track with my training. I currently only do the long 30K-ers on Sunday and 3 x 10Ks mid week. I should run more and do those FARTleks things...but they are damn hard...lazypaddler is just too lazy...

My Kinvaras are (almost) ready for action...

I've been slack in the weights and conditioning department this week too. Blame that new tone on my phone alarm. I've even stopped paddling for more than a month now due to lack of time. In fact, most times I cannot think of anything else apart from when (and whether!) I should do my next run. Sick isn't it? Do I miss paddling? Yep. But what really disturbed me was that, I realised I have so little else in common with some of the paddling crowd. It's the same with running. You go for a run and start chatting to your running mates about wind speed and stroke rate and you will be greeted with **silence**.

This is Mo...

You sit down with your paddling mates and start talking about how in awe you are at Mo Farah doing 2.22min Ks in the 5000m at IAAF in Moscow and you also get **silence**.

And no, I won't even get started on chatting with my gym mates...**silence** Well, given most people I speak to at the gym don't do long runs, and like the average person, thinks paddling is rowing...actually that was what I thought too until I started paddling......Let's all blame rowing.

Does this look like rowing?