Good Life

Love this song. So uplifting and joyous. It's a song that makes you lift your head and chest, stand up straight and push yourself harder, if only because you're going to leave stress behind you.

Today was another club run. I was told it would be 10 x 1 minute fartlek sessions. I've never done fartlek before so I was looking forward to trying something different. It started with a 10 minute jog, then fartlek along a trail, and then when we were done ended with a 10 minute jog up a huge hill. In the end we did just over 6 miles, longer than the easy run on Tuesday. I was too out of puff to chat mych but it was great fun. However I struggled to keep up and didn't pace my speed intervals well. Sometimes I didn't push myself; sometimes I pushed myself too hard. I've never done speed intervals off the treadmill before so it's definitely a skill I need to work on.

I was also held back due to suffering from stomach cramps. Yup, the stomach ache when running fast is back again. :( One of the club runners who's a physio said this was due to not having a strong core. In laymen's terms this is due to the stomach muscles over-compensating for the extra movement in your legs and arms when you run fast and contracting aggressively in order to keep your internal organs stable and to provide a tighter base from which the rest of your body moves - I think! 

I've been doing 2 sets of 12 pushups a week over the past few weeks which might have aggravated my core muscles. I've stopped doing that in favour of yogalates so I hope the yogalates is gentler on my core muscles. If I don't notice an improvement I'll try dropping the number of sessions to one a week. The physio also said I don't need to go crazy about this and that doing a plank stretch during an ad break while watching TV a few times a week would also help. So if I continue to suffer I'll drop the yogalates and do that until I increase my core strength.

After the club I came home and defrosted a quorn spag bol sauce to eat with macaroni. When my food baby's gone down I'll be doing a yogalates session to stretch out.