Monday 11th April 2011  - My daughter had a specialist appointment at the hospital, right in the middle of my yoga class time.  So between classroom help, supermarket shopping and Dr's appointments, my day went.  No training.

Tuesday - My longer aerobic session, only the second session of the first week of my 10k program.  I did my normal gymnastics run, although Luca elected to hang out at the YMCA rather than come on his bike with me today.  I was faster.  11.56 km, 1hr and 40 secs, average speed of 11.4 km/hr, pace of 5.15 mins/ km.  Feeling much better, especially when I consider I usually hate the afternoon runs.  Perhaps being almost 17 kg lighter than 3 months ago makes a difference....

Wednesday - the  Morrison VIP day raising funds for the Jodi Lee Foundation!  It was great to go in there this evening and meet more of the gorgeous girls at Morrison, and try on more of the gorgeous clothes and walk out with some more of those gorgeous clothes in a carry bag.  They created a wonderful atmosphere in there with Champagne, Perrier and petit fours (macaroons - yum!) and the wonderful staff.  A fun evening, and Mum came out with some gorgeous clothes as well!  It seemed to me to be a great fundraiser for the Foundation - yippee!

Other than that - work, kids.  Charlie took the kids out to tea as a treat while I went shopping with mum - Thanks Charlie!!!  No training for me.

Thursday - sprint session.  After getting the kids organised for their school sports day, I took the opportunity to do my sprint session whilst they had their faces painted and did their classroom duties.  I was able to be back in time for the start of festivities!  And then got to hang out at sports day all day long.  My legs are tired!!

The program today called for 4x200m and 3x600m with 2 minutes between each effort.  Each of the 200's were run in just under 50 secs (which is just slightly faster than a 50 min target, but well outside the 40 min pace of 42 secs) and the 600's were run in a little under 3 mins each (a bit slow even for 50 min pace, which asks for 2.45 per 600m).  Having said that, the track I used was the old Kensington oval, and I think it is a little longer than 400m, but not really enough to fuss over.  And I was only glancing at my watch for times.  And I was trying to keep to the right RPE (that perceived exertion thing again), rather than running as fast as I possibly can.  The 200's were flat out, but the 600's were meant to be at 8- 8.5 out of 10, which they certainly were.  It will be interesting to see how I improve as I get to the tail end of this program in 7 weeks time.  I have now completed week 1 of the program, and I have enjoyed these shorter more intense sessions.  Today was only a 50 minute session of 8 km.

Friday - kids, work, then off to see 'Wicked'.  It was fun.  I didn't train :)

Saturday - start of week 2 of the 10k program, Cruise intervals session of 2x7mins @ just slower than race pace with 4 mins recovery in between.  I guess the race pace I am using is around the 45 min mark, so 4.30 per km, although I am not yet any good at keeping that pace really consistent.  I can't run fast enough for the 40 min pace.  This was a late afternoon session for me as I had an early start at work, but enjoyed the stretch out in the Strong Core class at 8.15.  After work I chose to have lunch and an afternoon rest rather than to run straight away, so even though I went out at 5 pm for the run, I still felt pretty uncomfortable.  Each piece felt hard, and I struggled to keep lunch down in the middle of each run, but was better in the last couple of minutes of each one.  I do feel better now having done it, but gee, I don't like these afternoon sessions.  Maybe next time I need to get out of bed at 5.30am on these work days.  That's a level of commitment I wasn't really planning on yet.

This week I also signed myself up for the Greenbelt half marathon in 2 weeks.  21.1 km downhill from Athelstone to the city along the linear park.  It will be the first running event I have ever done, my first experience of running in a crowd (although I am not sure how many will be doing it - probably only a couple of hundred people), my first attempt at being organised for a starting line as a runner, rather than a rider.  It will also be my longest run for a couple of months in this phase of my program as well a my longest run ever to date.  Just as well it is practically all downhill

Sunday - The first stage of the Heysen trail.  Charlie has signed up to walk the whole of the historic Heysen trail over the next 2-3 years or so with the Friends of the Heysen Trail Group.  This is the start of 'End to End 6', and the group # 3 will finish later this year.  So down to Cape Jervis we head in the pre dawn to do the first section of 15 km from Cape Jervis to Cobblers Hill.  It is an effecient service wherre we meet at the finish point and catch a bus to the start of the section.  The group moved very slowly as a whole, so I gather they will look at splitting us into two groups.  There were times when we were only walking for 10 mins when we had to stop and wait for 10 mins for the last of them to catch up.  It was an absolutely glorious day, however, walking along the bottom of the penisula with Kangaroo Island just over the calm blue water, under a flawless blue sky with millions of Monarch butterflies doing their thing.  The 3 hour hike took over 4 hours as a result, however.

No yoga at all this week, so although next week is a very busy week at work and a short week because of Easter, I have been very strict on not scheduling out my Yoga sessions, despite opening up more hours at work.  I will get to 2 sessions at Kensington, plus the one at Lululemon.  The following week has 2 public holidays and is school holidays, so none will happen in that week either, unless I manage to do a sesison at home without the kids jumping on me (not likely).