50 days to China |
Thursday, 29 March 2012 06:13 |
29 March 2012 Wow - 50 days until marathon day in China. Training is continuing to progress well, and I am comfortably managing bigger miles this time around. Last weekend I did the stair session I heard about when trawling the internet for ideas on specific training sessions for the GWM. One runner suggested running for an hour to a hotel with 10 - 20 stories, running the stairs for an hour, then running home for an hour. Last Saturday was the day for me - 8 weeks to go. It turns out, the Inter Continental here in Adleaide has 502 stairs up. And down. 5 times over. I didn't run the stairs - I walked and kept my heart rate just under 160 bpm, and the turn on them was too tight to run down, so my HR was quite low coming down. Mind you, I have had advice from an orthopaedic surgeon that if we run down the stairs on the wall, we may as well book an appointment with him now for our return as the cartilage in the knees will be so damaged from the anterior shear forces!! Just as well I am planning on walking all the steep sections and finishing with a big grin rather than grimacing. I am still doing hot yoga at least twice per week, still running 3x per week (one faster session, one fast jog and one long run of 21 - 32 km) and getting into the gym only about fortnightly. I need to do a bit more strong leg work now and for the next month or so before the taper starts. When you do enough, just body weight squatting is enough! I have run to the top of Coach Rd at Skye, through to Ashton and Norton Summit and down the Yurrebilla trail to Morialta and home again for one of my long runs, as well as a shorter session to the top of Skye, the runs to the top of Lofty (via the quieter tracks) and the plain old runs along the Torrens. Less swimming now and less bike riding, although I did do most of the 100km Velo Adelaide ride a couple of weeks ago - my chain broke after 87 km so I wasn't able to continue. That left me with quite a disappointing DNF, despite being a good ride, in perfect Adelaide autumn weather, with good company. I now have a sponsorship page up and running with the Jodi Lee Foundation, so I can continue to raise money for the Foundation as I continue on this journey for the next few years. There is a lot of information throughout this site and the JLF site about bowel cancer and screening - please, if you have not taken a screening test and you are 40 years old or older, do it. You can order them online and you should retest every 2 years. It is not a difficult process, and there is a minimum of 'yuk' factor. If you haven't read it yet, please read this letter that was received by Nick Lee earlier this year. And then order bowel screen tests for yourself and your adult family members. Meanwhile, more running for me, and more plotting of my course - another 32 km run this weekend. I think the pioneer women's trail.
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The Cancer Council came out this week and announced that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, and that alcohol should be considered to be as carcinogenic as smoking and asbestos are. As well as being highly associated with throat and mouth cancers, it is now found to correlate highly with breast and bowel cancers. Perhaps it should not be so surprising that a substance that can so alter mood and ability, even at very mild levels should turn out to be in fact, not good for us.
This story, an editorial from the British Journal of Sports Medicine earlier this year has some amazing targets - it ties in with our look at sitting and health, and is about developing healthcare systems that support exercise - recognise it as being as vital a measure of our health as is blood sugar levels or blood pressure. It recommends 150 minutes of physical activity per week for adults as a minimum. 30 mins on 5 days. For children, it is 420 mins / week - 60 minutes every day. How close are you?
This is another article on inactivity / obesity and health from Sports Medicine Australia, highlighting the link between an inactive childhood and a lifetime of battling depression. It is food for thought (!) these days where there seems to be much paranoia about safety of children away from their parents watchful eyes, and therefore a tendency to want to keep them closely under watch instead of encouraging more activity and indeed risk taking behaviours. The ability to judge situations for risk and to be able to take appropriate risks builds self esteem and resilience. Not much to do with bowel cancer awareness, but close to my heart as well.
Another article on sitting
This one is in really simple terms - if you walk 30 mins (as recommended) and sleep 8 hours, most of us still have 15.5 hours per day not moving. You cannot sit all day behind a screen, then drive your car and sit and watch tv with out it being bad for you. A good read.