Its a long hard road regaining lost fitness

For the past 6 years I have trained solidly for triathlon and for the 10 years before that I trained solidly for Canoe Polo. So back in March I decided on a change in focus. I wanted to just do something to see if I could... so I trained for and ran a 59.8km running race. This took some massive running weeks- up to 145km of running some weeks.

That training and the race itself took a lot out of me, both physically and mentally (this was on top of well over a decade of top level sport). So after the race I had a bit of down time from training and racing, and a bit more, and a bit more. Suddenly I realised 12 weeks had passed- 12 weeks without any real training and a non-structured eating regime. This 12 weeks also coincided with an extremely busy time at work with heaps of catered meetings and late nights. So low and behold... here I am at the most unfit I have been for years.

So two weeks ago I decided that I was over being unfit and a some (undisclosed) kilos heavier than I really want to be. So I started back on the exercise bandwagon... and boy its hard to get the fitness back. I also struggled with running for running's sake, so I entered the City to Surf half marathon for 7 weeks time. Its good to have a goal again (just to finish and have fun) and its good to be back running again.

Jason has said that I seem to sleep much better now that I am training again- which is great news as I had been having some very broken nights of sleep. Which, for those of you that know me, is very odd for me!

So the first proper week back I ran just over 40km.... and it hurt. I was unfit, struggling for breath and my legs felt REALLY weak. The week just been saw a good increase in my mileage, up between 60 to 70 km for the week (I even had Jason out with me for a run on Thursday night). My breathing has eased somewhat while running but my legs are still weak- especially on the hills.

The goal for the coming week is to get to about 85 - 95km of running which I aim to hold for the next couple of weeks while my body re-adjusts to regular exercise again.

Lots will tell you that with a reasonably quick uptake in running comes a risk of injury, but I have been good- the knees, ankles and hips are all feeling ok. BUT... I did have a small mishap. When Jason and I were running I misjudged the distance between me and a pole... I ran into it and gashed my thigh (see below)... I hit it good and proper by the depth of the bruising!
So I'll keep you posted on the progress towards the city to surf and regaining the fitness!