Wednesday 25 January 2012

Weekly mileage - 60 miles (96km) and counting...

The third part of my 100 mile (160km) one week challenge that I set myself is now completed.  There are only 2 more 32km runs left to do - one tomorrow and one on Saturday.  Still so far so good I can report injury wise.

My route today took me up to the zoo and then into the woods, where I found a fitness trail.  Throughout Switzerland there are hundreds of fitness trails, where you find pieces of equipment every few hundred metres along with an information board telling you what you are meant to do there.  For instance I saw the following one and decided to stop and do a few triceps dips.

A common sight in the Swiss woods - fitness trails

I managed around 8 dips and then I walked hand by hand the distance of the bars before continuing my run.

In the Zurichberg woods I was lucky enough to stumble upon three deer that were grazing near to the path.  They were literally ten metres away, but when I stopped in order to get my camera out they ran off into the undergrowth.  I was quite surprised they let me get that close in the first place anyway.

After leaving the Zurichberg woods I headed towards Oerlikon and then Glattbrugg, where I stopped briefly at Anny's workplace to say hi to her.  Then I headed into the woods of Opfikon, where I used to run during my lunchtimes whilst I was working at UBS.  The accrued distance was still nowhere near my target distance so I headed out to Bassersdorf and beyond, before finally looping back towards Opfikon and then towards home via Oerlikon.

I checked my GPS as I was passing Irchel park and I was still going to come up slightly short of 32km so I opted for one quick lap of the Finnenbahn.  This is a running path that is made from dirt and wood chippings and it is pretty soft, especially at this time of year when it becomes very muddy.  It allows you to push hard at the end of a long run without too much jarring of your tired muscles.  By the end of the lap I was breathing pretty hard, but it was good fun.  After that it was time to warm down and jog slowly back down the hill to the apartment.

Arriving back at the apartment I thought I would have another go at seeing how many press ups I can do in one go.  With a little grunting and groaning I was able to do 54 reps today, so a new record once again.  At this rate maybe I will be able to do 100 reps in a couple of months time.

The last thing to report today is that I have booked another lactate and body fat test for the 19th March.  This will be at the point where I am just starting to taper down and should be pretty much at my peak fitness ready for the MDS, so it will be good to see how the results compare with my previous two tests. In terms of quantity of training there is no doubt I have done more this time than the last two times, but it is not only quantity that counts.  Quality of training is also important.  We shall see is all I can say.  Lots of training still to be done before then though.

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