Finding time
In the blink of an eye, another weekend has come and gone. It’s a familiar feeling that many of us experience - the sensation that time is flying by, leaving us wondering where the hours and days have vanished to.
Late last year a friend pinged me a link to Tough Mudder, and on the spur of the moment I agreed to become his teammate in this mad-cap dash over, under and through various muddy obstacles: 20kms of commando crawls, tyres runs, tunnel crawls, wall scaling, rope bridges, log hauls, greased monkey-bars and a final high-voltage wire sprint. Fun, right?
Once signed up I haven’t allowed myself to consider not finishing, and fear of the event has had me up almost every morning for a run or body-weight circuit – 6 days a week in fact, with just a single morning off. I’m about halfway through the C25K programme now, and feeling fitter than I have in a while – although my beer belly is persistent! I’ll get you, belly. Anyway, it’s not so much about losing weight for me, although that will hopefully be a nice side effect – it is about finishing the Mudder with my team mates, doing something that in 2011 seemed all but impossible.
I’m not a natural runner. I’ve mostly forgotten how to swim. I couldn’t run up a hill without getting out of breath, let alone do it while carrying a log on my shoulder. But come 2 months time that’s exactly what I’m going to do!
Diet-wise I’ve been trying to stick to 1600kcals of high-protein, low-carb “food is fuel” – lots of steak, salmon, lentils, kidney beans and diced tomato, as well as a protein shake for breakfast before exercise. My weight seems to have “stuck” at around 92kg last week, so I’m trying to keep better track, get more sleep and drink much more water.
Tomorrow – February 1st – means a new “stage” for me, so tonight I’m doing up a new training calendar. I have basically missed one day in January (and subsequently made it up) so it is times to increase my training I reckon.
Can’t wait! So excited about this!
