Alcohol = a Bad Training Aid

It was another reasonable effort on the training front this week, not breaking any boundaries or setting any new training records, but it felt like I was knuckling down to what had to be done. That is until we got to Saturday unfortunately.


It was a couple of friends Birthday from hockey & to celebrate we decided to dress up like idiots (or more specifically the characters from Top Gun) & invade the bright lights of Douglas. Needless to say, this resulted in much merriment and far too much alcohol being drunk… I did however race walk back from the pub, pushing myself as quickly as I could go without running.

This is a picture from the night, a friend Kieran on the left, then Dave & then myself (a scary similarity to the real charachters, I know!).

Needless to say, this resulted in a late morning rise (well, more like early afternoon) where I proceeded to get ready very slowly & then walked down to Dave’s on the Terrace. I was not feeling particularly motivated & stupidly decided to sit down on the sofa (mistake no 1), we then decided to watch a bit of the cup final (mistake no 2), we then proceeded to watch all of the cup final & decided that it was too late to go out for a walk as it would be too dark.

This is probably the lowest point of my training to date. It was a self inflicted state I’d put myself into & was pure laziness that had not made me get up & ready sooner & watched the football. Even going for an hour or two walk around Douglas would’ve been better than nothing.

It’s made me feel very guilty & aware that I need to do a much more serious walk next week.

Mark

Snow way...

The past two weeks have been marred by illness which has definitely affected the training regime. I think that I managed to pick up the mother of all bugs due to shocking the body with the extra exercise, a few late nights & a poor diet plan i.e. not eating enough of the right types of food & making sure I have at least 3 square meals a day (preferably having 6 small meals).

These are all things that I didn’t really take into consideration when deciding to take on this challenge & training plan, but they’ve hit home now & hopefully i’ll learn from it.

This week we walked from Dave’s new flat near the Terrace in Douglas round Marine Drive, then the Old Castletown road through Ballasalla to Ronague. According to Google this was approximately 13 miles & felt pretty good when we got to our destination.

The only problem was that we were walking through snow, ice & worst of all slush for most of the journey & even worse, the realisation half way there that there was no pavement on one of the fastest road on the Isle of Man for all manner of transport.

Probably a bit stupid to try & traverse the roads in that weather, but i’m glad we did it (even if I will be avoiding it in the future). We were planning on walking from the Sloc through to Peel & back but again had to be postponed due to the snow!

I guess it’s good Kili training though :)

Another Week, Another Hangover, Another Walk

Unfortunately this week was not quite as action packed as the previous 4. It started well with an extremely tough spinning & gym session. I’d used a different bike than usual & thought ‘bloody hell, i’m an animal tonight’ as I was able to increase the resistance considerably higher than the instructor was directing & push myself much more than usual, I think this was partly due to feeling more energetic than previous weeks but most likely due to the fact I had an easier bike (apparently certain bikes have been used so much that the resistance is not as difficult to peddle as other newer ones).

Tuesday was squash, but I was feeling so tired from the previous couple of days activities that I struggled to put in as much effort as normal.

Squash was cancelled on Wednesday, so I ended up finishing college at 8 & going straight home & to my bed, not very explorery.

Thursday consisted of coaching hockey training, doing more shouting than running.

Fridays spinning session was cancelled but I went & did a weight training session at the gym.

Saturday was a hockey game (we won 3 -1), come on the Celts! Followed by watching the Rugby in the pub and then the annual CHC Karaoke competition in the evening which needed a bit of Dutch courage, hence the hangover.

This weeks walk started at Fleshwick, walking up the Sloc, back round magnetic hill, through Ronague then turning left towards Castletown, going right along Gansay returning to Fleshwick. Most of the walk was completely covered in mist & was pretty dangerous at times due to the lack of pavement & never ending stream of traffic. I think every person on the Isle of Man must’ve decided that it was a good day to go for a drive, even though it was rainy & misty.

According to Google maps it was a 14 mile walk, so we’re gradually increasing the distance each week & hopefully this upcoming Sunday we will walk from Port Erin to Peel & back via the Sloc – this time without a hangover!

Mark