Today I was back at Marlay park to have a go at the intended training for the day, which was a VERY basic 1 mile jog. As my leg was still sore from the run on Sunday, I decided not to take any chances and drove to Marlay park instead of walking the mile and a bit there. Then, as an extra precaution, I covered my leg in Deep Heat, which smells gross and doesn’t actually help at all as far as I can tell (with the benefit of hindsight) and started off. A load of stetching to start, a short walk for a warmup and then 1 mile at race pace. I was about 3 steps into it when my leg started throbbing. To be fair, it eased a bit as a ran, but after the mile was done, which meant a grand total of 8 minutes and 20 seconds exercise and running by the way, I was in agony. It’s really hard to credit that something so innocuous as the muscles around the shin could cause so much blood pain and problems.

Back to the car, lashed on the deep heat (which did nothing, see above) drove home, which was hard because it was hard to push the pedals with the shooting pain in my right leg, then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening putting ice packs on the leg, massaging the muscles (while grimacing and making funny noises with the occasional curse thrown in) and, if I’m being totally honest, sulking.

As I type it’s 20:11 and I have the water on for a bath to try and loosen the muscle, then I’ve more massaging and more icing it to do. I’m determined to make it back out to Marlay Park on Thursday to do the next mile….well I am now, about 4 hours ago I was determined this marathon thing just wasn’t meant to be and i was giving up, but now I’m back on a positive buzz and settling into a regime of icing, massaging, soaking and repeating until I can run pain free.

Orla has decided she’s going to call me precious because I’m so easily injured. Bitch

Orla thinks I should join...

This, as you will know if you’ve ready recent posts, has become quite the niggling injury and despite all my efforts to ease gently back into action on it, after one short 3 mile run, it’s in bits again. As a result, I didn’t really do any training today. I went for a 50 minute stroll around the area (and took in some houses that are for sale at the same time, two birds and all of that) but only covered just under 2 miles in distance, and even that was putting the leg under pressure.

I’m starting to seriously doubt that I can even make it to the start line of the marathon, let alone run the 26 odd miles when I get there. Today, for the first time, I started thinking about what I could do as an alternative, and thought about buying a road bike and joining a cycling club. Orla’s brother Mark and all his friends are big into cycling and he told me that on some of their big Sunday cycles you could lose 7,000 calories, which is pretty impressive. It has the advantage that it’s low impact (which clearly suits me) and is something that I think my body could handle a bit better than the running, which it is seriously struggling with.

Anyway, I haven’t given in yet, but I’m fairly down about the whole thing. I’m scheduled to run JUST ONE MILE tomorrow as part of the gentle easing back in training, but I’m not sure I’ll even be able to do that at this rate, which after 4 months purportedly training for a marathon is about the most depressing thing I have ever heard…

I know how he feels...

The gym is great, and it’s so handy to have it literally on my doorstep, but on the flip side, one of the cross trainers has been broken since pretty much the first time I used the gym over a year ago, and nobody seems to be particularly arsed with fixing it. And today I noticed that all the heart rate monitors on the bike and cross trainer I was using weren’t working properly either. That’s annoying because I actually like to keep an eye on the heart rate so I have some idea whether I’m working at the right level for weight loss or cardio or whatever. I’m going to start wearing the heart rate monitor that Mark McCabe gave me to the gym, as well from now on I think.

Anyway, I’m still trying to take it easy on my body while still getting some useful cardio workout down all this week, so once again it was just cycling and cross training. Just 20 minutes on each today, then an abs workout. I can’t believe that I’m back up to 12 stone though. I’ve set a new target of losing a stone in fat (I may put some on in muscle) in the next 3 months. It might not seem that big a goal, and that’s because it’s not. If I can shed a pound a week I will do it, and that’s the idea, that instead of setting unrealistic goals, I’m trying to set a realistic one that I can be happy with, work towards but not starve myself of all the things I love (crisps, mostly) to get it.

It can be hard to motivate myself to go to the gym ABOVE other things that I also want to do (like write music, learn the bass guitar, update this website and on and on and on) but health surely has to be the most important thing right? So, if I have a choice between going and doing the exercise and anything else, then I guess everything else is going to have to take a back seat.

Taking a back seat

Spin1038 DJ Ryan Phillips is running the Dublin City Marathon 2010 on 25 October 2010 for Charity, follow his training here at ryanphillips.net – Today was Marathon Training Day 127, Tuesday 2 March 2010

First step, make a salad. Second step, go the gym. Third step, do abs workout. Final step, bring low fat popcorn and Sprite Zero over to the lads for FiFa 10 night. That’s 4 steps to glory and I followed them all. It’s always depressing going back to the gym or to any exercise after a prolonged period away from it (says the man who hadn’t done any real exercise in some 13 years until last October) because your base fitness levels have always dropped way more than you thought they would.

My right leg is still a bit out of sorts after the reoccurrence of my shin injury last week at badminton, so today I stayed away from anything that might make it worse and just cycled and did some cross training, 20 minutes of the former, 25 minutes of the latter. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but it’s more or less and hour on the trot of keeping the heartrate up at a decent level, so (in my humble opinion) it’s not to be sniffed at. A little each day presumably goes a long way, though I have yet to independently verify this myself.

Add an 8 minute abs workout into that equation, and a whole day of healthy eating, and we’re back in the game.

The plan, which I’m telling you so you can keep track of exactly where the plan falls to pieces, is to just cycle and cross train all week until Sunday to hopefully get some cardio back without putting the body through too much and give my leg time to fully heal (again) then start back running, but with a reduced training plan from Sunday. Fingers Crossed.

Hopefully if I’m a bit more patient and sensible and start of with very little running (2 miles for long run, 1 for short) for the first few weeks, I’ll finally be able to build it up without injuring myself!! But I think a run might also kill me, look at the state of me after the cycle and cross training today!!

Spin1038 DJ Ryan Phillips is running the Dublin City Marathon 2010 on 25 October 2010. That’s ages away, but he’s really unfit, and this is his training blog to see if and how he makes it to the finish line. Today was training day 126, Monday 1 March 2010

According to my plan, in was supposed to go for another run in Marlay Park, but all the muscles that have been causing me problems were tight and sore today, so I decided fairly early on that a run was not going to happen, nothing to do with the rain you understand!

The backup plan was to go to the Wyckham Point Gym and do some cross training and a cycle with some abs work and some weights. What I actually did was fall asleep on my bed, and no exercise. I got home late from spin (at about 3.30) and was shattered tired, fell asleep on the couch then just lost all motivation.

This is a load of bollocks, I don’t need to be told that. I’m a third of the way through my available training time and can’t even get off the couch to go to the gym. Does everyone find it this difficult or am I just a total sham of a man?? Don’t answer that, I know the answer and I will delete your comment!!

More badminton tomorrow, that’s exercise right??

Spin 1038 DJ Ryan Phillips is training for the Dublin city marathon on 25 October. Day 120 was Wednesday 24 February. It did not go well…

Indeed....

I can’t believe I haven’t done any training in 4 weeks. So it appears I’m going 3 months on, 1 month off now! That doesn’t seem like a sensible training plan by anyone’s stanards. I can explain away some of this (2 weeks injured, 1 week skiing) but the last week was quite simply me being in bad form and being lazy and not being in the humour to go out and do any training. Simple as that, I wasn’t arsed.

Now, I am once again arsed and am actually a bit re-invigorated, so today being a Monday I got my running shoes on and got them dirty (they were immaculate until today’s run, didn’t look like they had been taken out of their box) with a run and, if I’m breing honest, part walk around Marlay Park. Full Details of the workout below if you’re interested.

I have to say, it’s depressing how quickly the fitness just evaporates into the ether. I had put in about 3 months training in one shape or former (admittedly, very little running) but out jogging today, I felt like I could be about to die at any minute. I would say I walked between .7 and 1 of the 3.7 miles because of a combination of tiredness and fear that I was going to cause myself and injury!

BUT at least I got back out there and did something, which is progress and is particualrly suprising since I found myself tired and grumpy on the couch yesterday watching Oprah (Ellen was the guest, with her hot wife) and certainly not in the mood to go back out and run around a park in the freezing cold!

<a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/ireland/un/unknown/540126685620887656″ mce_href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/ireland/un/unknown/540126685620887656″>iMapMyRun+: 22 Feb 2010 16:29</a><br/><a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/ireland/un/unknown” mce_href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/ireland/un/unknown”>Find more Runs in Unknown, </a>

Summary
Name: iMapMyRun+: 22 Feb 2010 16:29
Type: Regular Run
Date: 02/22/2010
Start: 15:54:07
End: 16:29:25
Time Taken: 00:35:17

Workout Weight: 175.0 lbs.
Workout Route: iMapMyRun+: 22 Feb 2010 16:29
Total Distance: 3.73 mi.
Burned: 501 (kcal)
Workout Stats
Pace: 39:24 (min) 09:23 (avg) 02:40 (max)
Speed: 1.52 (mi/hr) (min) 6.39 (mi/hr) (avg) 22.42 (mi/hr) (max)

Spin1038 Dj Ryan Phillips is training for the Dublin City Marathon – Today was 22 February 2010, Day 119 of Marathon Training and saw him go for a run in Marlay Park, Rathfarnham.

Nice Place for a Run eh?

I don’t really see any point in waffling on trying to fill up more space here. I’m injured and very disheartened. I could still be doing exercise that doesn’t involve my legs (like weights and situps and the like for example) but I can’t be arsed. I know that’s terrible, and not the spirit at all, but there you have it, I’m a bad person, bite me!

My diet has also gone to hell, but I’m in a place (where I’m moaning and sulking about my shins) that I can actually enjoy it at the moment. So I’m stuffing myself relvatively guilt free, though of course I know that this is fairly short sighted of me!

If you’re looking for whover ate all the pies, it was me…..or this bloke

When they do a statue of me, it will look like this!!

I got a bit depressed about the whole thing today. It’s a horrible helpless feeling to be sitting on your hole and waiting to be able to start training again, especially when, like me, you’re only at the very start of training to begin with. I mean, the most of run is 4 miles and already I’m out with an injury. The guy in amphibian king did warn me that this was likely to happen at the start if I went at it too hard, but I hardly think that 3 and 4 mile jogs is too hard? Or at least I didn’t think it was, but I’ve a bad case of shin splints that beg to differ.

I’m due to go for another run tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s going to work out. I may try a bit of cross training or cycling depending on how the legs are and what my physio friends say is the best thing to do. If I don’t do that, I’ll still go to the gym to do some weights or something, because I need to do bloody something!

I accidentally cut off the top of my head in the video and I’ve noticed that it’s not in youtube as widescreen so the caption is off the screen, it was a bad day overall

Ryan Phillips training blog for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 – Day 86 – 20 February 2010

A hectic day and a hangover it appears are all that it takes to throw me off my stride when it comes to my training schedule. But I decided to let today slide, because I can pick up on the 4 miles tomorrow, then do the 3 miles as planned on Tuesday and be back on track. Whether I do two days back to back on Saturday/Sunday or whether I do them Monday/Tuesday isn’t a huge issue.

So, I’ve broken my training schedule, but only by a day, so things will be back to where they are supposed to be. It’s all good, everything is fine, let’s not panic!!

Ryan Philllips – Marathon Training for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 – Day 83 – Sunday 17 January 2010

I’ve still to much left over from me beer gut to see a six pack even if one was there (which it most certainly isn’t), but I’m hoping that if I keep plugging away at this, then when I start training properly again and start losing weight, the two will magically combine and conincide and I’ll be totally ripped! Hehehe, unlikely right?

As you can see, I still have a bit to go....