Since I’m going jogging tomorrow and have been doing some form of exercise every day for the last 6 days, I decided to take the day off today and rest all the muscles and what not. This is a fairly thinly veiled way of saying, I got lazy and figured I could probably justify a day off, so I took it.

Then I did my best impression of the Russian Olympic Vodka Drinking team and horsed into a load of Vodka and Lucozade as though the nice people at Howl at the moon might run out soon. So, no exercise, I ate nearly a full White Sliced Pan and then a shit load of vodka. If anyone asks, marathon training is coming along really well….

Just Add Vodka

Ok, now at this stage I can appreciate the point that I might be taking the walking thing a bit far, since all I seem to be doing at the moment is walking. Again, I put it to you, the good people of the Jury, that walking is a great form of exercise, plus it ticks of the box of being relaxing, it’s nice when the weather is as sunny as it has been the past few days, I can listen to my audio book while I walk and it’s a good way of starting to put weight on my shin muscles without running, thereby hopefull avoiding injury when I start jogging again on Sunday.

So, I walked just over 5 miles today (meaning I’ve walked 15 miles in the last 3 days, which I still count as good work) down to Marlay Park, a lap and a bit and back home. I also took in some houses for sale in the area on the way, which was even more productive! Then I did my 8 minute abs and left it at that. The running training begins again this Sunday, so hopefully the walking will have tee’d me up for a problem free easing back in…

Here’s the Stats (but not that map, because the maps aren’t embedding probably in the blog for people using browsers other then internet explorer)

Ryan Phillips is a DJ on Spin1038, a radio station in Dublin, Ireland. Join Ryan and Tracy for Fully Charged, weekday mornings from 6.45am GMT on the Most Music Station, Spin1038. Today was Friday, 6 March 2010, Day 130 of his training for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 on 25 October 2010

SO, instead of doing some cycling and cross training today, I went for a walk! I actually didn’t think it was that funny an idead to be honest, I wanted to put some weight on my leg, but not run on it to see how it got on, that’s sensible damnit. Now, I didn’t just walk to the shops or that, I went to Marlay Park and did 2 laps, walking 6.7 miles in the process. It took nearly 2 hours damnit, and it was real exercise!!

Today's Training - The Facts and Figures

<a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/walk/ireland/un/stillorgan/155126763583316709″ mce_href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/walk/ireland/un/stillorgan/155126763583316709″>iMapMyRun+: 3 Mar 2010 17:03</a><br/><a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-walk/ireland/un/stillorgan” mce_href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-walk/ireland/un/stillorgan”>Find more Walks in Stillorgan, </a>

Anyway, all laughing at my expense aside, I think it was a good days work, because today was really supposed to be a rest day anyway.

Sadly, that’s where the good news ends. Map My Run calculated that I may have lost about 526 calories doing that walk (which is pretty decent ok), however I can tell you from looking at the label on the Bag of Jelly Babies I ate earlier that that put on about 700 calories. And when you add in the 2 crisp sandwiches I had for lunch, I’m pretty much not breaking even for the calories today nor am I headed in the right direction for losing my first pound this week!! I’m not sure what it is about my personality that makes me do things like this. I’m eyeing  up a big pack of crisps and a lint bunny that’s in the fridge as we speak, even though I know it’s bad, and not helping and counter productive and all the bad things that it is. If it’s in the house, my will power is just seriously week….it’s very sad.

So, whether you call it a success or a failure, or whether you laugh like Orla, that was day 128 of training for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 on 25 October. Another day, another bit of training tomorrow. Can’t wait!!

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....

As it turns out, I didn’t play all that much badminton, it’s always just a nit of a free for all and nobody ever really sticks to the plan about times and courts and teams. It’s very frustrating because you spend ages getting in and out of town to go to training (took me 45 minutes in traffic this time getting in) the you get hardly any badminton played and very little meaningful exercise for your efforts. Still, given it was supposed to be a ‘taking it easy da after my run yesterday it probably just about served as a decent warm up and down and a bit of exercise.

I also got back into the 8 minute ab workout programme I have been trying to do (unsuccessfully) every day. The 4 weeks off and overindulgence in food and drink while away skiing have taken their toll, I am now about 5lbs heavier than when I went away and that evil little belly has reared it’s ugly head again. Bastard

The badminton season finishes up this week with a match and after that I think I will go back to the squash which I had to give up because it clashed with badminton. They have serous training every week with a coach and a ladder system and everything which I think will suit my temprement a bit better (ie the badminton was a pile of arse and a complete waste of time for getting fit, so I’m going to try squash!!)

In summary, today was an ok day at best, things really need to improve!!

Ryan Phillips is a dj on spin1038 in Dublin. He is training for the Dublin city marathon 2010 on Monday 25 October 2010 and this is his training blog. This was day 120 of training, Tuesday 23 February 2010. Check back for more tomorrow!

I don’t think people who don’t swim a lot have any concept of what is fast and what is slow though. At one stage there were two lads in the lane bombing it up and down, then two other girls who were going really slow (like, painfully slow backstroke). In the end, we were all going faster than those swimming in the medium lane beside us.

Anyway, I discovered a few things today. Firstly, swimming hurts like hell about 8 hours after you finish if you don’t swim regularly and haven’t swam (swum?) in ages. Lesson learned. Secondly, I can breaststroke until the cows come home, but nearly drown trying on length front crawl. How outrageously tiring is that stroke? Pass thanks. Thirdly, despite 3 months of exercise, I’m still disgustingly unfit. About 5 lenghts in, I was fit to die. I think I may have managed to do between 20 and 30 lenghts, but with a fair amount of stopping peppered throughout. It all counts.

The Pool was quite busy today...

According to the plan, you shouldn’t run two days in a row. That makes sense. What I’m a little bit unsure about is whether I should do some other form of exercise on the days I’m not running, like cycling or cross training or swimming, or perhaps weights? Thoughts or suggestions welcome?

Anyway, today was a real test, because I had to do a 4 mile run, and because of the snow and ice and what not, I decided to do it on the threadmill (which I’m trying to avoid because it’s not good for my knees and ankles). I was a bit worried, because I’ve skipped the first two training programmes on the website (total beginner and 5km run) and I dont want to start off too hard and injure myself. Also, I wasn’t entirely sure whether I’d last 4 miles. Thankfully I did, relatively easily, but running off what I would like to be my marathon pace. I’m aiming for a pace of 12km/ph (the threadmills are in kilometers in the gym) which would mean a time of 3.5 hours. I ran the 4 miles today at 10 km/ph (a marathon time of 4 hours 12 mins if run consistently).

So I need to pick the pace up a good bit, but I was still happy to have at least gotten the ball rolling and be back in the gym and back on some sort of a proper schedule. Unfortunately, I could feel my left ankle complaining a little bit having gotten off the threadmill. That’s disappointing having gone to the effort and expense of specifically buying proper training shoes to try and prevent injury. Still, I was on a threadmill instead of grass where I’m supposed to be, and I probably have started training a bit harder than I’m supposed to.

All in all, I did about 1/6th of a marathon in not appalling pace, and there’s 286 days left to train, so I’m actually reasonably happy!

I did pick up the letter from the doctor and called Vincent’s Private to organise my tests. I sure as shit hope that it is covered by my VHI because the two tests combined cost €550! Don’t want to have to fork out for that schizzle! I’ve booked in for this coming Friday (8 January 2010) at 11.30, so hopefully peace of mind isnt’ too far away at this stage.

Then I thought about going to the gym, but didn’t quite, instead I went and played in an epic football tournament…..on the xbox…..on Fifa 10. That doesn’t count as exercise does it? Nope, didn’t think so. So my initial enthusiasm for being back in the gym yesterday appears to have been fairly short lived.

I did however keep up with my 8 minute abs workout thingy, though my abs don’t look any better, they are definitely more sore, or sorer, whichever is correct, if either.

Exercise, the Phillips way

The GPs surgery was back open today, so I called to find out what the story with the ECG results were. Unfortunately my doctor wasn’t actually back in work and wont be until Thursday 31 December. I was aa bit annoyed at the whole thing so I asked the receptionist to have the locum GP who was there to have a look at my file and call me back with whatever they could see from the file . Nobody called.

I decided to take the initiative myself and call St Vincent’s hospital directly to get the ECG/Cardio department and find out what the story was and how and when I should book in for the echocardiograph. The outpatient’s reception number was engaged all day, literally every time I called (and I called many times) and the two direct lines for the outpatients cardiology go kept going straight through to voice messages where you can’t leave a message saying to call the main outpatient’s reception number (which, as I mentioned was permanently engaged)

So, no exercise done and no progress on the whole heart thing. I supposed you could say it was a bit of a disheartening day (wha wha wha). Very very furstrating!!

I was all chuffed with my day’s work on the cross trainer (it is only 27 December, still pretty impressive to be back in the gym in my humble opinion) that I posted a picture of the results on facebook so everyone could give me my Kudos!

Impressive, or so I thought...

Sadly, the kudos was in somewhat short supply from a certain Mark McCabe. 30+ indeed….