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...

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

Anyway, when I got back from Marlay Park (after walking 4.5 miles remember) I did 20 minutes on the cross trainer and my 8 Minutes Abs thing, and that was it for Day 129. Then, naturally, I went about undoing all my hard work by eating 8 Jaffa Cakes and a big Centra Bag of Bacon Fries….Nice Job, dumbass

Ryan Phillips is a DJ on spin1038, a radio station in Dublin Ireland. When he’s not talking shite on the radio he’s training for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 on 25 October….or he’s sleeping, watching porn or eating junk food….but increasingly it’s the Marathon Training. Follow his progress here each day or on Twitter or Facebook. Thursday 4 March 2010 was day 129 of his training.

Marlay Park. Lovely place for a nice walk!

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

I injured my leg, thought it was Shin Splints, but it turned out not to be and actually to be something to do with muscles around the shin (which is slightly differeny I’m told) then the leg got better after a lot of rest, then I played badminton and it started hurting again. Bugger.

Since I hurt the leg at Badminton on Thursday night I have been staying off the leg as much as possible and trying to stretch the muscles around the shin out as much as possible. It’s not sore to walk on or anything, it’s only sore now if I put pressure on the particualr point where the muscle is damaged. I was seriously tempted to go for a run anyway, but I kind of know from the last time this happened what happens then (severe pain and weeks off training) so instead, I’ve just stopped and done nothing with a view to giving it a few days to heel, not putting too much load through it and stretching and icing it until it is freed up.

On Monday I’m going to get back into the gym, still not running for another week, but doing some cross training and cycling and weights and MORE stretching of the legs. I need to organise a massage too, because the muscles are all knotted up around the injury and Orla’s mum has offred to do it. That’s not creepy right, it’s only a leg massage!!

So, 3 more days sitting on my hole doing nothing. For those keep score at home, thoes days are starting to really add up!!

My Days Are Off Are Starting To Add Up!!

Spin1038 DJ Ryan Phillips is training for the Dublin City Marathon on 25 October 2010. For the last 3 days however he has been sitting on his bum because of an injured leg! Days 123 – 125 was Friday 26th to Sunday 28th of February 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....

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!