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!!

After a rest day yesterday, it was back to the threadmill today. I know I’m not supposed to be on the threadmill at all, because I should really be in grass when I’m starting out in particular, but it’s so much easier to keep track of pace and distance and all of that on a threadmill, and it’s not weather depedant….although technically neither is running outside, except that I’m something of a “fair weather” jogger and don’t really like jogging in the cold or rain, or particularly both.

So, I went back to the gym today to try and put in 3 miles at marathon pace before the long end of week jog of 4 miles tomorrow. All went well, to be honest, felt really good. All ankles and knees help up pretty well and there wasn’t too much of incident. Ran at 12 km/ph and made the 3 miles relatively easily. Total Result.

In your face 3 miles!

Did a good bit of stretches and strengthening exercises for my ankles and knees today as well to try and keep everything ticking over and moving and working as it should. Fingers crossed. It’s 4 miles tomorrow.

Today was another day off from Marathon Training. Or, as I should properly call it, a rest day. Having done the 3 mile jog on the threadmill yesterday, my legs are a bit tired, but not injured or feeling too shabby so that’s good news. I’m back in the gym tomorrow for another 3 miles, then again on Sunday for 4 miles.

From next week there’s something every day when I’m not jogging to keep the fitness progressing, so from next week on there should be a lot less “rest days” where I do absolutely nothing, and at the least there should be some situps, or squash or badminton or something ever day…said he with cautious optimism

Tired Legs....not actually mine, but you get the idea

Well, it was always likely to happen, and today it did!! I fell off the training wagon. I had taken last Sunday off, and justified it as a day of rest. That’s fine, that’s allowed. Tonight, I let bad form get the better of me, and I did no training. It wasn’t a rest day, there was no reason for it, other than I’d had a shit day and I couldn’t face getting on a bike or a threadmill or a cross trainer, or any other piece of god awful gym equipment.

Worse again, I took myself and my bad mood to the shops, got a DVD (Monsters v. Aliens, in case you’re wondering) and pigged out with the below assortment of goodies. Do I feel guilty? Actually yeah, a bit. Which I guess is a good thing, and part of the reason I’m documenting the whole year of marathon training in this blog. I was very tempted to lie and blog that I had done a little bit of exercise, or maybe just say that I hadn’t done any exercise, but leave out that bit about eating my own weight in junk food and guzzling wine mid-week, but that defeats the purpose.

As I said to orla (while taking the below photo of my bounty), there’s going to be plenty of down days between now and running a marathon. There’s no point in pretending that the day went well when it didn’t. It’s amazing how form can affect you, and how it can sometimes make you go to the gym, and sometimes make you go to the off-licence.

Today was the first of what I’m sure will be a good many bad days, and I’m OK with that….

I fell off the healthy food eating bandwagon...

I ate a load of Halloween leftovers this morning (while trying to find my clothes!) which sank the diet for the day, but was on best behaviour after that and treated myself to a can of coke zero and some low fat crisps last night. I think i’m totally awesome drinking coke zero, but then I saw a report in the paper this morning that said drinking 2 cans of diet coke a day can DOUBLE your chances of getting serious kidney disease (or something) which I’m assuming also holds true for coke zero? That’s a disaster frankly!!

How could this be bad for me?

Operation “drink gallons of water” continues a-pace, with more wee breaks than seems healthy or helpful!!

Back to training tomorrow afternoon with another game of squash!