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!

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 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?

Anyway, after swimming yesterday I was scheduled to hit the cross trainer and the weights again today. My arms weren’t able for the weights, so I just did the cross trainer for half an hour. Is it just me or does anyone else find it quite difficult to keep any level of fitness up? About 3 weeks ago I was doing 40 minutes on the cross trainer and not being too bad afterwards, then I take a week of with injury and I am close to death after 30 minutes. I guess some of it depends on the day and how tired you are when you start off and all of that, but it’s still always a bit of a leap into the unknown when I get onto the gym gear as to how far or how long I wlil go before I need the conside a lie down.

Today, that was 30 minutes.

Spin1038 Radio DJ Ryan Phillips is taining for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 – Today was Marathon Training Day 92 – Wednesday 28 January 2010

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...

I did some upper body weights, and discovered that I am still a puny little man who can’t lift squat (that’s a clever weight lifting pun in case you missed it). I always found it hard to do weights in the gym because I have always had strong muscular legs, but very weedy arms, and it’s always a bit embarassing doing weights with other guys around lift 2 or 3 times what I’m using. Anyway, today there was nobody around, so I didn’t really have to worry about it.

Then I did a 10km cycle on the bike and the 8 minute abs workout. So I was exercising for about 50 minutes. I was starting to get cabin fever from not being in the gym, but I was just being abit ridiculous because it has only been a week for gods sake. Shame my diet has gone to such absolute shit. I worked off about 400-500 calories today, which wasn’t that much anyway, but I had a creme egg (it’s the season you understand) and about 10 biscuits before I went to the gym, so it’s all a bit shambolic!!

Anyway, back in the gym and back on the bike. Woot Woot!!

And I'm back o the bike....