20 Jun 2013 – unstoppable

the post-marathon tiredness caught me by surprise, so this week I’ve been taking things even easier than I imagined I would. been spending a lot of time researching post-marathon recovery actually, and turns out that this is all perfectly normal, and “lots of rest” is generally the right thing to do.

another recurring message is “do what you feel you can”, which harks back to the whole “listen to your body” principle that I’ve learned over the past 18 months.

the great news is that I woke up just before 3am and my body was telling me “yes, you can go to the gym, just be sure to take it very easily”.

when I got to the gym, I realised that I’d spent most of the last few months out running, hadn’t really done any weights work for most of that time, so I made up a gentle routine off the top of my head, to ease myself back into the swing of things. weights were deliberately kept low; the whole session was about getting back in the routine and not wrecking my recovery!

oh and I weighed myself at the gym – 122.3kg. Pretty much the weight I was pre-marathon, still 20kgs below where I was 18 months ago, and hopefully about to start heading downwards again with the healthy eating plan (I had deliberately tried to avoid weight loss in the week or two before the marathon as I didn’t want to waste “fuel”)

02:50 – glucose lolly (about 5 cals) and a glass of water

03:00 – gym (see below)

04:15 – fruit & bran, muffin with cheese & tomato. orange juice

05:25 – bus, nap

06:15 – coffee

08:00 – popcorn. orange.

10:00 – almond & mango fruit mix

11:30 – chicken fillet, tomato & mayo in a bun. spicy fruit cookies

13:30 – southern bbq chicken & wedges. orange

14:15 – bus, nap

16:00 – cup of tea, small piece of banana cake

18:00 – homemade chicken nuggets, chips, corn on the cob. small piece of banana cake

21:00 – glass milk, bed

gym

5 minutes spin bike easy warm-up. level 12, 1.6km

1000m row – level 8 – 4:52

3 x 10 chest press (40kg, 45kg, 50kg)

3 x 10 assisted chin-ups (offsets: 85kg, 80kg, 75kg)

3 x lat pull-downs (15kg, 20kg, 25kg)

500m row – level 8 – 2:24

10 x crunches, 10 x ab twists, 10 x bicycle legs

10 x crunches, 10 x ab twists, 10 x bicycle legs

10 x crunches, 10 x ab twists, 10 x bicycle legs

200m row – level 8 – 0:43

Plank Hold – count of 20

Stretching