First post

A new month and a new coach. Inspired by Nyle Sunderland's outstanding achievements at the World Masters Athletics Championships I have hooked up with the same coach, ordered myself a GPS training watch and begun a new training programme.

Monday 01 August
Today I was to do an 8km kickdown which involved increasing my speed by 10s per km every 2 km. I don't have a training watch yet so I had to go by the distance markers on the waterfront which are not very reliable. I worked out I should start with 6:50 per km but found I did the first one in 7 min. The next three were 6:50 but on the 4th km I mistakenly thought I was ahead of schedule so deliberately slowed a bit. Next time I will write down the 500m splits before I go out so I'm not depending on my mental arithmetic while I'm walking. I'm pretty sure I did manage to speed up for the last km but I found adjusting my speed by 10s per km quite a subtle difference that will need practice.

Tuesday 02 August
Today was officially cross training but it was the first 5 km race of the Scottish series which runs for 8 months of the year. I went to get changed and couldn't find my shorts - they had jumped out of my bag! (I found them on the bedroom floor when I got home) Luckily the dress I was wearing wasn't too tight so I put that on over my tee shirt. It was perfect conditions - cool and calm. I managed 29:56 which is my third best 5 km time. I felt my cardios were working hard which is great. So often I feel my cardios could do more if only my legs weren't so stiff.

Wednesday 03 August
Philip came to walk with me today. 60 min with 2 x 6 min breakouts. I wanted to make sure I did at least 1 km in the breakouts. I think the first breakout took 6:10 for 1 km but I couldn't remember the exact time on my watch when I started. The second breakout was exactly 1 km in 6 min according to the distance markers. Philip was even quite close behind me on the second breakout. I sure he would beat me every time if he put in the effort!

Thursday 04 August
Another lovely sunny day. 60 min today. Concentrated on technique and threw in some Mexican walking drills. I think I'm tucking my butt under correctly but I'm keen to get some videos up for Jim to critique.