Time for a Little Getaway We have been living in and enjoying the beautiful area of Cascais for several months now. While it has been great I have longed for the opportunity to get out and explore more of Portugal. Last week the opportunity arose. A very good friend from Australia has come over and is touring around a bit while he is here. Jim and his girlfriend Amy hired a van big enough to fit five people so that…
Time to Get Back to It With my daughter Ella flying back to Australia this past week there were plenty of sad goodbyes. Having family and friends visiting is always a wonderful time but does tend to impact the training schedule. Time to get back to some more structured weeks. Although my friend Jim is arriving at the end of the week this won’t be an issue as Jim is my running partner from Australia. Getting the work done should…
We have been having an expat experience in the wonderful country of Portugal for the last few months and absolutely loving it. A Whole New Culture Living somewhere overseas and experiencing a whole new culture is something I have always wanted to do. Finally getting the opportunity has been a dream come true. Portugal couldn’t be any further from Australia. In fact, as a delightful waiter recently pointed out, we could dig through the earth and come out in Sydney!…
Easy Week/Rest Week Week five was a week spent with my daughter who is visiting from Australia. It is important to have family time when it is presented and the body enjoys some rest and recovery time. While only having four running days this week my elevation gains did suffer, only recording 1317m. I did however manage to reach my total kilometer goal for the week of 90km in four straight days. Week five went as follows: DAY TRAINING DISTANCE…
Week four is done with a little bit of a mixture this week. Having done some longer tempo runs along with some walking to rest the legs in between these key runs. The last run of the week was the toughest being only 10.7km in distance but had just under 700m of elevation gain. This was a good test to see where the legs were at. After the last climb on this run my legs were cooked, especially as I…
Feeling Good Week three is done and dusted with the targets accomplished. The muscle soreness from the week before was not a factor this week. The muscles have adapted to the new/extra workload that I have put on them and are now noticeably a little stronger. I will look at increasing the elevation over the oncoming weeks along with the leg and buttock strength exercises. The week went as follows: DAY TRAINING DISTANCE ELEVATION Monday AM Easy run Ocean swim…
Building a Strong Foundation Week two of my training for trail running races has been banked with steady progressions. I am happy with how my body feels. My leg and buttock muscles have been sore from the extra work load with bigger elevation gains and also the leg exercises I’ve been performing regularly through the week. For me, feeling this soreness is a good thing. It is a good indication that I’m doing the right work to strengthen the areas…
A Subtle Shift I couldn’t honestly describe myself as ever being overly earth conscious. Sustainability was always on my radar and I certainly never went out of my way to do the wrong thing. A lot of the time it felt that my very small little contributions to help and do my part were so insignificant it just wasn’t all that worthwhile. Turns out that living a better life is just the domino effects of a few small shifts…