So it all begins 23/07/12

Hello hello :)

I am a 19 year old girl living in Dunedin and studying for a Bachelor of Applied Science in Physical Health and Well-being. As part of my course I was asked to chose a physical challenge for myself to train for and complete within a 12 week period. I chose to do the Moro Half Marathon because I did it last year but wanted to see if I could improve my time. I have created a 'SMARTY' goal to work towards which is:

Specific: Complete the Moro Half Marathon/ 21.1km
Measurable: Finish in under 2:15mins
Achievable: I completed it last year so its possible - want to do it faster this year
Realistic: With adequate training, it is realistic to cut off 11mins of my time 
Time: I have 8 weeks to train as the marathon is on the 9th of September
Yourself: I have chosen this goal for myself and am motivated to train and achieve it

The marathon is in 8 weeks time so it is time to start training! This blog will follow my 8 week journey to success (hopefully). Wish me luck, I am going to need it!!

Aerobic Energy System 25/07/12

Because my chosen challenge is running the Half Marathon the main energy system I will be focusing on during training is my Aerobic Energy System. The Aerobic energy system begins working after approximately two minutes of exercise and continuously supplies your body with oxygen so that exercise can be sustained for a long duration. Building my cardiovascular fitness and running endurance is the most important part of my training and I will do this by using my Aerobic energy system to run for long durations. I will steadily increase the duration of my runs and hopefully as my training schedule progresses my cardiovascular fitness will improve. It is essential that I focus my training on using my aerobic energy system because this will be the dominant system that will help me to achieve my goal on race day.



(The energry systems, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.coachr.org/energy_systems.htm)

Training Programme 27/07/12

I only have 8 weeks to train for this Half Marathon. My training programme focuses on my Cardiovascular Fitness, Flexibility and Muscular Endurance and Muscular Speed.  Each week I will complete a 'big' run which will be 2kms further than the week before, starting with 6kms at week one and 18kms at week seven. By having these small 'goal' runs each week I will be able to push myself and gradually build up to running the half marathon. 

Graph of Average Frequency of Components of Training

Goal Runs 1-7

Here is a list of my 7 goal runs and how each run went :)

1. 24/07/12 - 6km - Was my first run longer than 5km in months! I felt good but went slow. Completed in 37 minutes. I need to restrict my water consumption before running as I got the stitch.

2. 28/07/12 - 8km - Found it very difficult, it was freezing and I got cold sweats which made me feel ill. Took me 48 minutes. Need to give up alcohol I think! 

3. 08/08/12 - 10km - Was a great run! I felt really good but my muscles were sore the next day so I need to stretch more! Feeling really good and motivated. Completed in 59 minutes.

4. 11/08/12 - 12km - The run went okay, I struggled in the last 15 minutes, finished in 1:13 minutes. At my half way point of training and feeling a bit nervous about meeting my time requirement on the day. 

5. - 14km - Did not complete due to these horrific blisters!! Can barely walk on them..

Run 6 - 16km - 24/0712 Completed in 1:38mins! Very happy with this, felt really good and was running at a good pace to achieve my goal. 

Run 7 - 18km - Did not complete, I am beginning to get sick so need to rest!

ONE WEEK TO GO!! 02/09/12

The race is in 7 days and I am getting sick :( :( 

I have a sore throat and no energy so I am trying to eat well and rest up, hopefully I will feel better this weekend I do not want all this training to go to waste!!

InBody Analysis 06/09/12

I had an InBody analysis completed before I started training and another one a few days before the race, this table shows the comparisons between the two. 

	Pre-Training 23/07/12	Post Training 05/09/12
Weight	62.9kgs	64kgs
Muscle Mass	26.9kgs	28.4kgs
Body Fat Mass	14.1kgs	14.4kgs
Fat Free Mass	48.8kgs	49.2kgs
BMI	20.5	20.3
Percentage Body Fat	22.4%	20.4%
Waist to Hip Ratio	0.79	0.78
Basal Metabolic Rate	1425	1590

The results show that I gained muscle and lowered my body fat percentage by 2% which is great. My Basal Metabolic rate also increased which means I am burning more energy when my body is at rest. Overall I am happy with these InBody results from my 8 weeks of training. 

How my training has gone 6/09/12

Averaged Planned and Actual Training Loads, RPE and Times 

As the Graph shows, I often actually completed less than my training programme had planned. This could effect my performance on race day..We will have to wait and see..

4 DAYS UNTIL RACE DAY!!      WISH ME LUCK!!

Run is DONE 09/09/12

So I completed the half marathon today!

BUT I did not achieve the time goal I was hoping for :(

I wanted to finish in under 2:15 but ended up taking 2:32. I believe there are a few factors which resulted in me not achieving my time goal these are:

-Did not train frequently enough. Although I had a good training programme I was unable to stick to it precisely due to major blisters and unexpected travel. I also became ill in the last week of training which did not help at all!! 

-Inaccurate training. I was measuring my training runs through my Nike+ app on my Ipod which measures distance and time. Unfortunately I only discovered today when comparing my Ipod to the course markers, that my Nike+ app is not accurate and I had been running shorter distances than I thought I had. This had quite a negative impact on me psychologically during the race because I  felt like I was not prepared to run the full distance as my training runs which were already difficult enough were not even the distance I thought they were. 

-Heat. While it now seems rather silly of me, I only ever trained in the afternoons when it was cooler as I find running in the sun much more difficult. Obviously today I had to run in the morning and it happened to be quite sunny during the event so this was a condition I was not used to. I found myself very hot and thirsty during the marathon.

Giving up- To be honest I pretty much gave up on the second half of the race. I was not in a good mind set and began to walk every now and then. This completely ruined my motivation and resulted in me not achieving my goal.

I am very disappointed in myself for not achieving my goal. I feel good that I have completed another half marathon but I would be much happier if I had achieved my time goal. I take full responsibly for this though as I believe my goal was realistic and achievable I just needed to work harder for it. I will most likely give it another go next year and hopefully I can cut my time down!