Outdoor exercise, fun run and walking

I'm exhausted. It's been a big day for me as far as exercise goes. I haven't decided whether to wander down to the gym later to do a little more walking on the treadmill. I'm tempted, as I have 27873 steps at the moment and the walk to the gym and back would take me over the 30k mark for the day. I had planned to do a 25k day today for the GCC, but the extra steps are a real bonus. My theory is that it's easier to keep your average up if you start hard.

This morning it wasn't as cold when I ventured out on my bike. There was no sign of rain either. I made it to Lennox Gardens in 25 mins, which is my usual time, but I wasn't quite as stressed today. The ride home seems much easier as there's daylight involved, which reduces the chances of me running into something. Mind you, there are more people around when I ride through town, but that's a small part of the ride. Most of the time I'm on bike paths where I only have to worry about inanimate objects and the occasional jogger.

I'm not sure what to call this morning's session. It was an exercise circuit I guess. We were running around a rectangle, inside which were a number of activities. These included running inside ladders, jumping along a set of cones, running back and forth and putting shuttlecocks in cones, weaving in and out between cones and jumping back and forth inside a pentagon. After our warmup, which evolved from a walk to a mini version of the interval training from Tuesday (jog the short side, surge the long side), we split into two groups. One group jogged the long ends, sprinted the short ends while the other group did an activity in the middle for 2 minutes. We kept swapping over until we'd done them all and then repeated the set more intensely for 1 minute at a time.

It was fun, although I wasn't at all keen on the jumping. I know that plyometrics are supposed to be good for me, but I am quite happy to 'skip' them. (Pun intended.) My attitude today was a lot more positive. I think that's because I realised on Tuesday that we weren't being compared to each other. Intellectually I knew that but I lived it on Tuesday. Having been the slow runner and clumsy catcher who was always picked last for team sports at school, it's reassuring that I can be successful in this group situation.

Again, we were all worn out at the end of the session. The mood in the group is incredibly positive. People are enjoying the challenge so much. While we were out there it was getting colder and colder. When we arrived there was a little evidence of frost. When we did our cool down jog we were crunching our way across frost patches all over the place. Luckily, we were all warm by then.

At lunchtime, I participated in the ABS fun run with some of the women who are doing the GCC with me. It was a 7.3 km run around Lake Ginnindera. I haven't been around that lake before, so it was unknown territory. I didn't expect to run as fast as I did for the Mother's Day Classic, mainly because I'd worn my legs out twice during the week, so I was aiming to get round in 50 mins. I had a super soft target of one hour as well.

I have no idea how fast I'm running as yet, and I discovered that I'd covered the first km in 6:15. I tried to slow down, but I reached the 2 km mark in 12:32. By that stage I decided to start my 1 min walking / 3 min running approach. I was feeling tired already, and I figured that it would be silly to keep running at that pace. Kris, who was running with me, headed off on her own, and I settled in to work on getting to the end. I got to 3 km in 19:45 and to 4 km in 26:xx but I slowed down a lot after that. I missed the 5 km mark and was really struggling to run. Some of my 3 min intervals were lucky to get to the 1:30 mark. I kept going though, and I made it to the finish line in the official time of 49:04. This is just under 6:45 pace, and was inside my 50 minute mark, so I was happy.

We were good and did a cool down jog and stretched. I made sure that I went for a long walk later today, which helped a lot. I feel tired but I don't feel all that sore. All in all, it has been a great day's exercise and a great weight loss day too. Having written all this down, I think I will go down to the gym for half an hour. (In case you haven't noticed, I get a little obsessive about the walking challenge.)

EDIT: Half an hour on the treadmill plus walk to and from the gym. Today's step count - 34035. With 7.8 km of cycling, adjusted to 36066.