Stepping Up

Good afternoon,

So this week I took on the challenge to step out and step up... I signed up to the Fitbit Parkrun Challenge Series.  The challenge is to take at least 10,000 steps per day, and as a parkrun community try to beat Paul Sinton-Hewitt (Parkrun Founder).  Each challenge lasts for 8 days.  The first one started yesterday and I was raring to go......



So before I get onto the challenge and this weekend, we shall pop back in time and check out the rest of my week's training after my Midweek Madness at the gym.

Thursday: I had a busy day at work walking round with a photographer from 9am - 3pm, so was on my feet and racking up the steps all day and therefore swapped Friday's rest day for Thursday.

Friday: Became intervals day, and I have to say it felt a struggle today.  Didn't start off to well as I was so reluctant to get out of bed, I didn't have time to do my core warm up and I was half asleep as I left the house.  It was also getting warm and muggy already (5.45am) the plan was to do 10 minutes warm up, 6 x 4 minutes work 1 minute recovery and 10 minutes cool down.

I started with a nice slow jog for the warm up averaging 8 minute km.  Then I started the intervals, each 4 minute split was - 6:27, 6:43, 6:33, 6:45, 6:39, 6:39, so not bad, I was pleased with it considering how tired I had felt, I was expecting worse possible DNF.  I then walked the 10 minute cool down as I was shattered.  When I uploaded to strava it told me I had PB 2 miles - 22:39 and PB 5K - 36:14 so was really happy with this.

Saturday: So Saturday started the challenge, it was a cross training day for me again, however I had already planned to go for another long walk with Rob to check out some more of his ultra route.  I am sure that over three and half hours of trail walking constitutes as 1 hour cross training right?

Anyway, so with the challenge in mind (I had also got Rob to sign up) we packed a picnic lunch and set off.  We drove to Datchworth where the ultra will see Rob do a 5 mile loop.  We left lunch in the car as expected to be about an hour and half, and took water and a banana with us.  Didn't quite go to plan as we got lost a couple of times and ended up taking just under 2 hours.  The trail wasn't too bad on this stretch, there was a fair bit of sludgy mud, but it was an easy enough walk, a few hills up and down but nothing major.

We stopped to watch Cricket at Datchworth Cricket Pavilion and have our lunch, it was such a beautiful day I could have stayed there all afternoon!  But we had to move on to the next part of our journey.  So back to the car we went and drove to Stapleford, parked up and then walked to Stapleford Church which was another checkpoint and the starting point of our next walk to Chapmore End.  It started off well, a beautiful walk alongside a river shaded by trees, and we even spotted two families of swans.  We were making quite good time and feeling good about this section, but it was short lived!

Next we had to walk across Waterford Marshes, it was as in its name very boggy!  We were slipping and sliding and getting very wet feet, and then we came face to face with a herd of cows!  This was interesting as we tried to walk between them without spooking them.  One cow seemed very fond of following us and I started to get quite worried, I was sure that cows are not normally aggressive but didn't want to find out, so it took us a fair while to navigate round them.

Then we were out of the marshes and back into wooded trail... with very steep hills!  Ouchie on the legs!  The next part of the walk was quite frustrating as we knew it well, being close to home - Waterford Heath, we knew we needed to cross the road and follow the trail to Chapmore End but as we were following the instructions for the ultra and as it needed to be so many miles it took us on a loop of Waterford Heath.... down down down... so which meant up up up!!  Just to cross that road we had been at previously... and it also didn't take us through the walk we knew... oh no it took us further on to what was yet another beast of a hill!  (Richard please remove all of this talk of hills from your brain, these are not the hills I want added into my training plan!)

Dead!

Luckily once up the hill it was just a short relatively flat route into Chapmore End, It had taken us 1 Hour and 15 minutes to complete so we popped to the pub for a pit-stop and a cheeky Cider.

Whilst sitting sipping, we found a different route back to collect the car, which was far easier and only took us 25 minutes!

By the end of the day I had walked 32,366 steps!  

Sunday: Today was my long run, 2 x 5 minutes walk and 25 minutes run.  Rob wanted to give a good part of his ultra a go so I drove to Stevenage to drop him off and decided to do my long run around the beautiful Fairlands Valley Lakes.  It was already late morning so was very warm, and after yesterdays long walks I was tired but determined to complete it.                                                                                                                                                                                                             I did my first set and my watch died!  DURR I had forgotten to charge it, luckily enough though I had set my Fitbit app on my phone to track my run for the FBPR challenge.  Unfortunately though I had no guide for the second set, so I just ran and was very surprised to feel it went much faster than the first half!                                                                                                                                                                                    

I was again pleased with my splits, especially those after my watch had died.

So far today I am on 17,721 steps and don think Ill be getting many more in as am very tired!

So that is it for this week, I am currently thinking about how I am going to get my steps in tomorrow as it is a rest day, I wont be walking much at work and England are playing tomorrow night....  Will have to fit it in somewhere!

Much Love

FBB xx