Sunday, September 21, 2008

Day 2 Week 5 and 23Kms

I cleared Week 5 day two on Saturday. It was a struggle. It was more difficult than I anticipated. I thought because it had 8 levels with scraps of pushup sets, it would be easy. I conveniently forgot to remind myself that the last set would be a minimum of 40 pushups. The first 5 levels were relatively easy. Of course the 45 seconds breaks made it challenging and I varied between 45-50seconds. Level 6 and seven were difficult. I did 12 pushups in level 6 and couldn’t go to 15 and had to stop. I had to wait close to 4 minutes before I could do level 8, which by then was relatively easy.

Total count: 20+20+18+18+15+12+15+14+40=172 pushups.

I feel confident now that I can do more than 60pushups in one set. This 5th week has taught me new disciplines that I had not before acquired. In fact, I believe that one’s true “character” and pushup style emerges during this week. I will be doing day three on Tuesday. They say 30 seconds between each set (shudder) I will try my best and see how far I can go before I have to wait longer.

Yesterday I went for 22Kms and 800metres in 1Hr 57.56seconds. We started at four and the heat of the sun really did us in and made the run a grueling experience. I cleared the first 5K in 22:50 minutes which is an improvement of last week’s time. Consider the Sun and the fact that I was carrying water as I was running, it is clear that I can improve on it. Anyways, I got a stitch at the 8Kms mark and slowed down but at the 16th K mark my energy came back and my speed went up. I largely stopped due to dehydration as there was no one to hand me water.
It was tough and soul-destroying mostly because of the heat. But that was the entire point: to learn to run in the heat of the sun. If I am right, the 9.00am heat is hotter than the 4pm sun. The only consolation was that it was a flat course I was running on. The counting was also a challenge because of the monotony of the track.

If all goes well, I will try doing 63 laps (25Kms) next week under 2 hours. I have no injuries yet so its good so far. My body is in pain though and it feels lost, as if snatched from normalcy and plunged in a strange place. It cannot understand what is going on and is writhing and looking at me with its eyes as big as cherries, begging for an explanation. But I understand what is happening and it will just have to trust me. Cheers

Here is how I am doing weight wise. 4Kgs to go and we are home.

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