I can run fast!

Weight 63.3
You have used 1324 out of your net daily budget of 1350 calories and have 26 calories remaining. 25% of the calories are from fat, 23% from protein, 52% from carbs and 0% from alcohol.
Exercise - 60 mins Combat, bench press et al!

Re my exercise - After Combat I still seemed to have plenty of energy, so whilst at home I decided to test myself out a bit. I have a few small goals, well, call them challenges that I would like to achieve. One day, I would like to be able to:

• do a chin up,
• a one handed push up,
• bench press much heavier weights
• And to perform the speed work necessary to run a 65 min 12 k.

So last night I decided to give them all a go, as I do on a regular basis.

The chin up - don't know what it is about this exercise, but I simply can't do it. I try and try with no results. I regularly walk past my chin up bar and have another go - but no luck. If anyone knows any good prep/build up exercises for this, please fill me in.

One handed push up. When I first tried this out, I remember asking my husband to look at what I was doing wrong. Did I have my hand in the wrong position? I asked, because I don't seem to be able to bend my elbow. He kinda laughed, and said, right position, your simply not strong enough! A little while back in combat I had a sore shoulder - so when it came to pushups, I did them one handed in a box press position, and realised this would be a good training method. But last night - I managed several mini ones - ie - my elbow did bend, but just not very much. Still, its a start

Bench press. I've never really done much of this, but a while back bought my own bench press. Keep meaning to workout on it and never really doing a lot consistently. I've been bench pressing 22kgs every now and then. And then I've been noticing a few people benching much more than me, yet I'm using heavier dumbells for curls etc. (usually 8 - 9 kgs). So - I decided that maybe I could press a lot more, I just wasn't trying. So I loaded another 10kgs onto the bar (no baby steps for me) - had a feel for it, lifted it up .....lowered it down.....and there it stayed! I couldn't lift it back up, and I was trapped! I know, I know - silly to do it without a spotter. Eventually I managed to roll it down to my abs, and twist and lower it to the ground. Took off the extra, add 3kgs this time bringing it up to 25kgs and managed 2 sets of 3. Well - its a start

Running. Now you have to understand that I'm a slow runner. Most of my running up till now has been focussed on running longer and pacing myself to make the distance. Last year I ran the C2B (12kms) in 72 mins - a PB for me. This year I've been dreaming about increasing my pace from 6min kms to 5.5 min kms (about 11km/hr) and running it in 65 mins. To do this, my running schedules tell me I need to be able to do speed work at a pace of 11.5 km/hr. I'm not planning on starting my real prep for this until June, but I thought - I wonder if I can actually do it? So I tried out 400 m at this pace and passed with flying colours. I've actually decided that I prefer to run fast. When I ran 12 kms two weeks ago, even though it was a long run, and the emphasis is meant to be on running slow and long, I started throwing in some accelerations, and I really loved the feeling. Last Saturday I talked about running pyramids in my long run, and i really enjoyed it. And over the last few months whilst I've restricted my running due to my hamstring injuries, I've been running in Cardio Coach, and doing very short sprint intervals, which I've loved. So today for cardio, I decided to try week one of the speedwork for the C2B - 6 x 400m sprints at 11.5km/hr, separated by 200m of walking. And I did it! It was hard work, and my calves are rather sore now, but I didn't give in to the tiredness, I pushed on and I did it. I'm so excited - I feel like I can actually run fast. It may not be fast for most, but its superfast for me, and I'm stoked.