Last week proved to have some good steps forward towards recapturing the early form of the challenge, particularly in being able to run five days in the week. Hopefully, Week 8 will see me be able to start to increase the overall distances that I am covering.

Monday’s run was probably the most challenging to complete, not due to it being the beginning of the week but rather due to a bout of food poisoning. I didn’t sleep well on the Sunday evening, up for a significant part of the night with stomach pains, sweating and feeling really hot and flushed. When I got to my usual running place, instead of heading straight out, I needed to find a toilet where I was for next twenty-five minutes before being able to get started. I had intended to do a 10km run, however this got reduced to 5km just incase I needed to get back to the bathroom in a hurry. Luckily I didn’t.

The remainder of the week went quite well running wise. I kept with maintaining the 5km rather than pushing limits. This was done for two reasons, firstly to just give that one more week of ease for my side strain, I really don’t want to run into complications with that one, and secondly because of my upcoming gig scheduled for the end of the week and wanting to get as much extra time on my saxophone as possible. The positive is that I got through the five runs, and no injuries.

Looking forward to what can occur in the next week!

My goal for this week was to build some consistency into the legs as I continued to work back after the setbacks over the past few weeks. This had mixed results, with the beginning of the week being definitely more frustrating than how I managed to finish up.

Monday saw me decide to only stick to the 5m route that sees me run on the track between the Canning River and the Freeway from Salter Point and across Manning Bridge. I had aimed to keep my pace around the 6 minutes per km as a good starting point to ensure that I didn’t cause any additional soreness in to my abdominals after the strain that had occurred. Overall, I was satisfied with how a pulled up, however I notice an increase in tightness in my left calf. This caused some concern as this is a muscle that I have had some difficulty with over the past ten years and was concerned that I might end up straining it if not careful.

In reflecting on why it was so tight I think it is not to do with running at all, but rather from the way I have found me sitting either when working at my desk or at home on couch. I have been crossing my legs on a specific angle that has been pressing on the specific part of my calf – this will be a habit that I need to break.

The tightness resulted in me taking Tuesday off running. This is an unplanned move as originally I had hoped to increase the distance to 10km for this and my Thursday run. Instead, the remainder of the week I remained at the 5km distance – hopefully next week I will be able to return to some longer distances, possibly looking at a 12km run on the Monday and Friday, 10km on Tuesday and Thursday with a 5km on the Wednesday. If this goes ok, I will look at increasing distances again in the following week. I’m still working towards hopefully completing a 19km run in the next few weeks.

So far, this challenge I have managed to run 205.3km of the 700 that I was hoping to achieve and I have 50 days left to complete it in…I’m still fairly confident that I can get there – it will just take a little bit of additional push due to the injury setbacks!

Week 5 has proven to be one of recovery and slowly building to manage my body after the slight niggle I experienced in Week 4.

I decided that this week I would set myself a goal of running five days, as long as my body was up to it, and only a distance of 5km each day. Intensity wise, I was aiming at completing my runs at a 6 minute pace, this being a minute per km slower than what I had worked down previously. As I said, my aim has been to slowly build again and monitor my body to ensure that I am not going to cause any further damage to the strain as this would take me out of running for even longer which would be incredibly frustrating.

Monday’s run started ok. I did feel a little sore through my right abdominal side but it wasn’t painful just not comfortable. I decided to try to compete the run and am glad I did. While not setting the world on fire, I did manage to complete the 5.32km course in 32:09 with an average of 6’02” per km.

The remainder of the week saw ongoing improvement in the times but also how the body was feeling. I have found that the first km I am quite stiff sore am taking a little longer to warmup and get up to speed, I also did not really push myself, keeping to an average pace of around the 5’30” per km. The time throughout the week were as follows:

I am not going to attempt any runs over the weekend, instead taking the time off to give a few days recovery for the body before increasing some distances next week. My aim will be to complete 2 x12km runs on Monday and Friday with only 5km runs on the other days. If this goes well, I will look at increasing the distance again in the following weeks.

I started this week feeling really excited and looking forward to being able to ramp up the distance due to my research paper now being completed and all submitted for review. I tell you, this has been a massive burden off my shoulders and I am feeling so good about that point!

Monday started with a really good 12km run, the run felt good and I was making really good time – I knew it was going to be a PB time. With 3km to go I had a feeling it would be possible to come close to breaking the 1 hour mark for 12km. This is something that I have wanted to do, but thought it would be a while before I’d get there. I tried to keep the pace up, but fell short by 24 seconds of achieving the goal. To say that I was extremely disappointed is an understatement, to come so close but then not achieve it is always hard. I reviewing my splits, it seems that the first three km is where I need to give attention to improve my overall time.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Tuesday’s run proved to be fruitful straight away. The run felt good from the first km and I found myself in another strong position. By the 6km mark I realised that again I could potentially in a position to break the 1 hour mark and tried to maintain my pace to keep on track. By 10km I managed to set a new PB for that distance, coming in at just over 49 minutes. Keeping the pace I managed to achieve the goal coming in at just over 59 minutes for the 12km distance.

The rest of the week proved frustrating though. As a result of the first two days I have managed to cause a strain in my abdominal muscles, when a move faster than walk or rotate slightly I am experiencing discomfort in my right side just above my hip. It has meant that for the first time in the 90 day challenge I haven’t been able to run every week day (missing running on Wednesday – Friday). Frustratingly, it also puts on hold my aim at incorporating at least one 19km run a week.

The weekend has seen me feel a lot better, meaning I am hoping to be able to get back on in the running at the beginning of next week. I think that I will reduce the distance and intensity for the next week and, if it all goes to plan, gradually increase the distance again to get back up to my 12km distances.

This week saw me have to change the pace and length of time out on the road. I still managed to get in a run on every weekday but reduced the length to only being 5km runs. This is due to the research paper I have been working on being due in and I just needed the extra time.

Next week will see me return to my more consistent longer routine – bring on the 12km efforts!

I have had to make the decision to change the way I am going to provide reflections on my running. As the school term has started and trying to find that right balance it has proven difficult to find the time everyday to write up on the run progress so instead I am going to provide a reflection at the end of each week. I believe that this will be a much more manageable system throughout the challenge.

Week 2 of the challenge has proven to be a good week, there’s been good progress throughout, I did not manage a run each day the weekends still proving to be the hurdle I have not overcome. My runs saw me take on the track around school with the school week starting. The following was managed:

Hopefully I can continue to build throughout the next week.

Today is the beginning of the second week of the challenge, and I have hoped to get things back on track. After a great start to the first week, doing 60km in the first five days, I let myself down over the weekend and didn’t do any runs at all. There were a number of reasons behind this, but at the end of the day I just didn’t get it done. All I can do is pick myself back up and try to get back on track throughout this week.

Today saw me return to my running track around the school that I work at. I can’t complain about the beauty of it, I get to run alongside the Canning River for a large part of it. My challenge today was to extend the usual distance that I run, I needed to complete at least 12km instead of the 10km that I had been doing during the term.

I managed to start the run at 5:45am, and it felt pretty good for a first run of the week. The first 1km was under 6 minutes which is always a positive start. I decided on the run that I’d get the extra distance by doing a second lap of Mount Henry Bridge and then loop back to school, it worked well with me completing 12.39km. The time I managed this in was just under 1 hour and 9 minutes at 5’29” per km.

I’ll get back out there tomorrow and see whether I can keep put the pace. I know that there’ll be a couple of longer runs still as the term continues – I just need to get this research paper finished first!

Today I managed to bring up the 60km for the week with another 12km run. No records were set, the first Km was definitely no where near my fastest, but at the end of the day I got the run into my legs which is the primary purpose of the challenge.

It was another beautiful spring morning as I set out on my usual run, clear crisp sky and not too hot at 5:45am. I was feeling a bit tired and a bit blocked from my hay fever, today has not been a great day for this!

This morning saw me thinking of two things, the first being the research paper that I am writing – today is the day that I will start the actual writing to try and have it finished by next Friday! Secondly, how I am going to manage runs over Saturday and Sunday this week, various commitments are going to stretch and challenge me to think creatively!

I didn’t set any records today with the run, completing the 12km in just over 1 hour and 9 minutes. Tomorrow, in thinking creative and to give my legs a break I think it will just be a 5km run.

Looking forward to the change up over the coming weekend!

I found myself feeling a little sore and heavy this morning when I started off on the run. Again, I have found myself starting a little later than I had hope, being on the road by 5:40am but with me being on holidays, I don’t mind the later start. I can probably attribute the soreness in the muscles to yesterday’s activities, I went to Treetop Adventures in Yanchep National Park and spent a few hours climbing various high ropes obstacle. It was awesome fun, but think it has had an impact on the body having moved in ways that it is not used to!

I knew that the run was not going to be as fast as yesterday, not only because of the soreness but because the first kilometre came in quite slow at 6’20”, almost 40″ slower than yesterday. However, once in routine it got a little better. I was thinking about the longevity of the run and the known hurdles that I will have to come to ensure that the full challenge is completed, I think the first big hurdle will be the first weekend – how am I going to get a run in on the weekends, and what will this look like? Will I commit to trying to doing another 12km run, or treat the two days as more recovery / easy days and do a lesser amount to give the body time to recover a little?

I found my attention turning to this research paper that I am going to be writing on TIPE. I have started collating the ideas for the various segments. My intended approach is to try to start it either tonight or tomorrow night, probably by first laying out the subheadings and starting to write one of the sections. This will either the introduction looking at Pastoral Care and Welling structures, they important roles school can play in delivering programs that enhance wellbeing due to their unique role in society in provision of a holistic education and confusion / challenges in implementing and delivering programs due to an unclear definition of wellbeing and the complex challenges faced by students, staff and school administrators, or looking at the role parents and fostering supportive relationships plays. I am setting myself a deadline of trying to have the paper done by Friday week, fingers crossed I can get it done!