a week at Mount Cook Village

As usual my long run was scheduled for Thursday. My boyfriend came with me on the bike because he didn't have to go to work that day. We headed to Hagley Park and had to dodge a couple of cordoned off roads and closed off buildings as a result of the earthquake, but we made it there. I got a stitch from talking too much and I didn't feel as good as last week, so I tried to concentrate on my running for a while and not to talk so much. It worked and before I could get bored I finished the first lap. It really is way more fun to go on a long run with someone to talk to. I also felt a lot better than at the beginning and the second lap didn't feel too hard either. To get my two hours done, I headed down to the roundabout in the south part and ran back to where I started the lap and then home. On the way home I started to get tired, it got colder all of a sudden and it even started raining. I was glad that we were only about 10min away from home because I started to get cold too. I ran for 2:01 hours and covered 20,82 km. I know, it's not really fast, but long runs aren't supposed to be fast and I think it's not too bad :). Also my heart rate was lower than usual, with my average sitting at 155 (still think something went wrong there, but well…).

Friday morning we went to Mount Cook Village because my boyfriend had to work there for the last week. The trip was pretty long and boring and when we got there just after noon my boyfriend had to start working. Because it was my rest day I just did some stretches and tried not to be too bored in my hotel room.

Saturday
As soon as I got up I went for my run (interval training). It was 7:45 and I was pretty much the only person out there. I started with a 10min warm-up followed by 10 x 400 m (approx. 1 min 50 sec). I didn't feel too good as I just got up and didn't have time for breakfast. I first ran along a path but when it got stony I turned around (didn't want to misstep or something) and headed for the flat road along the valley instead. There was a gravelled path along to the road so that was perfect. I felt pretty lonely because the hotel we were in was in the middle of nowhere and there were only three cars I saw. The hotel is at the bottom of Mount Cook, so all you can see are mountains around you and a few brown fields and that's pretty much it. But at least I found a flat path that I could use for my interval trainings. After I finished the 400s I did a 10min cool-down and some stretches before me and my boyfriend drove to the closest town to get something for his work. We had lunch and in the afternoon I relaxed and got ready again for my second run of the day around 3pm.
I just wanted to go running for an hour so I had a look at the walkways around our hotel. I found one that led to a glacier lake and decided to go have a look at that. It was flat for most of the time but the path wasn't always easy to run on because of all the stones. I made it over the swing bridge and to the lake faster than I thought so I kept running for a bit longer before I turned around. I took photos as well so I had to stop a couple of times. I finished my run with six accelerations and some stretches. Even though it was drizzling all the time, the run was a lot of fun because I could take photos to show my friends and family, so they can see what I've seen on my run.

Sunday
I got up at 7am and did off-skate 1 hour later. I found a patch of grass in front of the hotel where I could do my jumps. Once I was doing forward and side jumps and when I looked to my left I saw all those people sitting there, having breakfast and staring at me. Haha, I didn't really notice them before so it was pretty funny. I'm sure they asked themselves what I was doing out there.
The rest of the day I spent reading and playing games on my computer as it was raining again outside. I was also pretty tired and needed the rest.
At least the second training of the day around 3pm wasn't too hard. I went jogging but integrated the running ABC so it didn't feel too long and I didn't go fast either. The exercises got me quite out of breath though. I ended up jogging for 45min, doing the running ABC for 20min in the middle of the run.

Monday
Hill sprints – I don't know if I should love them or hate them, I think I do both. They are so hard and make me want to stop halfway through, but on the other hand that's why I like them, because I really have to fight through them. I started training at 8:45 am with a warm-up jog and then did 10 hill sprints of 22 seconds (that's how long the hill was). The sun was shining so it was pretty warm already. The first one went ok, after the second one my legs were tired. "Good start" I thought. I fought through the first five and from there it went relatively easy. After every rest I thought that I could easily do another one, but halfway through the pain kicked in and at the end of the sprint I felt like my legs were about to give up and I couldn't do another one, but after the rest I was fine again. After 20min of pure torture, I had to sit down before I could go for my cool-down because my legs were hurting too much. After a shower and some sunbathing I quickly recovered though and luckily I only had to do 90min of upper body exercises in the afternoon which I survived without being in any more pain :).

Tuesday
I only trained once that day so I could have slept in but I didn't. It was raining, it was windy and it was foggy outside so I was waiting for the weather to get a bit better. When it was still pouring down with rain at 10am I decided to do half of my training inside and so I started with my warm-up and 20min of tapping. I then went outside for 30min of skipping and was glad to be under a canopy as it was still raining like crazy. After I was done I went for a 15min cool-down jog and finished with 5min of stretches. Of course it was still raining in the afternoon so I just relaxed, went on the internet, read my book and later watched some tv.

Wednesday
When I got up at 7:10am the sun was shining and I was really looking forward to my interval run (5 – 5 – 4 – 4 – 3 – 3 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 30sec). Even though I had yesterday afternoon off I didn't feel rested at all. I went running at 9am, did a 10min warm-up jog and then started the interval. I did the first 5min a bit faster than I normally do and felt good. The rest of the interval didn't seem long either and I was having fun. I didn't notice how worn out I was until I slowed down for my cool-down. I had to walk up the steep parts back to the hotel because my legs felt so tired. All I did for the rest of the day was lying in the sun reading my book – it was wonderful. At 3pm I had my next training planned, 1,5 hours of upper body exercises. I felt exhausted though and so not in the mood for a boring exercise session, but in the end I was glad that I did it. After I was done, me and my boyfriend went for a walk and then to dinner. I just lay on the bed for the rest of the evening, watching tv and trying not to fall asleep already.

Thursday
I was still tired when I got up and my legs felt like jelly. I had to do off-skate, but because it was raining and really windy outside, I decided to jump around in my hotel room. I did a 15min warm-up before I started with the main program. My legs felt even worse than when I woke up and I rather would have stopped. The exercises I normally do without a lot of effort felt really hard today. I was wondering if I might have trained a bit too much lately, or better if I trained too hard.
Before lunc my boyfriend called me and told me to pack my bags, we were leaving after lunch. So I packed, had lunch, got in the car, we drove home (stopped in Timaru to see my boyfriend's parents) and when we finally got home around 7pm I hopped on the wind trainer and did an hour worth of "training" on there. I didn't even bother putting on my heart rate monitor as I was still tired from training in the morning and just wanted to do a really easy session on the bike.