Run, Koper, run

I kick off the week on Tuesday with intervals. Until now I was doing fast runs instead but then I realized that perhaps a fast run, a hill run (which is not fast strictly speaking but is a hell of workout) and a long weekend run is just too much. So I decided to replace the fast run with intervals. Thinking it would be easier. Oh, silly me. Didn't feel easy at all. In the fast run you just get into the pace zone, grind your teeth and go on. In intervals, as they are shorter, you go even faster, which is tougher. And then you get the rest. Which feels great and gives you an illusion of peace... but then the next interval comes and you have to do it again. And again. And again. Tough stuff. I did 8 times 600 meters with 1 minute rest. Originally I planned to make them longer (1K) but then decided to start with shorter segments. It's been a while since I did intervals and doing them on a track was quite different. For once: no wind (and the wind on Shoreline is really tough t...

After the weekend I'm completely beat and I hurt all over. I take Monday off, which was more or less planned, but then I follow up with Tuesday off as well, as I just don't have it in me to do anything. I'm still hoping to somehow rescue the week; if I went running every day from now on that would make 5 trainings, right? I go for a fast run on Wednesday at the usual pace of 4:30min/km. On Thursday I do CrossFit and follow up with an easy run. My training breaks down on Friday though -- I'm too tired and I take another day off. I still hope I'll finish off with a strong weekend. On Friday I was so tired that I went to bed very early. Thanks to that I wake up on Saturday unusually early for me and in time to go for CrossFit. It's a tough workout and I love it. But the problem is that it takes so much out of me that I end up not going running. So much for making up for the lost kilometers on weekend... That leaves Sunday and my last chance for getting in some...

Last week when I was relating the stories of my night-time running and encounters with animals I forgot about one such episode. One day as I was going for my night run, I left home, turned the corner walking towards the car and right there, in the middle of the sidewalk I saw 5 raccoons walking directly towards me. At first both they and me froze, surprised by this unexpected encounter. And then after few seconds of staring at each other they all stood on their hind legs and started hissing, evidently trying to intimidate me. Cutest sight ever :D. I wish I had my camera with me. Instead the photo on the right, grabbed off internet will have to do. It was kinda like that, just a bit less spooky as there were 5 not 20+ of them. But I'm digressing. Training. So, even though I had Sunday off I felt kinda tired on Monday and only went for an easy run. On Tuesday I did CrossFit and was planning an evening run, but after CrossFit workout I was so exhausted that I called it a day. The...

5 runs for a total of 86K -- not a bad week. On Tuesday I go for my usual fast 8K by the bay -- my first fast run since the injury. It doesn't go well in the sense that I'm real slow. I mean, I was not expecting miracles after the injury but at 4:46min/km that was my slowest "fast run" on this route. Every. And trust me, I wasn't cutting myself any slack. But to be honest I'm fairly happy: that I lost my speed was only to be expected but my calf is behaving well during the run and that's far more important. Somehow surprisingly my following run on Wednesday goes surprisingly well: it's just a recovery run but I'm going at a decent pace, fairly effortlessly. And then on Friday I hit Black Mountain and do my hill run. It's tough as always but to my surprise I only miss my PR by little over a minute. Not bad. On Sunday I go for a long run but by the time I'm ready for it it's already dark. Funny how different running at night is. Eve...

(I know I'm again behind with updates; will try to catch up soon, but in the meantime...) Some of you may know that I was entertaining the idea of making a fitness related website for... well, forever ;). I spend countless hours trying to think of a good name for it (if you ask me that's not an easy task; athleticity and fitnett were the prime suspects) and even dabbed at some prototypes, the results of which you can see in the weekly updates on this blog. But in general it was lots of talking and little doing. Things changed two months ago when I started following the Coursera version of the Stanford's Startup Engineering course . At first I was planning to just casually follow the lectures, but at some point I got drawn into the course. When I learned that the final project will be building a Kickstarter-like teaser page for one's project I realized that this is finally a chance for my fitness site idea. I decided not to try to cover full functionality of existing...