Hey All,
Its been a full on last couple of months, I have been prepping and conditioning my body to complete a half marathon 21km. I decided 3 months ago that I would like to achieve this goal.
Iv never really liked jogging. When I was a amateur kick boxer, I use to do as little jogging as a I possible could, I do regret that now, as the jogging surely would of made me a better fighter. Iv always had a natural weight of 93kg, and when I use to even do a 1km jog, my body disliked it and I use to be like " na jogging is not for me". Last year a friend said to me "Max im doing a 10km race in Sydney, would you like to come with me, I do like a challenge, so I said yes sign me up. The day came and I pumped out the 10km run non stop.
When I finished the race, I felt my knees and ankles were a bit sore, I had slight shin splints and when I ran, I felt uncoordinated, I didn't have a good jogging stride. That night I thought about the race experience and I really liked it.
As weeks and months went on, I started including jogging once a week to my training regime. I still felt I needed improvement. I started doing research on specific types of exercises I could do to help me improve. Each week I started to include the specific training methods to my programming (weight sessions).
I then set out and and decided to complete a half marathon 21km in Canberra .
Each week I would jog a certain amount of km's to slowly build up to run 15km non stop. I knew from there, once I hit 15km, I would be able to complete the remaining 6km based on determination. Each week leading up to the race, my jogging sessions were all conditioning, time on my feet, letting the body progress and adapt to my jogging. Pain, discomfort, niggles were all felt leading up to the race.
One jogging session I hit 13.4km and realised I hadnt had a drink of water and it was about 35 degrees, I hit a wall and felt like I was going to collapse. My mind wanted to go but my body was shutting down. The next week I knew I had to up the km's and set out to complete 14km. I had no experience on jogging, and nutrition needed when jogging. I spoke to a friend that works with me, I told her my experience of hitting a wall. She has completed marathons in the past and was experienced with her knowlegede of jogging.
She told me about the importance of electrolytes, sport gels, before, after and whilst jogging. I got home that day and started doing research, on marathon runners, there nutrition and there intake whilst running. A Lightbulb flashed in my mind, I was conditioning myself right physically, but my nutrition was far from being optimal. So off I went, bought all needed for my runs, upped my carb intake on specific days, got my nutrition right.
The day come and I set out to do my 14 km, on board with me had electrolyctes and sport gels, and had a good week of consuming specific calories and macro's.Let me tell you, the jog was still tough, but my energy levels were the best I had felt whilst jogging. Every other jog, yes I felt good but there were times were I was so flat, that I could barley walk after the jog.
Point is, preparing and conditioning the body, training, nutrition, stretching, research, trial and error is very important to ensure you get to your goal with nil issues.
I happy to say I did complete the half marathon 21km in 2hours 18min.
Max