Damn treadmill won't go fast enough!

I've had a good two weeks of training since I last posted. Solid 90km of running last week including a 7k tempo run at 3:55/k. Went out on the bike twice on the weekend for a total of 260k and felt pretty good the whole time.

This week has been even better. I'm improving at an astronomical rate:) Average pace is still sitting around 6:00/k, but that included a breakthrough workout on Friday. Finally managed to get some shifts at Computershare this week, so I was able to use the treadmill at the gym for my tempo run and absolutely smashed it. My goal was to slightly improve from last week by doing 8k at 3:50/k. After six km though, I was finding the pace so easy (barely even breathing audibly!) that I decided to really crank it up. To make things interesting, I hit the +Speed button every ten seconds so by the end I was hitting 3:12/k. Annoyingly, the treadmill couldn't keep up! I had jacked it all the way up to 20kph, but it was too much for the belt and it kept on telling me that it 'couldn't attain the speed' I requested. In spite of that, I still finished up with a PB of 30:05 and still had a lot in the tank at the end. I'm stoked that I'm hitting 3:45/k this early in the year because that's my goal HM pace for the Melb Half Marathon in October.

I've got a week to relax a little bit leading up to the Run for the Kids next Sunday. Last year I finished in the absolutely pathetic time of 63:39 (4:30/k) and struggled the whole way (in hindsight, I was probably a little glycogen depleted). This year I'm hoping for a sub 56 time to put those demons to rest. A 15k long run before an easy 100k ride this morning has convinced me that the distance isn't going to be an issue for me, and three successful tempo runs in a row have shown that 4:00/k isn't a challenging pace for me anymore. It's never good to be overconfident, but I think it's safe to say I've got it in the bag:)

Calisthenics are going well too. I'm up to 100 pushups a day plus 20 pullups and 200 bicycle crunches. Had a max rep of 40 on Tuesday, which was a big step up (but still pretty pathetic compared to where I was last year). Interestingly, I seem to have bulked up hugely after just three weeks of this program. The scales at the gym had me at 69kg on Friday! Definitely the heaviest I've ever weighed, but I'm running pretty well, so I'm not too worried. I was trying to lose weight while I was in Europe and I think I did drop a few kg, but they appear to have come back with interest!