Finally gotten the act together again to do some serious workouts. Three workouts this week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the treadmill at work. And also one last week, the first one in 8 weeks! Great running actually and does not feel that bad.

As usual the first run after a down-period was terrible, but I soon found my pace back and the condition is growing on me and I managed after just 4 runds to do a 5 km run again. Which is the goal distance of the C25k programme of course. I feel great but need more time to really get into the habit. They say that the workout habit needs about 5 weeks to form so I need to keep doing this.

The really good things is that the running at the gym from work is not bad at all and with the kind of temperatures that we are having and the treacherous ice and snow out there, trying to run trails in these conditions will probably just end with me needing a hip replacement or something, better to stay indoor another couple of months.

The treadmill actually interfaces with my el cheapo pulse watch. Not bad for a 59 SEK watch and HRM band actually, and that’s great. I can set a time, a speed and a target heart rate and the machine will then adjust inclination to achieve the target heart rate, all I need to do is to keep running the distance. When the time is upp there is a cooldown period.

My feet are a little sore after each workout but that’s just to be expected, I’ve gone all “tenderfoot” again after the break from my workout routine. Back on the bandwagon again is the melody.

Speaking of which, I have designed a Spotify playlist for 30 min running with warmup and cooldown which will be useful both in the gym and in the woods when that day comes. Another playlist for 45 min running and so on will be added.

Here is a mixtape list for running 30 minutes that includes a 5:43 warmup and 7:09 cooldown and 30 min of actual running. I originally had a James Last song live here but it did not fit well with the audience applause and stuff so it has been replaced.

Most of these songs have a really high bpm to get your tempo and step cadence up to close of 180 steps a minute but they vary a little which your running also should.

• WARMUP: Clint Eastwood – Gorillaz
• RUN: Born to Boogie – Hank Williams Jr.
• RUN: Vaterland – Melotron
• RUN: Up Tempo – Leo Kottke
• RUN: Rocka På – Markoolio
• RUN: Bloodshot Eyes – Pat Benatar
• RUN: Breakthru – Queen
• RUN: Shame, Shame, Shame – Aerosmith
• RUN: Lakeside Drive – Nitzer Ebb
• COOLDOWN: Jamo – Cooldown Mix – Skyway

Warmup: 5:43, running 30:00, cooldown 7:09, total 42.9 minutes

And of course, here is the spotify link. Load your mobile spotify client up, select to use offline for the playlist and then keep running! Off-line mode is great since it does not drain your battery as fast and you can keep running even if your 3G coverages is not so good where you are running.

I’d love more tips on good running songs!

Running taken up again. Two times now on a treadmill at work and that’s actually not bad at all. I thought I would hate it dearly but it does work actually.

Bonus is that the machine can read my pulse belt so it means I can do really good pulse training without effort, it is really easy to regulate speed and incline on the machine whilst running so you can keep the pulse in the zone all the time.

Doing round of about 3.5 km in 30 mins at the moment, will set out to increase over time up to 5 km and my goal is still to run “Midnattsloppet” in August which is a 10 km run.

A summary of each week’s training will be posted. I am aiming for three runs with one day of rest between them and then two days of rest in the weekend. Right now the runs will be the same all three but I will later divide them into shorter runs with intervals for speed, longer runs with slow tempo for distance and recovery runs.

I am so bad at the running and exercise things right now that I ought to be ashamed of myself, or at least a little embarrassed.

I will go down to the gym at work on monday and see if there is some way to start jogging again. Outdoors is just too slippery right now although the cold is nit si much a problem for me.

Wish me luck…

Monday: 3 km run

I then had muscle pains for a couple of days and then the christmas party time set in full fledged! I had no less than three christmas parties to attend to this year, from work, with friends and again this weekend with more friends. It has been fantastic in every way and then finally the snow came as well. It now does look like christmas but it has not done me well in the exercise scheme, the roads are perilous to run now but since it is close to christmas I will see if I may sneak down into the exercise gym at work and find a cross trainer or something similar to work out on.

I mean it, I need to get more exercise and the weather and road conditions are just not really that fit for running right now. Fortunately snow rarely lasts that long here in Stockholm, it will be fine for running in no time.