The Mountain Awaits

Hello and welcome to Tobias Talks.

The Stag Do is almost here, this weekend I will be getting a 5am flight to Bulgaria to shoot guns, climb mountains, eat meat and drink beer. For this blog, the most relevant activity would be climbing mount Vitosha. Mount Vitosha is a mountain just south of the capital city of Sofia. It has been a long time since I've done any hill walking so I'm hoping my recent foray into running will help with overall fitness and hiking ability.

Whilst i'm talking about running, I've had a very successful week run-wise. Since my last blog on the 14th of August. I have run 4 times with a cumulative distance of 23km. I completed my longest run to date on Saturday with a distance of 8.5km. Today I also ran the fastest 5k I've ever recorded on Strava (read since the RAF) with a time of 34:16 at an average pace of 06:51/km. This is far from a blistering pace and over the next 8 months I hope to knock off a good 10 minutes from that time, but considering this was an easy paced training run I am happy with that time. I am not particularly interested in setting a super fast 5k time any time soon as at my current weight any sort of speed work will absolutely obliterate my joints.

This leads me nicely on to talk about my recent weight loss. Whilst not a primary goal in itself, as I've mentioned in previous blogs, my main desire to lose weights stems for its effect on my running ability. Simply put, the lighter I am the easier it will be to run faster and further, whilst also reducing the risk of injury. The 2 lb weight loss this week means I'm now down 5 lbs since the beginning of the month. Which goes to show the calorie burning effect of steady state cardio.

Returning back to my original paragraph, this weekend is my stag do, it's a break from scheduled training and an opportunity to explore a new country. I will of course be climbing Mount Vitosha (pictured above), I am really looking forward to this challenge and I can't wait to reach the top to enjoy a well earned beer! I will attempt to track my hike on my Garmin so I should have a report in two weeks time, as next monday I will not be in the office so I will be skipping a week of my blog.

I really hope the training has helped and I feel optimistic and ready to tackle this challenge head on!

Your friend, Tobias