Our Optifit group met at Cecelia Forest this week on Monday. The session involved running off-road on the gravel road in the forest with quite a lot of hills – very good for building fitness.

I had to miss this session due to a work function, so our trainer gave me the following to do on my own:
Warm-up, walking for 5 mins, then
5 mins run
2 mins walk
10 mins run
2 mins walk
20 mins run
2 mins walk
Warm-down walk

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This is roughly a 5km run, especially at the slower pace I did while running on my own. It made me realise how important it is to run with a group or with a buddy. It was so hard actually, and I have been feeling a bit energy deficient, despite the fact that I eat a lot and always have a snack a while before I run.

This week we received some nutritional tips, most of which I feel I am pretty good at! I sit with my 1,5 litre water bottle on my desk at work and try to make sure I finish one every day. I take 3 apples to work and also have those staring at me until I eat them.

We all know we should have 5-8 portions of fruit and veg every day, and my 3 apples goes a long way to achieving that, but the veg part gets difficult if you grab a sandwich for lunch and have a Woolies ready meal for dinner! I buy the ready-to-go stir-fry veg and throw it in the wok for a few minutes to try and bulk up what I eat, but it is hard to not get bored of it.

Wednesday and Thursday we basically did 5km runs, still keeping the 2 mins of walking between each 10 minutes of running. We are doing 6 minutes a km though, which is a fair pace. I really like the idea of running the 10km race in December in under 60 mins, but right now I am not quite there!

Monday we meet at Constantia Nek, which means hills in the forest, so I hope I can cope! – (Maryann Shaw)

Read more about Maryann's journey on the 2007 Old Mutual Two Oceans Superstars page.

Follow our online programme to run 10km in 11 weeks. Here is week 6.

Don't forget to stretch. Here are the 12 best stretches.
 

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