Author: Jess Guth

Dr Jess Guth is a Legal Academic. She blogs at jessguth.com She also doesn't really run - reallynotarunner.com

Hills, More hills, 4 miles and another hill

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It has been pretty good running bank holiday weekend. It needed to be because we didn’t get out during the week. It was a crappy week. I was on strike for a couple of days and on the second strike day I started really struggling and I didn’t really get much better on Friday. Hiding on the sofa was absolutely fine by me.

However, on Saturday we got our butts out and started catching up to get back on plan. The first run we hadn’t done was a 45 minute hill run. So, I pulled my trainers on and followed Kath out the door, to the end of the road, longingly looked left and then turned right. We walked the first stretch and then started running. We didn’t set the intervals for some reason so made it up as we went along. The hills were tough, really tough but I kept going even though on some of them I only managed 20 second runs. We didn’t get to the top but that wasn’t the aim anyway. We ran almost all the way back down and it felt pretty good to have done it but I can’t say I enjoyed that one!

Sunday morning we went to Bolton Abbey and ran our loop again. We were a bit faster than the week before which is always nice but then we didn’t stop for pictures this time! I managed all the hills apart from the one towards the end which I never manage but I ran a bit of it, then walked a bit and then ran the last bit to the top. One step closer to conquering the bugger! It was a beautiful run and we saw lots of birds including a pied flycatcher. This run also served as my May One Big Fat Run which if you haven’t heard about it is a virtual monthly 5km run ‘hosted’ by Too Fat to Run?.

Today we were going to run in the morning but we needed to our sheep ready to take some to market and vaccinate the lambs. So we decided we’d postpone the run until this afternoon. We didn’t have to do too much running around with the sheep but it’s always a funny feeling taking them to market. We took 6, keeping 2 of last year’s lambs for breeding. We had lunch when we got back and pottered around a bit and then set off about 2 hours after eating

I think it was a little too soon after food for me, I felt a bit sickly for the first couple of intervals. We were due to do 4 miles with a 1 minute surge every 10 or so minutes. We set off from home, went downhill and then hit the canal. We were running 2.5 minutes and walking one. We did the first surge not long after we got onto the canal. I struggled because I somehow couldn’t get my head round speeding up a little and then maintaining that speed. Instead I kept getting faster and faster. So when the second surge was due I deliberately fell in behind Kath and that worked much better. We did the surges in the middle of our 2.5 minute runs and I think it’s a really good way to learn how to recover a little by just slowing down rather than stopping to walk. The surges weren’t fast – just a little speedier than we were going anyway but it seems quite effective. Neither us can now remember whether we did 3 or 4.

I liked going along the canal. We saw ducklings, swans, a few geese, dogs, cyclists, runners, sparrows, blackbirds and a cat or two. We finished our 4 miles with an average pace of 11.57 and it was a bit exciting to go under 12. That’s probably the first time since Dopey that we’ve gone under 12 – I don’t think we did between Dopey and London. Although I found it hard, I enjoyed doing the surges – it felt like we were actually training, like we had some sort of purpose rather than just plodding along. We finished our 4 miles with just a little walk left on the canal and then had to walk back up the hill. I wasn’t really looking forward to that hill. We went straight up using a footpath which is the shortest but also the steepest way to our house. My calf muscles were protesting a bit and my back was niggly by the time we got to the top but actually overall I found walking up there after the run easier than I sometimes do after a day at work.

All in all, a good long weekend of running. Now I just have to get my head round going back to work tomorrow!

 

Yellow Shoes Run and a redstart

Jess Guth4 Comments

I have just got back from a brilliant little run at Bolton Abbey. We wanted to do our RunDisney Shorts virtual run somewhere nice and fun and not take it seriously at all! so after a lovely little yoga session (Morning Stretches for Back Pain from Yoga Studio) we set off and drove to Bolton Abbey. It was a little overcast but dry and actually looked like it would turn into a gorgeous morning.

So we set off from the Cavendish Pavilion and walked to the top of the first slope – we were meant to be having fun after all, not killing ourselves on the first hill!. We had changed the intervals to try running a bit longer – so running for 2.5 mins and walking for a minute. I thought I might not notice as much if we sneaked in an increase on our fun run and I was planning on stopping for pictures anyway.

The colours were fantastic and the smell of the wild garlic really strong in some places.

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The trees and ferns seemed to offer every imaginable shade of green and brown and we couldn’t help but stop and stare every now and again.

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We pootled on alongside the Wharfe and up to the Strid where this little hill thankfully coincided with a walk break and I just about had time to stop at the top, turn around and take the picture.

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Onwards and downhill a bit – I have to admit, I was scared going downhill – probably even more than usual after my fall last week but it was all fine and soon we came out of the wood and into the open with the aqueduct just ahead of us. This must be roughly half way – obligatory selfie as we crossed the river.

 

 

Just past the aqueduct on the other side of the Wharfe a group of people were standing with binoculars pointed into the trees. We asked if they could see anything good and they said they could see a male redstart and were even kind enough to let us have a look through their binoculars. I’ve never seen a redstart before so that was really exciting and we continued on our way with a spring in our step.

This stretch of the route is what you might politely call ‘undulating’. I call it fucking hilly. I managed to stick to all the intervals and just kept going lost in my own little world just letting my mind wander. And then we came to my nemesis.

Annoyingly it does not look like all that much on the photos but trust me, it’s a bastard. It has literally brought me to my knees and to tears in the past. Today we were having fun so we walked it, took a picture at the top and then headed off again. Downhill and flat from there!

We completed our 3.1miles, or 5km with lots of photo stops and stops to look at birds and the scenery in exactly 45.5 minutes. It was a slow but really lovely run and we have earned our Yellow Shoes Medal (although Valley of Desolation doesn’t sound very Disney, does it?!?)

We celebrated with coffee and breakfast at the Cavendish Pavilion sitting outside in the gorgeous sunshine.

A cunning plan

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Before the London Marathon I was really looking forward to not running to a plan, just going out and running by feel and not worrying about time, speed, distance… well I was wrong about that. If I don’t have a plan I don’t quite know what to do with myself and I end up not going out at all. If I have to think about what I want to do, I really struggle to decide that I want to run at all. A plan was needed. When we signed up for the Disneyland Super Heroes Marathon weekend in November I looked for the training plan for that and then checked whether there was one for the Disneyland Paris half, too.

We decided that the Jeff Galloway plans had got us to Dopey and through London so we weren’t about to go fix something that wasn’t broken. The plans have worked well for us and I am still convinced that the run/walk intervals are what keeps my motivation up because it means I can actually do a pretty decent distance and don’t feel like a failure all the time. Anyway, I couldn’t find a plan for the Disneyland Paris Half so we used the November  run one and adapted the timings.

The plan we have finally come up with is an amalgamation of the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge plan, the improvers half marathon plan and a Runners World 10km training plan which we both liked the look of. Then we added in some specific yoga sessions – we usually do a little bit every day but I am certainly good at avoiding the strength yoga so that is now timetabled and on our non running weekend day we’ll try and do at least an hour, although not necessarily in one go.

So May looks like this:

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As you can see we are at the end of week 1 of the plan. You’ll also see that the weekend runs are listed on Saturdays but that’s not set – it just means a weekend run for now. For example today we are not running but are instead planning to go to Bolton Abbey to run our RunDisney Shorts first virtual run there. Later on in the programme we add some back to back days so that’s when it all becomes a little less flexible.

June looks like this:

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There are different types of sessions – hills every two weeks (although many of our routes include a good number of hills/slopes anyway so the hill sessions are the serious hills), 45 minutes with Magic Mile and/or with a section at race pace, form strides, longer runs with 1 minute surges and 800 metre interval speed training. I’m quite excited to see how this pans out and how much of a difference this will make to our half marathon time in autumn. I do want to go a bit faster (we set a new PB at the London Marathon of 2.48 ish I think although I’d have to check the exact time) and ultimately I’d like to get close to 2.30 but I’m also really interested to see how I feel and whether I can get through a half marathon without having to walk loads towards the end.

I’ll share the rest of the plan as we progress through it and keep you posted on how we are doing.

Anyway, happy running and just a warning – virtual Disney run tomorrow so the next blog is likely to be full of silliness!

Of Magic Miles, Dodgy Tummies and Form Strides

Jess Guth3 Comments

So, run number 2 of the new training programme. The programme says: 45 mins with MM + 4 form strides. After staring at it for a minute or two I remembered that MM was Magic Mile so the plan was to do a 45 min run and within in that time a one mile stretch which we’d run at just above easy pace for this first one. This makes me chuckle – I don’t have an easy pace. If I’m running it aint’ easy! That aside though,it means running a full mile without stopping for a walk break and is apparently a pretty good indicator of what your half marathon race pace can be at this point  – just multiply by 1.2. So, I was thinking, roughly 12 minutes of running. After the MM the rest of the 45 mins should be back at easy pace. After that there were the form strides which Kath had sort of explained to me but I decided I just wouldn’t worry about that until we got there.

So we set off down to the canal running intervals and then start our magic mile as we crossed the bridge. Geoff Galloway suggest taking a 15 second walk break in the middle of the magic mile so we did. I did find it quite tough but I also think we ran it relatively conservatively and possibly could have pushed a little harder. I’m always better when I know the start and finish point so if we do it again I know where I have to get to, whereas today I was just waiting for Kath to tell me when our mile was up. We completed in in 11 mins 24 seconds and then settled into a couple of easy intervals. I’m happy about that. For me running a mile in under 12 minutes is always good and this is a great benchmark. The plan is to improve the MM every time we do it which is roughly every two weeks.

I’ve blogged about toilet issues before – but thankfully not for quite some time so I am sorry to have to go there again. I’d been to the loo before we went to run but I still felt a bit bunged up. Well that was clearly resolving itself as I was running. I no longer felt in any way at all constipated – in fact it all felt rather precariously jiggled. I kept going a little bit but with only 2 intervals left my tummy was really sore and I was getting quite concerned and when running was in serious danger of having to abandon all dignity (again). I decided I needed to walk the rest and nip to Kath’s mum’s for the loo – we were nearly there anyway so while Kath went and fed our sheep I went to the loo. Then I left Anne’s house and jogged to catch up with Kath. My tummy was settling nicely and running felt so much more comfortable.

So only the form strides to do. We picked a short stretch adjacent to our field and did one set of fast knee raises and one set of bum flicks. I’m glad it was just a very short stretch – particularly for the knee raises which are stupidly hard work. Now I know what to expect a bit more we can extend the distance and I can push myself a bit more. Then we did 2 sets of running roughly 30 metres at hard pace but concentrating on good running form. Next time I think I’ll ask Kath to watch those 30 metres as she did with the first two drills just to check that I am actually keeping my form.

So while not perfect – and towards the end really rather uncomfortable – it was a good session overall. Next run is our first Disney Running Shorts virtual 5km at the weekend – yay.

Happy Friday.

Running for Bling: The one where I go Disney crazy

Jess Guth2 Comments

Here’s what I would have expected myself to be like about running races: Nervous each time, not fussed about doing them often but keen to see if I have made progress in terms of distance or time every now and again, totally indifferent about medals, t-shirts and other goodies you might get and totally non-competitive.

Well, I got myself wrong – on all of those issues. I am not nervous with each race  – nervous is not a strong enough word or emotion to describe what I go through before a race. Excited and absolutely, totally petrified comes closer to capturing it. There isn’t anything (apart from maybe spiders) as terrifying as lining up for a race. At the same time though I do want to do them – every now and again is fine but I’m not doing them to see my progress, I’m doing them because I actually want to race. Me, little ploddy fat slow me wants to race. Yep, weird. Freaky in fact. I am not competitive. I’m really not. I like it when other people are successful at whatever, I am genuinely happy when people beat me at stuff (as long as they are genuinely better than I am) and I just never thought I could possibly ever be competitive at sports of any kind. I just don’t have it in me!  Oh but I do!

In my first ever half marathon I refused, just refused to be overtaken by a woman in a tinker bell costume swearing “I won’t be beaten by an f-ing fairy’ as I hurled myself towards the finish line. In a 10k run there was a couple behind us and they were gaining all the time and I was desperate for them not to come past but they did and I was peed off to say the least, in another 10k I set my sights on a girl a little way in front and I was so going to get her and get past her… At the London Marathon we were just behind a lovely lady from the Clubhouse and her husband and I wanted to finish before them (Sorry Sarah!) which didn’t look likely until they veered off to see friends/family just before the finish. The Dopey Challenge races were the least competitive and most collaborative races I’ve ever done and even there being overtaken once the finish line was in sight just wasn’t an option. It turns out I am competitive – I need to win my little races within races. Who knew.

So what does this all have to do with me going a bit Disney Crazy. Well, medals, t-shirts, the usual stuff you get for doing a race. I really didn’t think I was bothered and for a long time I wasn’t really. I didn’t keep the medals from the early runs I did and even the 2013 half marathon medal doesn’t really mean much to me – my cap from that race means more. Something changed. Not only do I love my Dopey medals and the Challenge one in particular (I pick it up and look at it several times a week) and the London Marathon medal, I want more. I like medals. Maybe I’m making up for never winning anything other than the odd horse-riding rosette when I was younger. So the wanting to run and race together with my slightly (ok very) bizarre obsession with collecting bling has led to this:

  1. Disneyland Paris half marathon (and 5 km) in September which also gives us the Castle to Chateau medal for a US and Paris Disney run
  2. The crazy idea that we could also get our Coast to Coast Disney medal… and booking a trip to California for November and the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge (10km and half marathon) at the Super Heroes Half Marathon weekend.
  3. And just to keep us going over the summer the RunDisney virtual runs (the first one of which is coming up at the weekend).

So I have gone Disney mad and I can’t really explain what is going on there. I have decided not to over think it and just go with it. While I really hope that running will stay with me, I suspect that the medal obsession and the runDisney obsession will come to an end eventually. For now though I really want the coast to coast and castle to chateau double whammy! Best stop falling over and start training!