Category: Reviews

The Clubhouse

Jess GuthLeave a comment

I started this post last weekend but then got busy with other stuff so I thought I’d finish it today. I wasn’t running that day. I was sitting in the summer house trying to get some work things finished and learning how to cope with my new MacBook Air. Facebook tells me that lots of ladies from the Clubhouse were running races that day and that others were battling the warm weather on their training runs. So the Clubhouse. I thought I’d tell you about it and about the Too Fat to Run  (TFTR) Community/Group/Whatever you want to call it in more detail than I have before.

I am probably about the last person you might expect to join a running club. I am also about the last person you’d expect to join an online group of any kind and I am probably also one of the least likely women to like the idea of joining a women only group. Let’s face it, we can be bitchy and competitive and dramatic and mostly I really can’t be bothered with that shit. I’m also not the most sympathetic and I get irritated by other people’s dramas quite easily. I also don’t really care what other people think most of the time so it is difficult to see what I might get out of such groups or what I might contribute. The Clubhouse is an online, women only running club – so exactly what I would usually roll my eyes at and what I certainly wouldn’t pay to join, except that I did.

So how did the Clubhouse and my engagement with TFTR turn out to be so amazingly positive? Back in November when I felt totally lost and I was struggling to get off the sofa, Facebook showed me a suggested page for Countdown to Christmas run by Julie Creffield who is behind TFTR. It was fairly cheap and I thought it might give me a positive focus through December and it did.Daily challenges kept me doing something and it was fun to interact with people and laugh about our attempts at some of the challenges and celebrate our successes in others. It felt like being part of something at a time when I wasn’t really sure where I was going with anything. I read about the Clubhouse and I wondered whether it might be fun. I signed up on a whim really. I’m glad I did but I still find it really hard to articulate why.

The Clubhouse is a pretty simple premise – you pay a monthly fee (or pay all in one go for the year as I did) and get access to a closed online Facebook group in which Julie provides a sort of coaching thing which is also hard to capture in words. There are monthly themes (May =retreat) with challenges set to go with it, there are opportunities to ask questions – generally of course but also at specified points each week, there’s a discount on merchandise and the other things Julie does, there’s a closed section of the website with resources – running plans etc. You do actually get a lot for your money including tips on running and fitness from Julie which are specific to you. The Facebook group is the most valuable. I interact with someone on there daily. Ok, I hear you, I could do that on the open Too Fat to Run page too but it’s not the same. For a start the main page is public, the group is private and the page has too many followers to create the feel of a supportive group and network – it’s too anonymous (eventhough it is public – I know what I mean!). Ok, I could set up a closed group and invite all my running friends to join that – oh wait I don’t have many running friends… I have some friends who run but it is not running that has brought us together as friends and somehow there are things about running – particularly running as the fatty that I am that I’m not sure I want to share with people I actually know in other ways – not in a personal sort of closed facebook group kind of way (yes, weird given that I will happily blog about it all).

So the Clubhouse works for me because I am not a sociable runner and therefore don’t talk running with a group of likeminded runners on a regular basis – an actual running club fills me with dread (although I will go one day just to try a session, it’s good to be a little scared, right?!?) but I do have this slightly odd need to share my running stories, fears, disasters and successes with people who ‘get it’. The Clubhouse brings together a group of women who get it. The ‘it’ is slightly different for all of us I think. We are all at different stages of our running lives and our lives generally, we have different views on everything, including running and health and fitness but so far, surprisingly for a group of women, I have found it to be supportive, encouraging and totally non-judgmental. I like hearing the stories as much as I like sharing mine. The funny thing is, I’m not sure I would in ‘real’ life. Online is good. Others in the Clubhouse do meet up and make more of an effort to meet up at races etc, I’m not sure that’s what I need from the Clubhouse, what I need is instant unquestioning support right there when I need it and for that it works (don’t ask for much do I ?!?)

There are other things about the Too Fat to Run community I really like – there’s a blog, monthly virtual One Big Fat Run – a 5k run on the last Sunday of the month. You can even buy a medal in the shop if you run for the bling (more on that another time!). I like my Too Fat to Run t-shirts because whenever I wear them I get brilliant people watching opportunities  – people don’t quite know how to react when they see me walking or running along with ‘Too Fat to Run?’ in big letters across my front and I wish I’d had something like the 5 weeks to 5k programme when I started out because it is so much better than the programmes I tried to get through and work with. And if you like having a nosey at what other people are doing there is always the Runner of the Month feature (I’m January and blogged about that here).

It might not be for everyone and maybe it won’t be for me in the long term, who knows, things change but for now I really value the support I get from a whole bunch of women I’ve never met (save for a few who I have met briefly before and even more briefly during the London Marathon). If you want to begin to get a sense of what it’s all about have a look at the main Too Fat to Run Facebook Page.

Happy Running

 

Food and that

Jess Guth1 Comment

I did something unusual the other day and ordered the paperback version of a book I already have on kindle. The book is the New Year Same You book by Julie Creffield I already mentioned a little while back. I know I keep going on about it but it is such a lovely antidote to all the diet crap that we seem to be bombarded with at this time of year. I ignore most of it but I can’t escape the adverts; new diets and exercise regimes, new ‘get your dream body in 4 weeks’ type of things are everywhere. Now I am in a pretty good place regarding body image etc at the minute but that’s because I am starting 2016 2.5 stone lighter than I started 2015 and I am about to do something with this slightly wibbly wobbly body of mine that just 12 months ago seemed utterly impossible. But even with all that positivity all this diet and getting slim stuff is still getting to me. I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself that I have done pretty well and that being fitter that I ever have been is far more important than getting in a size 12. Goodness, have I ever fitted in a size 12? Doubt it.

Anyway, the book. I ordered the paperback because I suddenly realised I was thinking about it alot and I wanted to go back to it and highlight and write little notes to myself and also work on some of the tasks Julie suggests and that is all just easier with an actual book. Just having the book won’t change anything at all. Doing stuff with it and engaging with the suggestions in it might well help me get to grips with some of the things I find difficult about this new ‘running feature enabled’ version of me. I’m waiting for the paperback to come but I was looking at the chapter about food again because of all the diet crap that’s around and because I had a not so nice conversation with someone about food recently.

I was asked about my weightloss and the other person simply would not accept that I had not been completely utterly disciplined about food and that my eating habits would change dramatically post marathon. Kath had a similar conversation with someone who refused to believe that she hadn’t been on a diet of some kind. I have done Slimming World in the past and it did work for me for a bit but there was just too much there that I diagreed with fundamentally (like diet/lite drinks to name just one). Julie’s focus on understanding our relationship with food and about making conscious food choices really resonated, as did the idea of disordered eating.

So here are my thoughts on food: I eat very little processed food. I like fruit and veggies  – all of them really apart from leeks. I don’t like leeks. I eat meat, possibly too much but where it comes from is important to me – local and most definitly free range – not necessarily organic – that’s a whole other story… Food miles are evil. I love eating stuff we’ve grown but I am also lazy and not that competent in garden or kitchen. We eat out a lot (see my lazy and competence point) and there are things I could cut out to be really ‘good’ (I don’t really like being ‘good’ though – just the idea of having to be a good girl makes me want to misbehave) but I don’t want to be miserable. I like chocolate, I like a beer and with that a packet of crisps and I like a glass of prosecco here and there. I like cheese and bread and crackers and sometimes only a cup of tea and a ginger nut biscuit will do. So shoot me.

How I eat has changed with running though but it is the running that came first. I didn’t change my eating to lose weight, I changed my eating, and not by much, because I listen to what my body wants. I rarely now eat something for the sake of it – I said rarely, not never. What I want to eat has changed. I crave broccoli, I adore salmon or tuna on quinoa and grains and you can’t beat avocado on toast… I can also eat a jar of peanut butter with a spoon in one sitting.

Reading the chapter about food in Julie’s book made me think about the messages and (mis)information we get fed (pun intended obviously) every day of our lives. No wonder most people are totally confused as to what we should and shouldn’t be eating! As for food labels – don’t get me started, they can make a mars bar look healthier than a piece of fruit. Even adverts I thought were quite funny, like the maltesers adverts about being naughty, assign moral value to food; we talk about ‘being good’ with food; good people have a salad, bad people have the burger and fries… but you can be pretty sure that neither of them will actually sit and enjoy the food. We eat on the run, while doing something else, at our desks (oh that’s me!), while watching TV. Julie’s chapter made me stop and think a bit. I tend to be quite arrogant about food. A bit ‘I know what I’m doing and I am fully aware of what choices I am making…’ But am I? I suspect not. We do food plan our weeks but we tend to just plan main meals. I think we would do well to plan breakfast and snacks etc too. And in the same way that we plan what to eat we should also plan the when and where much more. Julie’s chapter made me think about how to make more time for just enjoying food and the togetherness it could bring. We could cook together, we always enjoy it and yet so rarely do it. Why?

Anyway, one of the The Fat Girl’s Guide To Running running vests says ‘don’t judge just run’ and I really do think we need to take the don’t judge theme into the food arena too. Food and eating are loaded with moral baggage and guilt and pleasure and the complex relationships we have with it and we all need to figure it out for ourselves. So don’t judge, and don’t allow yourself to be judged but do think about what you are putting into your body and why. I do, and will continue to, reach for the biscuits when I feel a bit crap but I know that’s what I am doing and I choose to do it and I no longer ‘accidentally’ eat the whole packet. That has nothing to do with self control or discipline. I am not denying myself anything. I just have what I want as long as I am really sure that I want it.

Anyway, I am sure there will be more musings on specific aspects of Julie’s book but if you’re not quite where you want to be and all the diet stuff around at the minute is getting you down – or you are thinking of going on a diet, I really do think the book might help make sense of it all.

New Year, Same You – Review

Jess Guth2 Comments

A couple of days ago I finished reading New Year, Same You by Julie Creffield and I thought it was worth reviewing/ sharing my thoughts here! Now, I don’t do self-help type books really. Years ago I picked up the ‘You are What you Eat’ crap and that just made me feel miserable and then – as some of you will remember I picked up ‘Run Fat Bitch Run’ a while back and that didn’t go too well. Actually I am still angry about the existence of that book. So why did I pick up this one? Well I joined the Too Fat to Run Countdown to Christmas challenge – essentially a Facebook Group with daily challenges that are health and fitness related and fun. I thought it would be me something productive to do with my time while off work and give me a bit of something positive to focus on. It’s been great. Julie runs it and mentioned her new book. I read the blurb and thought that just maybe this is something a bit different, something more positive, something that I can identify with a bit more – and I was right.

Right from the intro I ‘got’ this book. I ‘get’ Julie’s story and I identify with lots of it. I found myself chuckling at her stories about keeping a journal and the benefits of writing or blogging to aid self-reflection. I was nodding enthusiastically at the idea that New Year’s resolutions don’t work. Of course they don’t. It is obvious if you think about it for a second. I liked the way Julie very clearly (and for some perhaps brutally) points out that if we keep giving ourselves permission to put things off, we will keep putting them off. Now I am the queen of ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’, ‘I’ll start again Monday’ and ‘Next term will be better’ and it hasn’t done me any favours at all, the change in thinking that Julie suggests is positive and powerful – but of course anything but easy – but maybe not as hard as I think – or maybe much much harder. We’ll see.

There was one section where Julie talks about yo-yo dieting where I was thinking – nah, I’m nothing like you. I’ve never been on a diet in my life – I just don’t do diets. I can’t do them. I know I don’t stick to them. If you tell me I can’t have something I want it, simple. But thinking about it, I am of course exactly like Julie and all the other millions of us who have complicated relationships with food. I agree that simply saying ‘move more and eat less’ isn’t the answer to most of our weight issues and not being told what to eat or not to eat was refreshing. There’s a section about food in the book but it’s not a section about what to eat. It’s far more honest than any diet book I’ve ever flicked through. Anyway, the book isn’t about losing weight so I don’t want to go on about the food stuff… I liked the fact that Julie acknowledges that our relationship with food is complicated and that a relatively simple thing, like starting to think of yourself as an athlete can change how we think about what we put in our bodies. I struggle with thinking of myself as an athlete. I’m a now size 16 (yay me!), nearly 37 year old woman who – as the blog title suggests – isn’t really a runner. BUT as someone who (doesn’t really) run(s) I have noticed changes in what I crave and what I want to eat. There is still and always will be a lot of chocolate and sausages and yorkshire puddings but I am now much more aware and eating a bar of chocolate or entire packet of biscuits without really noticing hasn’t happened in a very long time.

There’s a section early in the book which made me smile – I have always told my students to follow their dreams as long as they were big dreams; to hang on to those dreams and to work towards them every single day. I haven’t always followed my own advice there but that’s another story. Anyway, Julie doesn’t believe in SMART goals which is a relief because I always thought that was management speak bollocks too. Julie believes in STUPID goals. How brilliant is that. Everyone needs a really really stupid goal in life. It has to be Silly, Talked about on Facebook etc, Unrealistic, Posted late at night/after a glass of wine or two, Idiotic and an ‘in my Dreams’ kind of a thing. Well I did that with the marathon coming up – I’m now pondering my next STUPID goal. What could possibly be more idiotic and unrealistic and therefore more exciting than me running a marathon… We’ll see.

So the book is about being happier and healthier and an important chapter in the books is about how we often feel about ourselves. Whether we really actually love ourselves and how we perpetuate the over critical examination of women’s bodies all the time. I liked this. I find the ‘OMG have you seen how much weight she’s put on…’ and the ‘we’ll she’s let herself go…’ as irritating and unhelpful as the constant ‘oh look you’re fat and therefore must be stupid, lazy, undisciplined…’ or the ‘no wonder she can’t find a boyfriend’ or ‘well if she wasn’t so fat she wouldn’t be a lesbian would she, cos she’d get a bloke’ kind of rhetoric that is everywhere. I don’t look in the mirror often. I learned long ago that my looks are not a particularly useful asset to me. My brain is. However there have been times when I have looked at photos and cringed. Just recently my perception of what I see when I look in the mirror is changing and I think it is that change that Julie is getting at. I saw my reflection in a window the other day. I was super conscious of my backside after a longish run and about 100 squats the day before and before my brain could stop itself I’d thought ‘ now that’s a fabulous arse’. Then I laughed. The book helps to focus our minds on the things we really liked about ourselves and to accept the things we don’t like.

Essentially the book is about finding balance – balance between Food/Fitness/Fun and Recovery/Rest/Relaxation – so basically balance in life. Now that sounds easy but it isn’t because what we need in all of these areas changes all the time and means that we have to keep re-evaluating and reflecting on this – which brings me back to where I started – the keeping of a journal or blogging or whatever tool it is you use to help you make sense of life and just reflect on what you need for you. Task one of about 50 in the book is to buy a notebook to use as a journal – I did and I started scribbling immediately and maybe I am a step closer to my next STUPID goal. I might not do all the tasks but I will do some.

The book won’t take you long to read but it could make a difference to the rest of your life – sounds dramatic, sounds fanciful but for this book it might just be true. Even if you are, right at this moment, the happiest you have ever ever ever been, I bet there are still changes in your life you’d like to make to ensure that happiness is something permanent in your life. Well just do it. Get away from the ‘on diet – off diet’ or ‘on exercise regime – off exercise regime’ sort of thinking and focus on you, focus on now. Think about who you want to be and then decide to be that person NOW, not tomorrow, not on the 1st January, NOW. Set your STUPID goal and then do something every day to take you closer to it. Most importantly though – make friends with yourself. You’re the only you you’ve got and you’re awesome. Read the book, it’s helping me think more positively and it just might help you too.

Run Fat Bitch Run … or not

Jess Guth3 Comments

I have now finished Run Fat Bitch Run by Ruth Field. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I wish I’d never started it. The basic idea of most of us perhaps needing to be a little more honest with ourselves and stop deluding ourselves about our healthy eating and exercise habits is perhaps a good one. The idea of locating and becoming aware of your inner bitch is perhaps also a useful exercise. Getting more people out there and taking responsibility for their own health and wellbeing is also a good thing and getting people to walk then run a little and a little more and a little more works for me. So why do I dislike the book? Well, let’s see if I can articulate this

  1. I am not stupid – the book presumes I am. It is patronising to the extreme
  2. Fat does not equal stupid, lazy, incapable of self-discipline – the book presumes it does
  3. Standing naked in front of a mirror telling yourself how fat you are – who does that? I mean WTF. I just can’t see anyone who has ever been actually fat doing that. I have one full length mirror in the house and it is placed so that it is virtually impossible for me to accidentally see myself. Ruth does acknowledge that you need to have a sense of humour about this – well I’m sorry but the only way you can have a sense of humour about calling yourself a fat bitch if actually you are not fat and never have been – otherwise it just isn’t funny!
  4. I am not running – and neither should you –  because it will make you look hot and be cool on a date. Women, you are not doing any of this for anyone other than you. If you want to run – go for it. If you think your man or men in general will like you better if you run – just fuck right off. It has got absolutely nothing to do with them.
  5. The presumption of heterosexuality really pissed me off in this book. It is of course everwhere but somehow it hit me with this one. Through much of the book gender neutral terms like ‘partner’ and ‘they’ are used but not everywhere. Ruth has a particular view of women and that view strikes me as seeing women as heterosexual, needing to conform to traditional beauty standards and gender roles. I may of course be wrong. I know nothing about Ruth …
  6. …I don’t think Ruth and I would get along. She says she was a sporty kid. So that’s that then, we won’t get along. I am very suspicious of sporty kids. I wasn’t one – they always picked me last. I should be careful here. My girlfriend was a very sporty kid – she would have picked me last too but luckily most of life isn’t like PE lessons.
  7. If Ruth was a sporty kid she can’t know what coming from nothing is really like. If you have never been sporty, if you always managed to get out of sportsday, if you never ever ever had a positive experience related to physical exercise – ever you have nothing to draw on. You simply just don’t understand that moving your butt off the sofa can be linked to a positive experience. I don’t think she gets that – in fact I am not sure I get that. I wasn’t sporty but I did have one or two things I was good at. I could swim pretty well before most people my age left flotation aids behind and I started horseriding when I was about 6. I do have a vague memory bank of sweat and physical exertion not being all bad. It’s not much but sometimes it keeps me going for an additional 30 seconds or so.
  8. The inner bitch – ok , my initial reaction was to laugh – alot. How bloody juvenile but actually now, inner bitch works for me what doesn’t is calling her the Grit Doctor. That’s just weird. Ruth’s inner bitch surely is just Ruth…
  9. Turning your inner bitch against you is not a good idea – ever. I can’t speak for anyone else but let me try and explain how me and my inner bitch get along: She is my harshest critic, she sees all the negatives and she is very quick to point out any shortcomings. She doesn’t motivate me to do things, she tells me I can’t do them. She doesn’t leave room for the possibility that I can do things. BUT SHE IS LYING because ultimately my inner bitch is just a symbol of all my insecurities in the same way that the black labrador puppy is a symbol of my depression. She needs confronting and she needs to stop spouting all this stuff without giving evidence. If my inner bitch were a student I would be saying she needs to cite all her sources and build up an argument based on credible and well researched evidence – but she can’t because all the evidence points to the fact that I CAN DO THIS. My inner bitch looks remarkably like Liv Tyler in the Lord of the Rings films – go figure.
  10. The book did not motivate me. It did not make me want to run. It made me want to curl up on my sofa with a cup of coffee and a packet – yes a packet – of chocolate digestives and maybe a packet of crisps –  a big sharing size packet of crisps – and of course the staple of all fat people a bar of dairy milk and stick two fingers up at Ruth and her Grit Doctor. ‘If running means being more like you’, I said in my mind, ‘I’d much much rather stay on the couch’
  11. There are other things I don’t like in the book – like the ‘don’t stretch because you probably won’t know how to do them right anyway’ thing which is just stupid. If you want to run then learn what other things you can and should do to minimise injury risk. Different people do different stretches at different times and you need to work out what works for you but not stretching because you don’t know how and can’t be bothered to find out is just idiotic.

OK, that’s enough of an assasination of the book. I am very aware that I am probably not being fair. I hope that  the approach described in the book is genuine and really does work for Ruth and that it isn’t just a bit of fat shaming and making sporty types feel superior and better about themselves. I hope that people who have read it have found it helpful and have gone on to figure out the running or not running thing for themselves. As for me, I am glad I didn’t read this book when I was at my 16 stone plus heaviest. I would have read it and cried, read it and unleashed my inner bitch who would have crushed me. She wouldn’t have said anything, she would have just smirked and with that smirk my running dreams would have been over. I am glad that I read the book after having run a half marathon because my inner bitch is no longer so sure of herself, because I have a chance of drowning her out and because I am learning not to take her too seriously

Run Jess Run and somedays I will be faster than my inner bitch and she’ll just have to suck it up.

Wet weather running

Jess Guth4 Comments

Well it hasn’t really got cold yet  – cooler yes but nothing that swaping short sleeves for long sleeves doesn’t sort. It’s the wet I am struggling to get my head round. Wet means a number of things:

  1. Wet means clothes get properly wet rather than just damp from sweat and wet means clingy and clingy means t-shirts don’t hide my wobbly bits which means I feel stupidly self conscious. Yes I know that when I am running there is actually no hiding anything but I can’t see myself running – I can feel clingy clothes
  2. Wet also means getting cold far more easily. This isn’t a problem while running but it is a problem immediately after as we rarely start and finish at our front door. There is usually some walking back or some walking and then driving home involved so wet is not good.
  3. Wet means slippery surfaces and I am already pertrified of slipping and falling. I am not at all sure-footed when running. Rain soaked paths and tracks make this worse
  4. Wet means mud which I actually don’t mind apart from mud meaning an unpredictable kind of slippery – see above.
  5. Wet means that the temptation to stay in and dry is so much stronger.
  6. Wet means grey, wet means low visibility, wet means muted colours and less to see. Wet means the wildlife is hiding and trying to stay dry…

I could probably go on. Actually the last point may be a bit unfair – there isn’t less to see. What there is to see is just different! I’m sure as I get used to running in the grey and wet I will see more things that I don’t yet see and which are not there or look very different in the sunshine. The things to see argument isn’t really a valid one.

I’m trying to combat the other issues. I usually run in trail running shoes round here. I can’t remember if I have blogged about my trainers before. You may have realised that I am not particularly fashion conscious about anything and that includes running shoes. I buy what is comfortable and does the job. I’ve been lucky so far – I have always been able to find really good shoes in the sale. Currently I have a pair of Salomon trail running shoes (XT Hornet if anyone cares – can’t find them on their website now – probably because they’re not current season but there are others there which are very similar!) which I really like. They are perhaps a little heavy – and noticeably heavier than my New Balance road running shoes – but they make me feel as sure-footed as I probably ever will and nicely support my feet. They have a pretty good grip and running on the wet canal path as well as the grass and mud track in the sections where there is no track has been ok so far. I am always a nervous wreck going downhill in the wet but I don’t think I can blame these trainers for that. I bought another pair of Salomon trainers (X-Scream City Trail) in the sale. I haven’t tried them yet but I am thinking they might work really well for the marathon because they feel like they might give me the same stability as the others but they are slightly lighter. I’ll be starting to use them on a couple of shorter runs if and when it is dry and we’re staying on canal path or road. So the wet = slippery issues I’m just going to have to deal with. Any help or advice?

We had a lovely trip to Saltaire a few weeks ago and were just walking round Salts Mills looking at books and other stuff and also popped into the Trek and Trail shop they have in there. I have got so used to being too large for their largest size that I rarely even bother looking properly. However, that’s no longer the case. On their sale rack they had a Ronhill very light waterproof jacket. It was reduced from £150 – reduced significantly – more than 50%. It was a size smaller than I would have normally even looked at but Kath reckoned it might fit. I tried it on and it fits perfectly. I can zip it up and it’s not tight anywhere. I bought it. Well this week was the first time I used it. I had it on during our Sunday run and it is great. I hate getting too hot when running and jackets often make me too hot and sweaty but not this one. It really is breatheable – yes I was hot and sweaty at the end but no more so than if I hadn’t worn the jacket. You can see it on the website if you’re interested. I’m really happy with it – I think it’ll get me through a wet and even a cold winter and it is so light and packs so small that taking it with me on longer runs in case I need it isn’t going to be an issue! I love the fact that it doesn’t cling and it doesn’t ride up. It’s purple – a bit close to pink for me but other than that, perfect really.

So what are your must haves to get through wet weather running?