Category: Sunday Weigh-In

Sunday Weigh In is back

Jess GuthLeave a comment

I stopped getting on the scales a while ago initially for positive reasons – I didn’t care at all what the number said, I knew I was getting fitter and stronger and healthier so the actual weight didn’t matter. Then the running got patchy and we fell off the food and booze wagon a bit – which is silly because when we were making the effort we were eating really yummy healthy food that we were both really enjoying. In the run up to Christmas I knew my weight was sneaking up again and just after I suddenly worried that it might even be getting as high as it was 2 years ago before I started running. Clothes don’t fit properly, running is so much harder than it needs to be. A good few pounds need to come off.

So on the 2nd January I set a new baseline – a stone lighter than the baseline I set 2 years ago but also over a stone and a half heavier than I was at my lightest during Dopey training. Hmph. I was determined to have a good food and exercise week but as I mentioned I was ill instead. I have lost 6 pounds but I’m not really celebrating that because it’s more due to being poorly than anything else.

We have a food plan for the week with lots of fresh, yummy things but also included comfort food to guard against the cold and grey ‘pass me the biscuits’ kind of feeling. We’re starting today with pancakes (a healthier version K once found a recipe for, possibly in a Runner’s World or from a Running Bug) – a lovely Sunday treat with yoghurt and raspberries. For lunch we’re having cottage pie with a mountain of veg and for tea a salad with a few nuts and seeds sprinkled in for crunch. This week is relatively conservative with food – familiar things to not upset my tummy which is still getting back to normal. Next week I think we will be more adventurous, we’ve seen some lovely recipes that look healthy and delicious. I’ll try and remember to share.

We’re also going to start running again this coming week. I’m not sure about starting the 10k programme – yesterday I was still quite wobbly after my 2 mile walk so I will see how I feel after a walk today and then see if I need a very easy, very short run week or whether I’m ready to have another go at week 1 of the 10k programme. The programme isn’t aligned with a race so it doesn’t really matter.

Happy Sunday

Colds, post Dopey and pre London thoughts

Jess Guth5 Comments

I cannot shake off the stupid cold and it is doing my head in. I actually want to be out there running. I also cannot decide whether or not this is life post Dopey or whether this is life pre London. Yep that’s right, London.

Some of you will know that as part of the Countdown to Christmas challenge run by The Fat Girls’ Guide to Running I ‘won’ a place for the London Marathon. As I understand it the fabulouse Julie had teamed up with the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund and had 5 places available for London. Well one of them came to me and as Kath was also still looking for a place, Julie agreed that another could go to her. We looked at the required fundraising etc and decided that in spite of having just done a challenge and asked for people’s support we could manage the fundraising. We paid our fees and got very excited, then tried to park any thoughts about London until after Dopey.

I am still in post Dopey blues I think. I keep checking the RunDisney site, the facebook group I joined and blogs I bookmarked. I pick up and hold my medal every now and again and I keep meaning to go through our photos but end up just flicking through them not really quite knowing what to do with myself. We drew up a training plan for the London marathon to start when we came back from Florida but we haven’t really got going with that yet because I have this silly cold. We’ve done a couple of runs but nothing major.

So I need to snap out of Dopey mode and into London mode. So here’s the revised plan which is based on me basically not being able to do anything much for this coming week as well as some weekend plans we’ve already made. Every week we will do two runs of 45 minutes and then the longer training runs at the weekend as follows

Week 1: 5 miles

Week 2: 6 x 1 mile (as fast as possible with 5 mins walking inbetween)

Week 3: 17 miles

Week 4: 6 miles

Week 5: Keighley 10km

Week 6: 20 miles

Week 7: 6 miles

Week 8: 20 miles

Week 9: 7 miles

week 10: 6 x 1 mile as above

week 11: 7 miles

week 12: MARATHON

More on the plans for London, the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund – charity we’ll be running for and some of our fundraising efforts soon but for now I need to find some more tissues.

Oh and it is Sunday – weigh in day. I am exactly the same as last week.

 

Trying to go faster – sort of

Jess Guth2 Comments

I have been trying to get back in the game ever since we got back from Florida. The last run was hard but done but that was Tuesday, the rest of the week was a bit of a write off. I’ve been tired. Probably because I went back to work and put a lot of effort into not getting caught up in work stuff and just letting it go (oh look Frozen’s Let it go on a loop in my head). We were supposed to run Thursday, we didn’t. I meant to go to the gym at the hotel I was staying at Friday, I didn’t (ok so I freaked out over trendy London types spilling over into the lobby area from the bar and the idea of having to walk past them all in my gym stuff – totally pathetic but at the time a real issue) and then I meant to go again on Saturday, I didn’t (didn’t get up in time).

So Sunday came. With some trepidation I looked at the training plan we are now using although I knew what it said anyway: 4 X 1 mile. That means running a mile at about 30 seconds faster than race pace and doing that 4 times with 5 minutes walking in between. I don’t do fast. This is part of a Jeff Galloway plan so it’s all still about run/walk and really shouldn’t be a drama. To help me build mental strength and stamina to keep running for longer we agreed that we would run each of the miles without walking. Seemed like a good idea at the time…

Mile 1: We were both off like coiled springs in spite of having agreed to go out slow. We ran down the road stretching our legs nicely, turned right and started the hill, still felt fine. I took a deep breath as we levelled out for a few steps and then pushed hard up the last bit of the hill. Then there was downhill, a bit of flat and more downhill and then I suddenly started really feeling it. The last quarter of a mile (ish) was hard, really hard and I could feel my lungs like I haven’t for ages. On the slow long distance plods it’s my legs that give in eventually, here it felt like my lungs were about to explode. The walk break came. Time – 10.22

Mile 2: we started just as we come out of the wood and onto the golf course so this mile included the dreaded downhill section. I made it safely and then felt OK for about half a minute. Half a mile in my lungs reminded me they were there and working far too hard and a bit after that my hips started protesting. Kath asked if I wanted to take a walk but as much as every bit of me was screaming to walk I said no. I’d set out to run this bloody thing so that was what I was bloody well going to do. It was awful and then over. Time – 11.21

Mile 3: I felt good for a quarter of a mile. I was running in a nice rhythm and running seemed to make sense. My breathing was working with rather than against me and it felt easy… And then it didn’t. Then it got hard again, so hard I muttered something about just giving it all up and then swore. I was really trying to focus on positives and tap into that memory bank. I wanted to think about that amazing feeling of jogging gently through Epcot on 5 k day but my mind kept dragging me back  to the endlessness and pain of the ESPN Wild World of Sports complex on marathon day. But this mile did end. Time- 11.29

Mile 4: Last one. I was done with this running thing. My brain was not helping at all. It seemed to have come to the conclusion that because I ran Dopey, this should be easy. I was questioning why it was so hard. I mean I did Dopey FFS. But  I forget that Dopey was bloody hard, that the training up to Dopey was hard and that running is almost never easy. And then it was over and within seconds I was thrilled to have done the 4 miles even if I did hate almost every step of the way. Time- 11.31

So the pace is probably a little faster than I do when I go out normally but then I usually run/walk so it would be. After the first mile I wasn’t really thinking about pushing the pace I was just focussed on running the whole mile without walking. I counted in my head a lot today and that seemed to help.

Then we met my friend for her first run. We did the first run in a Jeff Galloway 5K programme which was 30 minutes of running for 15 seconds and walking for 45 seconds. She did really well, much better than I did when I went out for the first time! I remember not being able to do it so it was really nice to see her complete it with relative ease and it was nice to see how easy it was for me to do it while chatting. It was a little reminder that I have made real progress.

We just missed a bus home and it being Sunday there was a big gap between busses so we walked the 3 ish miles back home. Once there I reluctantly got on the scales for the first time since the 29th December. I weigh exactly the same as I did then. I’m happy with that and I feel like I am back in the game. I went fast- ish today for a bit and spent a good chunk of the day outside and moving. I feel a good sort of tired now, a physically tired rather than just mentally drained. Happy.

Post-Christmas running

Jess Guth4 Comments

Those of you who have been following the weight loss bit of this journey may have noticed that I’ve been silent on that and have stubbornly ignored my Sunday weigh-ins. Two reasons for this, one I forgot to get on the scales first thing on the Sundays and it just didn’t seem important enough to do it later. Can you see th headline ‘woman doesn’t care about her weight – the end of the world as we know it’… Anyway, then just lately I did start caring because with lower mileage and festive food I felt like I might be piling on pounds which is tthe last thing I should be doing just before a marathon. So I just didn’t get on the scales to avoid that disappointment.But today I hopped on the scales for the first time since the beginning of the month: I am actually half a pound lighter than I was last time I weighed myself. Next weigh in 1st Jan to get the baseline for 2016.

We have been struggling to get our runs in but today we went out together. It felt like ages since we actually went for a run together. The sun was shining, it was ridiculously warm and it was such hard work. I felt heavy, sluggish, unfit and like all the mince pies, sausage rolls and prosecco in the world were congregating in the pit of my stomach. I felt decidedly like I was plodding along slower than ever, but, I kept telling myself, I was plodding not sitting on the sofa stuffing my face.

At about two miles the towpath was blocked by a fallen tree so we had to turn round and go the other way. We’d run roughly the first mile and had then dropped into our run/walk intervals (as planned for marathon, 2 min run,1 min walk) and I needed the walk breaks. We checked our time at 5 km so that we could count that as our December One Big Fat Run and I thought 37 mins, 35 seconds was pretty good going for a post Christmas 5km that’s part of a longer run.

At about 4 miles I started feeling better. The sluggishness was giving way to just enjoying being out. At just under 5 miles we turned again and ran the last mile and a bit back to the ‘home’ bridge. The 6 miles took us an hour, 12 minutes and a few seconds and it was a nice run. We chatted for all but the last few minutes and the sun was lovely.

Walking up the hill to get home I felt a bit dizzy but I think I was dehydrated. I haven’t really been paying attention to drinking enough water. We’ve had some food and I’ve drank about three pints of water and feel great now.

One more 45 minute run and one more 6 mile run left. 6 more sleeps before we travel, 7 more before we fly to Florida. Today I am more excited than terrified. Bring on the marathon!

 

Long walks, kit check and not doing the long run

Jess Guth3 Comments

Right now I am supposed to be roughly 4 miles into a 20 mile run (from Leeds to home along the Leeds-Liverpool canal) but that’s not happening. Apart from it being a change of plan I am ok about that. We were trying to catch up with the training plan but that turns out not to be very sensible. It would see us do 3 really long walks on Saturdays and long runs on Sundays for 3 consecutive weekends (the training plan actually has 2 ‘easy’ weeks inbetween). It’s too much and today our  bodies let us know. Kath has a twinge in her left knee which feels a bit like her right knee did just before it gave up the ghost for a while and if I am totally honest about it, my right calf muscle is screaming for a rest. So we did the sensible thing and turned this weekend into an ‘easy’ weekend and called the 10.68 miles walk yesterday it.

The walk was nice though. We walked from home along the Leeds-Liverpool canal to Skipton. We weren’t striding out  – just walking along nicely and the pace ended up being about 19 minutes per mile. We stopped at the post office on the way and had a couple of stops early on to watch the kingfisher whizz up and down the canal alongside us and then to watch a second kingfisher further along. It was cold, there was a dusting of snow on the hills and in places the wind was biting. It was nice to be out though. I wouldn’t say it cleared my mind but it stopped me thinking about anything at all. Once in Skipton we went into a pub for food and enjoyed a lovely beef stew before having a little look round the shops and getting the train home. So not much running news!

Skipton walk small
View on way to Skipton with flooded washland and snow capped hills

Last week I went through all my running gear and also bought the last bits and pieces I might need. So I now have a choice of kit to take. I tried the Salomon trainers I hadn’t worn yet on a short run and they were great. I will try them for one long run and providing they’re ok I will take them and my New Balance ones and see how I feel on the day. I have 4 pairs of 3/4 length running pants (including a new pair and a pair I have had years which I can now fit into – for the first time since 2013 and fit in easily for the first time ever!) and I also have a selection of t-shirts and vests to choose from. I will have one last trying on session before I pack but it is looking pretty good. I also have a new Shock Absorber Ultimate Run Sports Bra (catchy name!) which I am not 100% sure on yet. It is comfy and it eliminates bounce completely but there is something comforting about wearing an old worn in (out?) sports bra – like taking an old loyal supportive friend with you… We’ll see. Maybe the new one and I will bond over a long run next weekend. So the kit is sorted bar the final decisions about what travels with me.

It’s weigh in day. I have lost 2.4 pounds. I am really chuffed with that (it puts me on a round number) and it means I have now lost exactly 2.5 stone this year – that’s 35 pounds – that’s 15.8 kg. With every pound that comes off the running gets a little bit easier – there’s less of me to drag round and that in turn makes it easier to keep the weight off and keep losing a bit more. I’d love to shift another half stone before the marathon to make it a round 3 stone loss on 2015. That would be great but I am just going to keep going as I have been – running, eating relatively healthily and doing yoga most days.

I don’t quite know what to do  with myself today – the plan was run 20 miles which was going to take most of the day… I’m not good with changes of plan at the moment so I am on my safe sofa for now. I’ll do more yoga later, more blogging, more Disney planning, more writing… more anything as long as it means I don’t have to leave the sofa or engage with people