Category: Training

Warning: running may lead to Yoga, Pilates, Gym….

Jess Guth2 Comments

I don’t actually like the gym. We have been doing yoga at home – sometimes more and sometimes less consistently. However, its not really enough. I very occasionally popped into the gym at work but I often don’t get there because work stuff side tracks me or I want to get home…. So after much deliberations we joined the local council gym for a month in June to try out the classes and have another go at doing some useful cross training.

June was pretty good and we decided it was sensible to come back and get into a good exercise/cross training routine. So far we’re doing pretty well. One of the guys at the gym did us a short programme designed to support our running. It consists of some step ups with weights and then lots of stuff to strengthen core and glutes. I like it because it’s short and should work fine if done twice a week. In fact we have been doing this a little while now so it is probably time to go see him again and get a new one.

In addition we have done a fitness pilates class which I find quite hard but good and I enjoy it. Again the work on core strength helps and I think I am probably getting better even with only having done it twice since we’ve been back (and twice in June before we went). Last week we also tried a yoga class which I loved. The instructor was fabulous and very focused on form and technique coming round and putting us all in the right positions. I could most definitely feel that! We also tried a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) class in June which I sort of hated but loved having done. We are having another go on Thursday next week. So with 2 gym sessions, 1 pilates, 1 yoga and 1 HIIT class as well as the running we’re pretty busy getting fitter. We might not be able to do all of this every week and if I’m honest, the HIIT class might prove too much for me, but we’ll see how we go.

I lost 2 pounds in the first week back from Australia, I’m sticking to Sunday weigh in just to keep track and eating is focused on fuel and eating yummy things that are overall healthy without going over the top. I feel quite content with all of that at the moment and I am getting stronger. It feels different not going to the gym for the sake of going to the gym or to lose weight or tone up but to go to support my running. It feels like there’s a good reason and somehow that makes it more enjoyable.

The Dopey Training Plan

Jess Guth2 Comments

Dopey gI mentioned in the last post that the runDisney races have their own magic and pixie dust, and they do. BUT and it’s a big but, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to train for them. You absolutely do. The Dopey Challenge is a serious challenge and the marathon is no joke. runDisney races are there to be enjoyed and if you are not properly trained then they are just not fun so why bother. So the runDinsey pixie dust isn’t that kind that somehow magics away the lack of training and gets you round happy and smiling. It’s the sort of pixie dust that makes the training worthwhile! We are broadly sticking to what worked last time and are using the Jeff Galloway programme on the runDisney website. There are a few modifications though – we are adding some hill and some speed work to the plan – doing that where the 2 weekly 45 minute runs are scheduled – probably roughly in alternate weeks. We also don’t really bother with the magic mile in any systematic way. As his entire plan is based on run/walk it it was a lovely confidence builder last time. This time I feel far fitter than I was when we started last time so I am continuing to run rather than run/walk the shorter runs and will also run/walk some of the walks listed

So here’s how it shapes up:

We are just at the end of week 7 now and today is actually meant to be a 3 mile run. We have changed that to 9 miles and it fits in better tomorrow – the 9 miles is part of the Great North Run prep. The rest of the training plan then looks like this

So far I feel quite positive about this. I like the 2 weekly 45 minute runs and the numbers on the long runs are not yet scaring me. I still have fond memories of the Toronto Half Marathon in the memory bank so hope that they can carry me through the next few training runs and the Great North Run after which we will have to submit our proof of time for Dopey corral placement. All the strength work we’ve been doing should help too!

Happy Training!

Registered for Dopey Challenge Round 2

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So those of you who have been following this journey for a little while (or have looked in the archives) will remember the complete madness that is the Dopey Challenge. The Dopey is a 4 day event at the Walt Disney World Marathon weekend which takes place annually at the Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida. Here’s the deal:

Wednesday: Survive Expo and all the crazy people who buy EVERYTHINGToy story

Thursday: Run 5km

Friday: Run 10km

Saturday: Run Half Marathon

Sunday: Run Marathon

It sounds insane because it is a little bit insane. It is also an amazing running adventure and experience. It is a great reminder that even road running does not have be taken that seriously (although some mad people do take this extremely seriously) and that you can seriously challenge yourself without taking the fun out of things. Running at Disney isn’t like running everywhere else. It has its own magic and dose of pixie dust and I can’t imagine having run my first marathon anywhere else.

Keep calm run disneyI’m not sure what possessed me to want to have another go. Maybe I have unfinished business. It’s not that I particularly feel the need to do it faster than last time but last time I really enjoyed the first three races and then marathon day was just a bit miserable because it was so humid and because a marathon really is just a bloody long way and I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I don’t need to do it faster, I just need to do the marathon better. I need to focus more on taking it in and enjoying the experience – yes even ESPN Wild World of Sports can, so Kath tells me, be quite fun. I want to have another go to focus on the experience and not on just getting to the end. Although I have to say I only really remember the good bits – I think that’s how marathons work in your brain, you forget. I know I was miserable on marathon day but that’s not how I now remember it.

We booked the trip ages ago and were anxiously waiting for registration to open. Of course it opened while we were in Australia so we worked out the time difference and set our alarm for 2am and sat in bed with the iPad to register. It didn’t work for the first attempt as the screen froze before we entered our credit card details. We had to crash out and start again. I sort of knew Dopey wasn’t likely to sell out immediately but you just never know so we persevered and got lucky; second attempt and we got our Dopey registration and the race retreat booked and confirmed. We’re doing it. What have we done. I’m not sure whether knowing what I have let myself in for is better or worse. Either way, it’s a lot of miles over 4 days!

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Nothing quite like home

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Well after a month of adventures in Australia with a little bit of running thrown in, it was nice to be home. The jet lag  wasn’t too bad in terms of sleeping patterns but a bit of a pain in terms of being generally tired and really hungry at random times. We arrived back on Saturday 4th August and on Sunday morning woke up early. We decided to run. My ankles still felt a bit tired but any real soreness had gone. Generally I just felt tight from having been curled up on planes for too much of the previous 48 hours or so.

This is nearly two weeks ago now so my memory is a bit fuzzy – I think we set off separately. We were aiming for the 6 miles listed on the Dopey Plan and wanted to have a nosey at the new canal towpath between Riddlesden and Silsden too. It was quite hard going and my feet kept going numb like they do when my calves are too tight so I walked rather more than I really wanted to but it was good to get out and the familiarity of the landscape made me smile. It was lovely to see and hear birds that I recognised and to see how things had changed over the month we’d been gone. 6.2 miles in the bank.

The second run at home was my attempt to get into good habits and not keep putting off speed sessions. We did the runners world fartlek we’ve done before and I didn’t do too badly except that I obviously pushed too hard on the 1 minute run and was a little bit sick, recovered and then did the two 30 second intervals at a steady pace. Speed work not avoided! Well done me. Next I wanted to do a 45 minute continuous run because while I haven’t been doing run/walk, I have been running with photo stops. I haven’t run continuously for ages. So I set off and felt pretty good for the first two miles or so. The canal towpath was busy though with lots of people coming towards me and I didn’t fancy turning round and having to go past all these people again so I changed my mind last minute and crossed the canal – I wasn’t mentally ready for the hill which threw me and I had to stop and walk. At the top I set off again and past a dog walker whose dog decided it would come with me instead. I had to stop and wait for him to retrieve it. Unfortunately this happened at the bottom of the next slope and I didn’t get going again until I’d walked to the top. Still it ended up being a pretty solid 45 minutes.

Then came the weekend long run last weekend – 7 miles was the plan. We went up towards Ilkley Moor and I was pretty pleased with how I managed to keep pushing from landmark to landmark. One day I might be able to run it all but for now that’ll do nicely. At the top we decided to turn left rather than right towards the trig point and stanza stones. It’s often really wet and boggy left so we’d never run it before. At the end of that track we went left again and explored a new (well no, new to us) path/track/trail to take us back down towards home. At some point we must have got it just slightly wrong because we ended up on the other side of the wall to where the clear footpath was but it was all fine. Given the terrain and that we weren’t quite sure where we were going we ended up walking a fair bit and the loop was 6 mile rather than the 7 but it was a fun little adventure.

This week I have done 2 45 minute Dopey Training runs  – one nice little plod along the canal with Kath which was uneventful and then the re-run of the route I did last week where I had to walk the slopes. This time I wanted to run it all and had asked Kath to help me. I really need to stop avoiding hills or deciding to walk the ones that are perfectly runnable! So we set off and I felt pretty good. The first mile was just under 12 minutes and I wondered whether I should slow down a bit to make sure I had enough in the tank but I felt good so just kept moving by feel rather than worrying about pace. Coming up the the bridge we were crossing and the hill that had thrown me last time I started repeating in my head: I feel good, I feel strong…. over and over. The hill came and went and I realised that my breathing and heart rate were recovering. I did actually feel good and strong. I kept the mantra going and the slope where I had to wait last week for the dog to be retrieved didn’t seem bad at all. Then there was the final little hill. I had a moment of doubt but then I thought I had less than 5 minutes to go so just needed to hang on. The hill somehow came and went and I kept running at the top. My legs didn’t give up and then my breathing recovered and I felt my heart rate settle again. I pushed the pace to the end of the road and stopped having run just over 45 minutes at 12.02 minutes per mile pace. Thrilled with that.

Next is the weekend 9 miler. I’ll be doing this run/walk with the aim of keeping the runs relatively fast, the walks positive and my mind off negative notions of things it might suddenly decide are impossible. Nothing is impossible. Which is a good thing because the Great North Run is looming.

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Australia Running 5 – The Towns and Cities

Jess Guth2 Comments

Brisbane running was fun. The Southbank was fun. The conference was rubbish but it didn’t matter. We just did our thing.

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The first Brisbane run was on a Friday morning and we plodded along the Southbank a little, crossed over a bridge and went back in the opposite directions along a footpath and eventually into the Botanic Gardens. The cyclists were a little annoying but it was nice to be out and about. Cyclists were a theme in Brisbane – fast, rude and not always competent – and I didn’t really get used to them.

Saturday we met our friend Jenny who lives in Brisbane for the Southbank parkrun and Kath set off running and Jenny and I chatted and walked round. We’d never met in real life but we got on well and had breakfast together afterwards. On Monday we ran a loop very similar to parkrun and then on Tuesday we thought we’d go a bit longer and I really wanted to run 10km without walking. Well, not quite. I was defeated by the slope up onto the bridge on the way back. Things had got hard at about 4.5 miles (it was actually quite hot) and the slope at 5.5 miles made my legs go to jelly and refuse to carry on. I walked a bit, grumpy and then ran the rest to take us to 6.21 miles.

All in all Brisbane was good for running.

Alice Springs is a funny place and even after having spent time in Sydney after and now IMG_1724being home for 2 weeks I am still not sure how I feel about it really. It’s the place where ‘the State’ meets aboriginal culture and can’t cope so throws some tourists in for good measures. It feels like a microcosm of something although exactly what I can’t quite put my finger on. After sitting on a minibus for most of the previous afternoon, getting up and heading out the door for a little run felt both alien and exhilarating. We plodded along next to the river bed – the sandy dry river. It hadn’t rained since February and there was no water to be seen. We had a little cheer squad of parrots in a couple of places and as the sun climbed so did the temperature from a pretty cold few degrees when we set off to a pleasant warmth in the sun by the time we got back an 40 minutes or so later. It was good to be moving again.

IMG_1757Sydney was great for running. Our hotel was in a perfect location, close to the opera house and then the botanical gardens. We kicked off our Sydney running with a 4.5 mile plod across the Harbour Bridge and back down to the opera house and into the gardens. A proper tourist IMG_1761run with photo stops and stops to look at things. I struggled to get going a bit but it was fun. Running across the bridge was a very tourist thing to do (and possibly a commuter thing to do, too) and the views were great but in terms of running, it’s not actually that nice – it’s noisy and polluted! The climb we did a few days later was fabulous (and a little terrifying) though.

 

 

The next day we got the ferry to Manly and then set off on a run round Manly North Head. I was struggling a bit, feeling a bit tired and we ended up walking quite a bit and stopping for photos of course. It was a stunning route that started at Manly Beach and went along the coast a little to Shelly Beach before climbing up the edge of the cliffs and then heading inland a little. Going through the North Fort parade ground was a little weird and at some point we got our loop a little wrong but it was all fine and it ended up being a gorgeous run which we finished  with scrambled eggs on toast and coffee from a lovely little cafe back at Manly Beach and a walk in sand thus ensuring my happy feet.

After that my Sydney running dipped. My feet and ankles felt sore, maybe from running on hard surfaces more than I was used to. So on the next day I sent Kath off on her run and I jogged to the opera house, did a loop round it and then went back to the hotel. It was nice to be out but that was enough. On the last day I wanted to have a nice run following the route Kath had told me about along the edge of the gardens. However I hard a cracking bruise on my left knee, not sure where from but I’m blaming the bridge climb and it hurt with every step. My ankles were still tired too. I made it to the opera house again before deciding that being miserable is not part of my running deal – I persuaded Kath to keep going and waited for her on the opera house steps. I did a few stair repeats while I waited but they were a bit half hearted and in the end I just sat and watched the world go by.

Australia wasn’t a high mileage month at all but we did run and we had some really nice runs that made me realise how much I can enjoy it and that is something worth hanging on to – I like tourist runs!

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