Category: Training

Showing Up For Yourself

Jess GuthLeave a comment

I have had a funny week. I didn’t run until Thursday. And I nearly didn’t then. I was so tired on Thursday. I just felt dead and empty. I struggled to focus on work. I had a window at lunchtime and I was so tired that I had to do something. My initial thought was to try a power nap but I was really worried I would sleep through the alarm and miss a meeting in the afternoon. So I put my gear on and went for a run. It seemed like a slightly insane idea but it worked. I felt better afterwards. I did the same again today. I had fallen asleep on the sofa watching something on TV. I felt groggy and worse than I had before I fell asleep. As much as I didn’t really want to go run, I laced up and went. I feel far less tired and dead than I did before. The thing is, I know that doing exercise will make me feel better in almost every circumstance. It just will. But knowing that and showing up for myself to do it are two very different things. So I have been thinking about this idea of showing up for yourself.

In general, I think we are pretty conditioned to show up for other people, to not let others down, and to do what is expected of us. Women in particular are somehow expected to put others first, do the stuff that others need doing before even thinking about what we might need. The idea of showing up for yourself, doing what you need not what other people want you to do is portrayed as selfish and uncaring or even rude and unreasonable. I am not suggesting that we carry on regardless of whether what we need is harmful to others. I am suggesting we stop being harmful to ourselves while attending to everyone else’s (and society’s) needs and expectations.

I should note that I am pretty lucky here. I am not as conditioned as many in this area. I don’t really care what society expects or what women should or shouldn’t do and I never really have. I do have a bit of a thing about doing a very good job at whatever it is I am doing though which isn’t always helpful. But as I was thinking about the idea of showing up for myself, I realised that it’s not expectations or putting others first that stop me from showing up for myself. Nope, it’s two other things – the first is the needing to do a good job and the other is that I simply haven’t given enough thought to what showing up for myself means to and for me.

So this week I am accepting that I didn’t do all the things I had planned, that Saturday was a completely dead day and am instead choosing to be really pleased that on 2 days where I was tired and my default position was to retreat and hide rather than do, I did the thing that was most likely to make me feel better both short and longer term – I showed up for myself and got the running done. The rest I need to think about more. So watch this space.

Benching the Brain

Jess Guth1 Comment

I wrote about my Philly running adventures and noted I was going to come back to the plans for consistency and my inability to actually stick to those plans. So here we go. We got back from Philly and I felt good about running. But then I did almost nothing for 2 weeks. I managed some yoga but not as much as I wanted to really and I felt like jetlag properly kicked my butt. I didn’t really get going until this week. I dragged my butt out for the first run of week 4 of Couch to 5km plan on the bank holiday Monday. On the Tuesday we had a spa day but went to the gym before and I ran down to get there and we did yoga in the evening. That was a good self care day!

I went to yoga on Wednesday and Friday, too but didn’t get out for another run until today. Today I walked/ran 3 miles. It wasn’t fun and it was full of self doubt and negative chatter but it’s in the bank. So I got my three runs in this week. I have also done 2 strength sessions at the gym, a couple of daily stretch and foot re-set sessions on dynamic runner and a couple of Yoga Studio App morning flows. I’m not doing nothing but I am struggling with running consistency. I guess I just need to keep doing the best I can on the day.

I am trying to plan week by week, just one week at a time because that seems to be more realistic. A routine of gym on day X and running on day Y doesn’t work very well at the moment because I don’t have set days where I need to be in the office. I am hoping that sitting down today and looking what is realistic for next week might help me stay consistent and keep ticking the running off. I have to keep believing that the running will click back into place and that at least some of it will be enjoyable again.

I’ve been trying to work out why it is such a struggle to just go out and do it; why I can’t get back to running just being a thing I do. I am not looking for it to be easy. It’s not that I mind hard, in some ways I actually like the feeling of being good at doing hard. Partly I think it is that I am slightly heavier. It’s not the number on the scale (I don’t actually know what that is), it’s about where and how I am carrying the weight. It’s typical premenopausal, right round the middle weight that makes running weirdly uncomfortable. I am a different shape to when I was running consistently and certainly to when I was running happy more often than not. So there’s that. Then there’s the added anxiety, self-consciousness and brain muddle that seems to come with being a woman in her mid 40s. While I am mostly embracing the ‘I don’t give a fuck what you think’ attitude that somehow comes more easily with this age, there is also the imposter part of my brain that has been louder recently than it has been in years. I have stopped believing that I belong on the canal towpath, in the gym, in the yoga class…I know I do, I just don’t believe I do. So every potential run is a battle ground to be negotiated. I have to convince my brain that running is not pointless, that nobody will laugh at me and even if they do, what do I care, that I am perfectly entitled to take up space out there running and that I am capable. My brain thinks it has more evidence to the contrary and of course every time I don’t run as planned it banks that as further evidence that the best place for me is on the sofa.

But I know my brain is wrong. Even with the overwhelming evidence that I am currently an utterly crap runner, I know that I am a runner. I want to run and I want to get better and I know how to do that and I deserve to have the opportunity to try – whatever my brain thinks. So my brain needs to sit this one out. Right now running for me is about doing the impossible and my brain has no business in that. I’m benching it. I’m going to try to get to consistency without thinking, just feeling and doing.

Useful reminder: It is fun to do the impossible!

Setting Foundations?

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Setting Foundations? Is that the right way to look at what I am doing at the minute? I completed the final run of week 2 of the Couch to 5km programme I am doing. A day late really but it’s a bank holiday so counts as weekend. I did mean to run yesterday but my period was really heavy and I felt crap. Maybe I should have just gone and got it done but I didn’t. I also ran Saturday so maybe it’s ok and a rest day in-between is better anyway.

Saturday I ran to the vet to pick up tablets for our Einstein. We needed to make sure we’d have plenty for when we are away later this week and Kath’s mum is looking after our cats. Running there seemed like a good reason to run and somehow I need a reason other than just running at the moment. Or at least that makes it easier. I can’t say I hugely enjoyed the running but it was fairly uneventful and the distance was about right so it made sense. I found the last running interval really quite hard and I am not sure why. Maybe just because I felt heavy and sluggish anyway.

Today we didn’t get up for our 7am yoga class. When my alarm went off Kath was still asleep. That’s rare. I dozed a while to see if she would wake up and she sort of did but we agreed that actually a slow morning with time spent together over coffee in bed was more important today than yoga at the gym. After breakfast we both pottered a little and Kath’s mum popped in and then it was time to get sorted for out Mind class at the gym. I decided to run down to get that final run of week 2 done and so that I can change the intervals on my watch for week 3 and don’t have to worry about it for the rest of this week. I didn’t bother with the warm up walk and went straight into a 90 second run. Almost all of the running was downhill which I know I need to change but today I used it to just stretch the legs a little more than I have been and go a little faster. Over the distance it doesn’t make much of a difference but I was about a minute a mile faster overall. Again the run was pretty uneventful and again I found the last interval hard.

The Mind class was a bit random. The instructor who taught this one and then one last Thursday is not ideally suited to it. She’s more of a high intensity fitness instructor I think. She’s quite chaotic and overly energiser bunny for this. When she first took the class last week I really thought it was going to be awful but I ended up really enjoying it. Today was the shorter version of the class and it felt a little less calming than it is supposed to but it gave me a useful stretch. Importantly, it also gave me a reason to run because I needed to get there.

I’ve been building my little Lego Disney Castle step by step to represent my progress and the foundations are now done – I don’t think the same can be said for my running foundations. There is work to be done here still but one step at a time!

So, uneventful running really. That’s a good thing. Week 3 looks ok. Running 90 seconds, walking 90 seconds, then running 3 minutes and walking 3 minutes, repeat.

How is it Saturday again already?

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I don’t really understand time. How is it that when I was a kid I could explore whole worlds in a day, summers lasted lifetimes and double maths on a Saturday (yes Saturday!) morning could drag on for what seemed like weeks. Now, some meetings feel like those double maths lessons but mostly the weeks just fly by. It was February a minute ago and I’m sure Kath’s little big run and that core class I wrote about were really just yesterday… Obviously they weren’t but the week has once again just disappeared.

So after Monday’s core class I did absolutely naff all exercise wise until Thursday. Tuesday was busy at work and I had a work thing in the evening. I had intended to get up and run before heading into work but that actually requires waking up and getting out of bed and I just couldn’t bring myself round enough to make that happen. Same thing on Wednesday. At least on Tuesday I did walk a fair bit but on Wednesday I think I barely broke 4000 steps. Thursday I also didn’t do much but went to a Mind class at the gym. The class was actually nice and stretched out some areas that needed it but it was full of chatty women and I was not feeling sociable. Friday we went to yoga first thing and I do love that yoga class. It’s calm and structured and clear. After that we had therapy at Bolton Abbey and while Kath was in her session I went for a little run. It was the first time with the next set of intervals on the Couch to 5km plan and the first time in ages I had a real inner dialogue. It went something like this.

  • I’m supposed to walk for 5 minutes but I’ve set the intervals already and set the watch, the intervals don’t fit into 5 minutes
  • Then walk for 3.5, that fits
  • Ok
  • 90 seconds running is 30 seconds longer than 60 seconds running
  • yes, yes it is. I can’t breathe
  • My legs are heavy
  • Can’t breathe
  • Eek – dog
  • Fuck still 50 seconds to go, I’ve been running forever
  • Can’t do it, still 40 seconds to do
  • Get a grip
  • Can’t, too hard. Might need to stop… ooh beeps

That first interval was ridiculous. I was unsettled, breathing was awful and my legs were uncooperative. I really thought I might need to give it up I felt so terrible. I walked the 2 minutes and when the beeps came for the 90 second run, I set off tentatively. I felt ok though. Running on grass definitely felt harder than the road running I have been doing but it also felt nice. I also died on every little slope and there was a fair amount if huffing and puffing. I ran some completely random circles across the grass to not get tangled up with dog walkers and overall I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoyed it even if it was a lovely day in a lovely place.

However, it was a nice opportunity to test out some trail shoes I have had for a while but hardly worn because mostly I have been running on road or canal towpath. They were good – in fact they felt better on the grass than they did when I wore them last weekend where I was on hard compacted paths. Anyway, I was supposed to run for 90 seconds and walk for 2 minutes five times. In the end I did that 7 times because that took me back to the car in a loop. I struggled with it but it’s done and it was just one of those runs that just needed to be over. It was also another example of how weird time is. That first and last 90 second runs went on for months! The 2 minute walks were over in a flash mostly but the one after the 3rd run was so long I checked my watch to make sure I hadn’t missed the beeps.

I am back to road running today because I am going to combine running with running some errands (so literally running errands?). I’ll let you know how it goes.

Core Class Take 2

Jess Guth2 Comments

Today I went back to THAT class. I didn’t want to. But I did. We were both tired. Work was busy today and we were both awake really early because there was a very vocal blue tit with a lot to say for itself right outside our window at about 4am. So we nearly talked ourselves and each other out of going to the class. But neither of us wanted a non attendance strike at the gym for not cancelling more than 4 hours before so we put our big girl pants on (in my case literally) and headed for the gym. So the class is supposedly a 20 minute core class. It was again shorter than that. This time we had 4 rounds of 3 minutes. 50 seconds work and 10 seconds rest. 2 rounds of sit ups, leg raises and plank and 2 rounds of leg raises, elbow to knee or bicycle crunches or whatever you want to call it followed by a hollow hold/boat pose.

There were no more instructions, no demo, no information about modifications just lots of bravado and pretend flirting with women old enough to be his mum. But this time I was way more prepared. I was going to speak to the instructor beforehand but I was too tired to deal with him. But I knew how to modify and I knew that I was likely going to get some comments aimed at me. Fine (well not really generally but fine by me today). So round one. Sit ups with 5kg plates which I did without weights much to the instructors dismay. I was right in the middle at the back of the room and where he spent most of his time sort of prancing I was right in his eyeline. We locked eyes a few times and he said nothing. Then leg raises. I did not lower my legs all the way to the floor. Then the plank. Obviously I was supposed to be off my knees and his ‘modification’ for us was to suggest that when it got hard to move from elbow up onto hands. I suspect it has never occurred to him that the limiting factor in a plank might be upper body strength and not actually core strength. Round 2, same thing. Round 3 earned me a ‘make sure those legs go all the way back down to the floor’ on the leg raises which I ignored. Round 4 we locked eyes as I was in a modified boat pose with heels on the floor. He said ‘get those heels off the floor’, I rolled my eyes and mouthed a seven letter response.

My core has had a workout. I pushed myself and I can feel this workout much more than last week’s because I actually did proper exercises I could do properly. And for bonus points, my back doesn’t hurt. Will I go back to that class – only when I can’t go to the morning equivalent which is taught by someone else. Will I talk to the instructor, nope. I don’t think there’s any point. When I am in his class I will just keep annoying him by modifying the exercises where I need to and if he calls me out, I’ll call him out.

I am glad I went because I was ready to curl up on the sofa and eat crap and feel a bit sorry for myself. Instead I feel a bit brighter, have a bit more perspective and instead of half heartedly and tiredly trying to do some work, I have made a list of priorities for tomorrow and have let go of the pressure I was feeling to get shit done. So that’s a positive. I am also quite happy with the consistency of doing something the last few days. After my little run at Burnsall on Saturday I had done my 3 runs for week 1 of the Couch to 5k. I wanted to do something on Sunday because I wasn’t sure how much time I am going to have this week. We woke up early so Kath said we could go to the gym before watching the London Marathon on TV. So I jogged down to the gym and for the first time in ages I ran a continuous mile without walk breaks. I was quite pleased with that. I was also quite pleased with the strength session. No drama, no major self doubt, just sort of getting on with it in my little 80s gym playlist bubble.

Then we got home, had a coffee outside and then settled into watching the London Marathon and I was a blubbering wreck within seconds. Anyway, onwards to week 2 running intervals.