Category: Training

Being honest

Jess Guth1 Comment

At the start of this whole blogging thing I said I’d be honest. So here is honest: today I really hated running. Really hated it. All 6.5 miles of it. I got up early, stupidly early to start the day with a positive, with an achievement. The running experience today is right up there with having one of those internal camera things put down my throat, having stitches removed or the dentist prodding your gums. Not painful exactly, just unpleasant. Something you really wish wasn’t happening to you.

Kath and I were out of sync. It felt like she was disappointed at the pace, critical of my running style, not helpful and not supportive. She of course felt that there wasn’t anything she could say that would help and she was probably right. It was all just awful. Today running did not make feel better. There wasn’t and still isn’t a sense of achievement for having run another 6.5miles. There is just disappointment that I just can’t shake off, there’s a sense of just not being able to do it, a sense that the goals we’ve set are so far out of reach that trying is a bit pointless. Today running just made me miserable.

The Good, The Bad and the Very Sweaty

Jess Guth4 Comments

I’ve just got back from a run and I don’t really want to talk about it. We did 35 minustes yesterday and got to 2.83 miles but it was awful and I got shit on by a bird. Today we set off from home for the first time in ages to see if my calf muscle would hold up on the hills. It did but I got a horrible pain at the top of my left side – not sure why but I’m blaming the fish and chips I had for lunch for causing indigestions which caused trapped air.  It happened at about half way and meant I nearly didn’t make it to the end  – a slow plod got me there but it was most unpleasant.

So the good: erm, well, come on there’s got to be something? Oh yes – I went for a run

The bad: hate it hate it hate it

We do need to talk about underwear. Underwear when running is a serious issue. I vaguely remembered that much from my running attempts in 2012. What I couldn’t remember is why or what to look out for. Sports bra is obvious (well obvious for anyone with boobs who has ever had to run for a bus) so let’s leave that aside for now. Knickers  – that’s what is concerning me at the moment. There are some knickers that are ok for running and there are some that are not but there doesn’t seem to be a way of knowing before you actually try running in them. I have knickers that are the same cut and size – even from the same pack – and one pair is fine an the other is quite likely to cause serious injury. Chafing is never a good thing but its worse in some places than others. I don’t understand why I can’t just find a type which works, I don’t understand why it comes down to individual pairs! Am I the only one with this issue? I can’t be, surely.

The other thing about underwear is that it has to be able to deal with sweat. Nobody told me quite how horrible this was going to be. Someone should have taken me to one side and said ‘You won’t really notice it while you’re running but the minute you stop you’ll feel like you’ve peed yourself’. Even after our short runs my pants are always soaked in sweat. I have to literally peel them off me when I get home. After the long runs I doubt they could be wetter if I fell in the canal. The same is pretty much true for my bra but it gets worse: Because of the cut and relatively tight fit as well as the type of material, the bra doesn’t absorb sweat all that well, instead the sweat pools. Only slightly but it pools and, as I discovered today, small flies can drown in that pool. It’s not funny.

So, see this as me taking you to one side and having a quiet word: ‘People will tell you how amazing running is, how it transformed their lives, how it keeps them sane… all of that might be true but there is absolutely no getting away from very very sweaty knickers!’

Excuses excuses and more excuses!

Jess Guth1 Comment

Well it has been a while. Well a week and a bit. So after the 6.5 miles we did on the Sunday (see last post) we felt pretty good and were up for our shorter runs during the week. Then Monday came and we had our planned rest day. Then Tuesday came and we didn’t go for a run, then Wednesday, Thursday, then Friday and we hadn’t been. We went away for the weekend so knew we wouldn’t be going then either. We had all the usual excuses, too tired, too close to having eaten, feeling a bit low, can’t be bothered, we’ll go in the morning instead, didn’t get up in time, would be too much of a rush… Yep, if you can think of an excuse, we probably used it last week. And the thing is, as the week went on we felt worse and worse both physically  but also mentally because I certainly kept feeling like I was letting us down. We should have just gone for a run! So enough of that.

We had a lovely weekend away with friends who were amazing hosts and who helped us just relax and chill out completely. We had a longish walk with them on Saturday and it was good to be out. Our drive home Sunday was about five hours including a stop for lunch on the way so by the time we got home we actually both felt like going for a little run. I found it physically hard but I enjoyed stretching my legs a bit. We did 2.78 miles in 35 mins.

We couldn’t ignore the Sunday weigh-in either so when we got back from the run I hopped on the scales fully expecting a few pounds to have gone back on. I hadn’t tried to eat well and I hadn’t been running all week and then we had a lovely weekend with lots of yummy food and a couple of drinks. However the scales stubbornly stayed on the same number they were at last week. I think that’s what you call getting away with it!

Yesterday Kath persuaded me to get my butt on the road (well canal path) again. I didn’t really want to go, I had work stuff going round in my head and felt like I just wanted to hide under the duvet. But she was right, another 35 minute run did make me feel loads better. We went slightly further on this one 2.89 miles I think.

I am writing this on the train back from  Liverpool where I have been visiting a school for their UCAS week. I think I might actually quite like to go for s short run this evening. I’ve spent most of the day on the train. I feel like I want to move and be outside. I am also very very conscious that our first 10km run is in 19 days. More on that soon!

So, a crap week last week but this week has started pretty well. Let’s see if I can keep it going.

The one where Jess runs a long way and most definitely hates running but it’s ok because there’s brunch

Jess Guth1 Comment

Sunday, that means weigh-in day. I woke up when our kitten jumped on my head about 7.45. I don’t think he meant to, he was just running loops rounds the house and the loop took him across my head. Wish I had that much energy. Anyway, the scales. For once they were quite friendly and spat out reasonably agreeable numbers. I have lost 4 pounds since last Sunday. I really haven’t done anything special with food – can’t say I’ve been trying that hard but we have been out running a fair bit and it seems to me that moving more has always worked better for me than eating less. We are also eating pretty healthy meals overall with virtually no processed stuff so that will be helping too.

Sunday also meant a long run. 6.5 miles to be exact. I had a banana and some water and then we did 15 minutes of yoga just to get moving. My legs and hips felt tight doing that. I don’t really quite know how to desribe the run without swearing lots. We warmed up with a short walk and then a couple of short jogs. Then we set off. Then a very very very long time passed and we had got to a mile. One piddly little mile and I felt like my lungs were going to explode and my legs, well let’s just not talk about my legs. Then another eternity passed and we got to 2 miles. Two stupid miles. Completing the 6.5 miles seemed rather unlikely. Onwards I plodded. We got to three miles, my lungs had sorted themselves out, not sure when – somewhere between 2 and 3 miles. We turned round just by Bingley 5 rise locks at just over 3 miles. I do like turning round and heading for home. Amazingly we got to 4 miles. No idea how. Then 5 miles. I was taking every walk break as it came and my legs felt stupidly heavy. At 5 miles my back was aching a little and I know I was losing form and running completely inefficiently. Lungs were ok though and I’d come this far, it seemed silly to stop with only a mile and a half to go. We passed 6 miles. I took the walk break which finished at 6.1miles and then I just went for it. Not fast but determined because, frankly, we’d been out for long enough already and it was time to get it over and done with. So, 6.5 miles (10.4ishkm) in one hour 26 minutes and 57 seconds. Pace of 13.23 minutes per mile. Hated 6.4 miles of that. Loved 0.1miles of it and was quite excited about having done it.

We got home, had a bath and then the muchies set in. We had what is billed as a South American brunch to try and re-fuel (get me – running lingo!) and help with recovery. It’s basically a fried egg served on quinoa and back eyed beans topped with avocado and a spring onion and tomato dressing. The recipe is originally Jamie Oliver and we haven’t made too many changes to it really. We use packet quinoa which can just be done in the microwave in 45 seconds and usually a tin of black eyed beans but other beans will do. We don’t add any salt and we don’t add chilli sauce. It’s delicious and it looks like this:

South American Brunch

Enjoy.

Just a quick one

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I don’t feel like writing about running today, I feel like writing about other stuff which I will do shortly but I’m all for celebrating successes and I like a pat on the back etc. We had a rest day yesterday and did a 35 minute run today. Pace: 11.55 minutes per mile. Distance 2.94 miles. So just to be clear – PACE 11.55 -as in UNDER 12 MINUTES PER MILE.  Just saying