Category: Training

Back on the Road #2

Jess Guth4 Comments

So my last blog about running was on the 9th May when I was trying not to be grumpy about the injury to my calf muscle. I missed the appointment with the Osteopath and had to re-book for yesterday. I didn’t run at all from 3rd May to the 17th May. I was just a little scared of getting back on the road again. I spent Thursday- Saturday in London for work last week and when I got back Saturday evening I was actually looking forward to getting out. I was nervous about my calf though. It was still a little tight and the osteopath had said he wanted to see me again before advising on when I could run again. Yeah ok so I am rubbish at doing as I am told. So here’s what we’ve done since the 17th, all on the flat along the canal as per osteopath instructions and all using intervals of 90 seconds running and 30 seconds walking.

17th May – 30 minutes, 2.2 miles

It actually felt good to be out and the running felt doable

18th May – 30 minutes, 2.22 miles

Felt a bit sluggish but got stronger towards the end. Enjoyed it once it was over!

20th May – 30 minutes, 2.3 miles

We spent the day at the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs so had done a lot of walking during the day and then went for a run afterwards. I thought we would be quite slow because of that and because the first two runs made my lungs feel like they were on fire. There was another running interval around 20 minutes that felt really hard but we managed a really strong positive finish. Happy with that!

21st May  – 30 minutes, 2.28 miles

I saw the Osteopath in the morning. He examined my leg again and said it felt much better. After a bit of treatment he advised that running was fine but to take it easy and not to push myself on speed or distance for roughly 6 weeks. So, I am allowed to run but the strengthening exercises he has shown me are going to be key to avoiding repetition of the injury. (More on them another time). So, running it was then – after work feeling tired and generally a bit grumpy. From the first beep of the watch every little bit of me was screaming ‘Nooooo…. just no’. My legs felt heavy and my lungs were burning. I was huffing and puffing after the first 90 seconds of running. Somehow, and I am really not quite sure how, I made it through 8 of the 15 repetitions; we turned round. Usually I quite like heading back along the canal – it means at least half is done but this time it just didn’t seem possible to run back to pretty much where we started. Mind over matter… another running interval done… 10 intervals done and that stupid little nagging voice would not shut up: “I’m not a runner, I can’t do this, this is stupid, I’m NOT a runner’. And walk… 11 out of 15 runs done, breathe. No really breathe. I pretty much dragged myself through the next 2 runs with Kath’s constant and brilliant encouragement (I hope we never get to the point where she finds the runs so hard she doesn’t have enough left to talk me through the tough moments!). What I was doing can’t really be described as running, it was more plodding, plodding very slowly. Then the worst was over and when the watch beeped after run 14 I felt strangely competitive so I kept going and we ran the last 4 minutes. Hated it. Properly hated it. Just like old times. But it did feel good to have done it

Trying not to be grumpy

Jess Guth3 Comments

I’ve been quiet for a week or so. There’s a reason for that. I haven’t been running. After getting back on the road after the tweak to my calf muscle I was feeling quite good about the whole running thing. Then 5 days ago I was rounding up our friend’s sheep and re-tweaked the calf muscle. It was so frustrating. She sheep were being awkward sods so to cut them off and try and get them to go through the gate they were supposed to go through I needed to move quickly up hill – I pushed off my right leg, it’s been sore since.

Two days ago I went to see an osteopath. Kath has been seeing one for ages because of her dodgy back and I went to see the same one last year with a hip problem and she was fantastic. I couldn’t get an appointment with her quickly but there was someone in the same practice who could see me (Farfield House Clinic in Keighley).

I don’t like going for any kind of medical appointment. Maybe that’s a lifetime of being told by medical practitioners that I could do with losing a bit of weight (no shit! Really? I hadn’t noticed I was a bit on the porky side) so I was a little apprehensive going. I thought that the osteopath might just tell me that running really wasn’t a good idea for someone as heavy as me and that the injury was inevitable given my weight etc. I needn’t have worried. He sat me down, listened to the running story so far, had a look at my legs, checked a few things by asking me to stretch and move in particular ways and then we had a chat about what the most likely cause of the pain was: strained calf muscle. A typical but not serious running injury. Not serious as long as it is left to heal properly now – otherwise they quickly become recurring which he said was just boring. He has a point. So, after a bit of message-type work on my hamstring and calf muscle, he showed me two stretching exercises – one for calves and one for hamstrings and a strengthening exercise for calf muscles. So if you see me stopping on any steps and pushing my heel down or standing around randomly raising myself onto my toes, don’t be alarmed. I am no more mad than usual.

I am going back to see him on Tuesday at which point he will tell me when I can run again. He seemed to understand my impatience and frustration and he seemed genuinely interested in getting me back to running as soon as possible without risking further injuriy. It was certainly  a lot better than going to my doctor and coming away with a pack of neurofen and ‘don’t run for a week’ sort of advice.

2 pints and a packet of crisps…

Jess Guth2 Comments

…does not make for happy running. We got back on track and finished the week 7 runs on Thursday of week 8. On Friday we went to the pub and had a couple of pints and a packet of crisps and I’d also had a pretty crappy food day. I’d been at a meeting in London were there were sandwiches for lunch and then on the train journey home there were more sarnies… Bread overload basically and I have no willpower and I like sarnies. Anyway, crap food day.

On Saturday morning we started week 8 with a 30 minute run. Bloody hell. I felt so sluggish and heavy and generally rubbish. We set off from our house towards our sheep field and were going to do our usual 30 minute route that starts at home but then decided to turn back after 15 minutes to save time as we had lots to do. But turning back meant having to drag my butt up the hills that we’d come down on the way there and they are evil. Not particularly steep but just slow steady climbs. Urgh. From about 10 minutes in the whole thing just became a mind over matter thing to finish. Sometimes it felt like I was going backwards. So 30 minutes and 2.11 miserable miles later with an average pace of something over 14 minutes per mile we arrived back home. Lesson learned. Eating right doesn’t just make a difference, it makes a huge difference. It’s the difference between actually feeling like I am running and just desperately trying to drag my butt to the end.

Thinking back over the week, I can’t really remember how bad or otherwise I’ve been with the healthy eating thing. I wasn’t very good at taking my lunch so ended up buying wraps at work and I had a chocolate bar with that. Oh and when Kath was away overnight I couldn’t be bothered to cook just for me so lived on cereal. Unsurprisingly then I didn’t lose any weight this week. I haven’t gained any either though and today has been a much better day. We got up at 6ish this morming because we had to move our sheep at 7am (More on them here if you’re interested). We had breakfast afterwards – a south american brunch recipe that I think might have come from the Jamie Oliver via the Running Bug. It’s quinoa and blacked eyed beans with avocado and a dressing of tomato, spring onion in a vinegarette. We had lunch at a Garden Centre – we both had a road beef dinner and this evening we had a big salad. So while not perfect, much better than most of last week.

We also went for the second of the week 8 runs – 30 minutes. This one was much more like it. I was in danger of falling asleep on the sofa this afternoon but instead we set off from home, went past the sheep and down onto the canal. It looks like we are back on track with an average pace of 12.36 minutes per mile.

Back on the road

Jess Guth1 Comment

We are back on track. After having tweaked something in my calf muscle on Sunday I was a bit fed up and disillusioned with the whole running thing. I did get a bit excited about registering for the Marathon weekend but everything felt a bit flat. I felt a bit foolish for thinking that running might actually be something I could do and there was a whole lot of ‘you should have known, you can’t run, you know this, why bother trying, you just look silly…’ kind of stuff going through my head. I have to admit that I was relieved when Kath suggested giving us another day’s rest yesterday. I didn’t want to run. I was back to thinking that running is not for me and I am not for running.

However, we have registered. We are committed to doing it and even at my grumpiest there was still a part of me that wants to show that I can do this or that, at the very least, I can try. So today I came home from work and with considerable anxiety, though not reluctance really, I got changed, put my trainers on and we headed out. I really wasn’t sure about my calf muscle so we set off very very very very slowly (there might have been people walking their dogs faster than we were running). My calf was tight but not painful so on we went.

The aim was 3.5 miles – the 3.5 miles we didn’t do on Sunday. We went along the canal to have somewhere flat to run and because there is always lots to distract as we run. Because we were going so slow we actually chatted a little bit which is something I never usually do (Kath has since said that it freaked her out a bit because if I say anything at all normally I just swear). We saw lots of ducks and swans, a few little ducklings, two herons (or possibly one heron twice), a mad labrador type dog jumping into the canal after a squeaky toy and a few other runners and cyclists. It felt good to be out.

I felt comfortable plodding along. I was happy with the 1.5 minutes running and 30 secs walking. When we had a bit less than a mile left I suggested leaving out a walk phase so we tried that and ran for 3.5 minutes. Still comfortable and not really puffing much at all so we walked the walk phase and then started running again and just kept going until the end of the 3.5 miles.

So, 3.5 miles in 48 minutes with average pace of 13.49 minutes per mile. Yes, slow – but well within allowed pace for the marathon and I felt like I could have kept going at that for a much much longer distance. Importnatly my calf muscle is behaving itself. It’s a little tight but not painful so with a bit of tlc, heat and ice I think it’ll be fine.

I’m back to thinking that maybe, just maybe I can do this. Maybe

Progress…? Not so much

Jess Guth1 Comment

Frustrating. Very frustrating. I am now sitting on our sofa watching the London Marathon coverage and I pretty much feel like I just want to cry. I am of course being over dramatic. We set off for our 3.5 miles run this morning. We walked down to the canal and then set off towards Bingley. We got to just over 1 mile and I tweaked something in my right calf muscle. I kept going through that run and stretched it out in the walk interval and then started running again but it felt really tight and weird. We stopped and walked back. I was really upset about that and Kath was clearly frustrated that we couldn’t complete the run so we walked back in rather grumpy silence.

I have stretched and had some ice on it and it is beginning to ease. Let’s see how it goes. Maybe we can try again tomorrow. If it’s no better I will be making an appointment with our osteopath to take a look. I think though I am struggling more mentally with the setback. Running is such a huge deal for me and I feel so insecure about the whole thing that any setback is really really hard to get my head round. 3.5 miles not done, right calf tight and a bit sore, Jess tearful and grumpy… I guess tomorrow is another day.