Crappy Running

Jess Guth5 Comments

Ugh I am struggling with the running thing at the moment. I did go on Tuesday  – it was hilly and not pretty but I went. I also went today – supposedly for some speed work. We haven’t done any for ages so thought we’d try 4 x 400 metres with 2 minute rest in-between. We jogged down to the canal as a warm up and that was actually quite nice apart from the steep downhill bit where I suddenly panicked about falling and decided to walk.

As we set off for the first 400 metre ‘sprint’ (hahahahaha) I got a really sharp pain in my tummy that spread from bottom right and had me doubled over for a few seconds. It eased. I wanted to go home, no that’s not quite right. I wanted to be home. Instead though we re-set the watch and tried again. We went off slower this time but still pushing the pace but with only about 100 metres to go my resolve and will power crumbled and I just gave up and stopped. I cried, I swore and then we finished that interval. I finished the 4 x 400 metres but not as speed work – just putting one foot in front of the other without having a total meltdown was hard enough. We changed the route so it was actually quite hilly and we could feed our sheep on the way round.

So it all feels like the running is unravelling. I am getting slower and the distance I can do seems to be getting shorter but I’m just trying really hard to keep the faith, keep trusting the training and grinding out these horrible runs. The next planned run is Saturday – a longer run on a hilly  but stunning route. Bizarrely I am looking forward to it. Or maybe I’m looking forward to having done it, to having a positive story to tell at last, to stop being a disappointment. I’m going to try 2 minute/ 1 minute intervals because they seem safe, they’re my Dopey intervals. FFS I did Dopey, I can run 400 metres. I can. Except when I can’t.

I have been running…

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…usually not blogging means I’m not running but I actually have been. Not much, not fast, not far but I have been. I did the sheep loop backwards on Thursday and I did it faster than ever before. I am still finding it hard, really hard but I am trying to give myself less of a hard time and focus on things I do actually enjoy about running. I like being outside and I like having run. I like being physically tired at the end of the day… I think one of the reasons I am finding it hard is because I am now running in the afternoon/evening more often. I am running after work more often and I am generally more tired before I even start. I’ve always been better with morning runs but we’ll see. I’m not hating the running even if it seems I hate each individual run (weirdly, that makes sense to me!). Anyway, I must go back to holiday planning. Our California trip is scarily close and there is still loads of stuff to sort – I did finally remember to order our Dollars today though – so wish I’d done this a few months ago! We’re running tomorrow so I’ll try and post after that.

No rainbows, no unicorns but a run or two

Jess Guth7 Comments

I have been struggling with running lately. Maybe I’ve been struggling with running since the London Marathon, or even since Dopey. I’m not sure. I have had very few good runs – you know those where even the hard bits feel like they’re ok and you’ll get through them. Instead every step of every run recently has felt HARD. Even the Disneyland Paris 5k (I will blog about those races when we finally get our race photos!) which I really did enjoy and which was a lot of fun was HARD. I haven’t found that easy running rhythm for months. I’ve got slower, too.

I signed up to the Too Fat to Run Scream if you want to go faster programme – which is just as well because I need something to get me out the door at the moment. I know I have the next half marathon coming up really quite soon but to be honest I don’t want to think about it too much, I’ll freak out. So the Scream thingy – it requires a commitment of 3 runs a week and it required the running of a baseline 5k in the week ending today. Instructions for next week will arrive tomorrow. Hm. At the moment I’d be happy with just ‘going’; ‘going faster’ seems so very unlikely. I’ve told you about the first disastrous run post half marathon in the last post… I actually just wanted to pack it all in but of course I need some perspective – ideally not mine. I had run a half marathon just 2 days before; it was the first week of teaching, I repeat, the first week of teaching – it’s a wonder I was functioning sufficiently to put trainers on and really lots has been going on on planet Jess recently… As several people pointed out, I should really give myself a break. I did – until Friday.

So Friday was run 2 of week 1. It wasn’t straightforward. I was at work. I teach from 9-11 and from 3-5. It would be late by the time I got home and the chances of me finding excuses were through the roof – so we agreed we’d run separately. Me in the gym at work and Kath at home. Me-in-the-gym-at-work. What?! You mean like the sort of gym where other people go? Where gym bunnies live? Hm. I packed my bag and when I got to work thought about this some more. Me, in the gym? I thought I’d go a lunchtime and then realised that this would be a pretty popular time slot. Popular with people. So I took my stuff the the class I teach and then headed straight for the gym after the class. As it was the intro session I’d finished a little early and was in the gym (only 2 others there – yay), changed and ready to go at 10.58. I jumped on a bike for a couple of minutes just to warm up a little and then I found a treadmill that was as far away from anyone else using a treadmill as possible.

After a little bit of faffing with settings etc I found a rhythm. It was too hard going and I was really conscious of sweat pouring off me but I just kept plodding, I had to slow a bit and then a bit more but I never walked. I just kept watching the ‘kids’ outside the university building I could see out of the window. After what seemed like forever I got to 5k and stopped. 40.21. It felt like I’d run much faster but I hadn’t. The gym had also filled up rather alarmingly. I hadn’t noticed. I think if it had been that full when I arrived I would have run away! Anyway, run 2 was a hot and sweaty ploddy affair but I got it done and set a treadmill baseline in the process.

Run 3 week 1 – today. We needed to do a longer run today to keep the half marathon training going but we were also conscious of how tired we’ve been. So we planned to run the roughly 4 miles from our house to my friend’s house to feed her cats, have a little break there and then run back to the bottom of our hill taking us to around 7 miles. I thought I could also use the way there to set an outside running 5k baseline. Well it was another of those HARD runs. The first mile is almost all down hill and we set off quite speedy for us and clocked an 11minute mile. We should have set off slower! Anyway we got ourselves to 5k in what we think was 38.05  – that’s what the Garmin said at the time although the data on strava now shows it was 37.29. So as the aim is to go faster I will take the quicker baseline and work on beating that. We did have a couple of walk breaks. The way back was really tough and we walked a fair bit but still, done.

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Walking up the hill to get home was horrible. My lower back kept sort of cramping but everything has settled down now I’ve had a bath and some food. More yoga as we go through the rest of the afternoon and evening and I think it’ll be fine. So here are my Scream if you want to go faster stats (I’ve rounded a bit!):

Outside baseline: 37.29         Outside target: 35 minutes

Treadmill baseline: 40.21     Treadmill target: 38 minutes

Can’t Run

Jess Guth3 Comments

If you’re expecting a post-Disney race blog post with silly pictures of medals etc – sorry. That’ll have to wait. So yes, we did the 5km and the half marathon and some of it was awesome and some of it wasn’t. I’ll come back to that when I’m slightly less tired and have slightly more time.

Today we had the genius idea of going for a recovery run – just a short little loop to stretch the legs. Well my legs don’t work and neither do my lungs. I only managed short little jogs with walk breaks and after just over a mile I was so done.

I could actually just cry. The running at the weekend didn’t go to plan and now I can’t even run a mile. Who am I kidding with this running thing? I actually can’t do it, can I? I’m taking part in the Too Fat to Run ‘Scream if you want to go faster’ programme so I need to get a 5km baseline at some point this week but I actually don’t feel like I can do it at all.

The thing with honesty…

Jess Guth1 Comment

So here’s the thing with being honest about life, running, fitness, weight… It doesn’t make you feel any better. It doesn’t do anything for your confidence. It makes you feel great, well, when you feel great. The reverse can also be true.

This post is triggered by a number of things I’ve seen, heard and read over the last 2 days. I won’t single them out because that wouldn’t be fair – they’re not my stories to tell. But my story is my story to tell. Here’s the deal:

I am running a half marathon on Sunday. I am not ready. I haven’t run enough, I haven’t done enough mileage, I haven’t been consistent. I am excited about it nonetheless because I have a little glimmer of hope that I have gained enough experience over this last year to be able to just see it for the adventure it is and go with it. I have posted my excitement on social media. And I am being honest in that BUT there’s also a whole load I haven’t said. I think maybe I should say it now.

  1. I packed yesterday. I started off excited and ended almost in tears. I packed my running gear first  for the half marathon- easy. Then I decided I wanted a long sleeved top for the 5k and thought maybe a Dopey one – they were on the small side when we got them but the next size up would have been too big – they’re too tight now, all of them. Then I wondered about what to take to wear the rest of the time. It’s all about Disney and running and celebrating how far we’ve come so I thought I’d wear my ‘I did it’ t-shirt from Dopey. I tried it on. It doesn’t really fit. I tried on the 5k cotton T we got at Dopey – that doesn’t really fit either. I tried a couple of others – nope.
  2. I have put weight on – or let’s put it another way. I liked the shape I was just post-Dopey better. I wasn’t actually much lighter at all (half a stone maybe) but I was different and now things I bought then don’t fit and that upsets me more than it should
  3. I am worried that the race t-shirts won’t fit because the sizing is always a bit hit and miss and now I don’t really know what size I am.
  4. I don’t mind being at the back of the pack. I don’t mind being a slow runner but I don’t like the idea of being the fat lass at the back. The fitter (and thus more shapely) I get the less I mind being slow but now that I don’t feel all that fit and am super conscious of the wobbly bits I somehow mind being slow. Confidence?
  5. I am not confident today. I am self conscious as anything and I’m just sitting at home, trying to write. Nobody is going to see me today really and yet I am wondering if my t-shirt is perhaps a little too tight or if it will be ok even if I take my hoodie off.
  6. Today I feel fat. You see I think there’s a difference between being fat and feeling fat. I am fat. I have no real problem with that, I’m used to it after all. Being fat isn’t the problem. Feeling fat is. When I feel fat I stop feeling like me. Most days I just feel like me and my insecurities and issues are not really related to body shape or whatever. But sometimes I feel fat and then I feel like I can’t or shouldn’t do stuff, then I am suddenly aware of every bit of me where my clothes stick to me or stretch or whatever. It’s rare thankfully
  7. I wish I didn’t feel fat just before a half marathon because now I think fat people don’t run half marathons which in itself is utter nonsense.

Anyway, I could find more negative shit to write about but that’s not the point. The point is that getting fitter and healthier, losing weight, running…all that stuff isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. It’s not all amazing. It doesn’t make you feel like a new woman all the time, it’s not all fucking awesome. Some days I feel like shit, some days I feel like crying, some days I look in the mirror and look away in disgust. If that’s you today, that’s fine. It really is. Tomorrow I might look in the mirror and smile – but for today I think I’ll keep my hoodie on