Tapering….

Jess Guth3 Comments

13 days to go to the big Walt Dinsey World Marathon Weekend kicks off with the expo, 17 to go to the marathon. I sort of feel ready and sort of totally not.

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For the first 3 days of tapering we might have taken the ‘take it easy and rest’ theme a bit too seriously on the running front. We did bugger all. Having said that though the weather was nasty and we were pre-occupied with a dog attack on one of our sheep and nursing the poor little thing back to health (more on that over on the sheep blog).

Yesterday we finally got out for a 45 minute run and it felt great to be out. It was a sunny day  – far too warm for December – about 12 degrees C. We set off down our road to the canal and turned left towards Bingley. We turned round after roughly 25 minutes and headed back. We ran all the way, no walk breaks. Didn’t feel like I needed any. When we finished I was surpirsed to see we’d run exactly  4 miles. I think we’ve only ever managed that pace on a 45 minute run once before. Now I did feel like I was pushing a little bit but I honestly thought it was just one too many mince pies and not nearly enough water that were making it all feel like hard work. It didn’t feel that fast.

I had a good dy yesterday. I felt almost well. My brain felt like it might just work normally. I felt good after the run. It felt like a normal day. I struggled later in the day when I got really tired after we’d walked round the neighbourhood dropping off mince pies at our mothers’ and the last of the Christmas presents but yesterday was a good day!

Taper here we come

Jess Guth3 Comments

So today marks the last day of the hardcore marathon training. Three weeks today we will line up at the marathon startline, well actually way back and eventually we will get there… And then roughly 6-6.5 hours later we will, with a bit of luck and lots of pixie dust, cross the finish line. We started the marathon training plan 25 weeks ago, so before I hit the last gentle weeks of tapering and getting rested for the big event, what have I learned?

  1. It is possible to see anything below half marathon distance as a short run.
  2. short runs don’t get easier just because you are physically capable of going much much further.
  3. 3 miles is just as yucky as 5 miles or 8 or whatever if your heart’s not in it
  4. half marathon distance is no harder than 2 miles if your heart is in it.
  5. once you get above 15 miles it really doesn’t matter anymore, it is all a f-ing long way.
  6. I can run for as long as I have decided to run – so if I decide my run interval is 2 minutes there is absolutely no way I can run for longer. If I decide that I will run 6 miles slowly without walking, I can.
  7. chafing is a thing, a painful one.
  8. underwear matters – see above
  9. witout running I would have gone properly loony tunes loopy over the last few months
  10. foam rollers hurt like hell
  11. I have a weak core, particularly arse but squats and yoga are changing that.
  12. hills are the hardest bloody workout you will find anywhere, ever.
  13. I still don’t see myself as a runner.
  14. other runners see me as a runner – the running community is so much more welcoming than expected
  15. Broccoli is amazing
  16.  I cannot be trusted to be left alone with a jar of peanut butter
  17. the best running fuel to date is lasagna made by my friend Bex but spaghetti bolognese or butternut squash and spinach lasagna work too
  18. I absolutely cannot run on a full tummy. I need 90 mins between bagel/porridge and run
  19. I sometimes enjoy running
  20. Mmm peanut butter

New Year, Same You – Review

Jess Guth2 Comments

A couple of days ago I finished reading New Year, Same You by Julie Creffield and I thought it was worth reviewing/ sharing my thoughts here! Now, I don’t do self-help type books really. Years ago I picked up the ‘You are What you Eat’ crap and that just made me feel miserable and then – as some of you will remember I picked up ‘Run Fat Bitch Run’ a while back and that didn’t go too well. Actually I am still angry about the existence of that book. So why did I pick up this one? Well I joined the Too Fat to Run Countdown to Christmas challenge – essentially a Facebook Group with daily challenges that are health and fitness related and fun. I thought it would be me something productive to do with my time while off work and give me a bit of something positive to focus on. It’s been great. Julie runs it and mentioned her new book. I read the blurb and thought that just maybe this is something a bit different, something more positive, something that I can identify with a bit more – and I was right.

Right from the intro I ‘got’ this book. I ‘get’ Julie’s story and I identify with lots of it. I found myself chuckling at her stories about keeping a journal and the benefits of writing or blogging to aid self-reflection. I was nodding enthusiastically at the idea that New Year’s resolutions don’t work. Of course they don’t. It is obvious if you think about it for a second. I liked the way Julie very clearly (and for some perhaps brutally) points out that if we keep giving ourselves permission to put things off, we will keep putting them off. Now I am the queen of ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’, ‘I’ll start again Monday’ and ‘Next term will be better’ and it hasn’t done me any favours at all, the change in thinking that Julie suggests is positive and powerful – but of course anything but easy – but maybe not as hard as I think – or maybe much much harder. We’ll see.

There was one section where Julie talks about yo-yo dieting where I was thinking – nah, I’m nothing like you. I’ve never been on a diet in my life – I just don’t do diets. I can’t do them. I know I don’t stick to them. If you tell me I can’t have something I want it, simple. But thinking about it, I am of course exactly like Julie and all the other millions of us who have complicated relationships with food. I agree that simply saying ‘move more and eat less’ isn’t the answer to most of our weight issues and not being told what to eat or not to eat was refreshing. There’s a section about food in the book but it’s not a section about what to eat. It’s far more honest than any diet book I’ve ever flicked through. Anyway, the book isn’t about losing weight so I don’t want to go on about the food stuff… I liked the fact that Julie acknowledges that our relationship with food is complicated and that a relatively simple thing, like starting to think of yourself as an athlete can change how we think about what we put in our bodies. I struggle with thinking of myself as an athlete. I’m a now size 16 (yay me!), nearly 37 year old woman who – as the blog title suggests – isn’t really a runner. BUT as someone who (doesn’t really) run(s) I have noticed changes in what I crave and what I want to eat. There is still and always will be a lot of chocolate and sausages and yorkshire puddings but I am now much more aware and eating a bar of chocolate or entire packet of biscuits without really noticing hasn’t happened in a very long time.

There’s a section early in the book which made me smile – I have always told my students to follow their dreams as long as they were big dreams; to hang on to those dreams and to work towards them every single day. I haven’t always followed my own advice there but that’s another story. Anyway, Julie doesn’t believe in SMART goals which is a relief because I always thought that was management speak bollocks too. Julie believes in STUPID goals. How brilliant is that. Everyone needs a really really stupid goal in life. It has to be Silly, Talked about on Facebook etc, Unrealistic, Posted late at night/after a glass of wine or two, Idiotic and an ‘in my Dreams’ kind of a thing. Well I did that with the marathon coming up – I’m now pondering my next STUPID goal. What could possibly be more idiotic and unrealistic and therefore more exciting than me running a marathon… We’ll see.

So the book is about being happier and healthier and an important chapter in the books is about how we often feel about ourselves. Whether we really actually love ourselves and how we perpetuate the over critical examination of women’s bodies all the time. I liked this. I find the ‘OMG have you seen how much weight she’s put on…’ and the ‘we’ll she’s let herself go…’ as irritating and unhelpful as the constant ‘oh look you’re fat and therefore must be stupid, lazy, undisciplined…’ or the ‘no wonder she can’t find a boyfriend’ or ‘well if she wasn’t so fat she wouldn’t be a lesbian would she, cos she’d get a bloke’ kind of rhetoric that is everywhere. I don’t look in the mirror often. I learned long ago that my looks are not a particularly useful asset to me. My brain is. However there have been times when I have looked at photos and cringed. Just recently my perception of what I see when I look in the mirror is changing and I think it is that change that Julie is getting at. I saw my reflection in a window the other day. I was super conscious of my backside after a longish run and about 100 squats the day before and before my brain could stop itself I’d thought ‘ now that’s a fabulous arse’. Then I laughed. The book helps to focus our minds on the things we really liked about ourselves and to accept the things we don’t like.

Essentially the book is about finding balance – balance between Food/Fitness/Fun and Recovery/Rest/Relaxation – so basically balance in life. Now that sounds easy but it isn’t because what we need in all of these areas changes all the time and means that we have to keep re-evaluating and reflecting on this – which brings me back to where I started – the keeping of a journal or blogging or whatever tool it is you use to help you make sense of life and just reflect on what you need for you. Task one of about 50 in the book is to buy a notebook to use as a journal – I did and I started scribbling immediately and maybe I am a step closer to my next STUPID goal. I might not do all the tasks but I will do some.

The book won’t take you long to read but it could make a difference to the rest of your life – sounds dramatic, sounds fanciful but for this book it might just be true. Even if you are, right at this moment, the happiest you have ever ever ever been, I bet there are still changes in your life you’d like to make to ensure that happiness is something permanent in your life. Well just do it. Get away from the ‘on diet – off diet’ or ‘on exercise regime – off exercise regime’ sort of thinking and focus on you, focus on now. Think about who you want to be and then decide to be that person NOW, not tomorrow, not on the 1st January, NOW. Set your STUPID goal and then do something every day to take you closer to it. Most importantly though – make friends with yourself. You’re the only you you’ve got and you’re awesome. Read the book, it’s helping me think more positively and it just might help you too.

Inadvertent speed session

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I haven’t felt like blogging about running because, well just because. I’ve been plodding along doing my 45 minute maintenance runs and just getting on with it but it feels like a huge effort. I just want to go and do the bloody marathon now. Someone put me at the start line and I promise I won’t stop moving forward until someone hands me a medal, a beer and food – not necessarily in that order. Cheer me up by sponsoring me?

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This morning was a bit of a fail. I got up and fell into my running gear. I read a silly mantra somewhere about running first thing before your body knows what’s happening – well that was me this morning. The plan was to run to the sheep, feed them etc and then continue and do 45 minutes. We got to the sheep and then I had a little panic attack over nothing at all. We walked home and I sulked, had pan au chocolat for breakfast and sulked some more. Then I thought about the run. We had got to the sheep in under 10 minutes per mile pace. That is insanely fast for us. It didn’t feel that fast though. So I decided to be positive and put this morning’s run down to an inadvertent speed session.

But it played on my mind. I can’t mentally cope with any run fails this close to the marathon. I need to keep positive and I need to keep convincing myself that I can do it. I knew I needed to go out again to take some stuff to mum’s…an idea formed and after a bit more sulking and reading loads of posts in a Facebook Group I joined I snapped out of it. I hadn’t got changed from the morning so I grabbed the backpack, filled it with empty tupperware boxes, a christmas card, some cash, my bus pass and some stuff I’d printed for mum and set off. It was hard. Really hard. I felt puffed from the start. I looked at the Garmin and saw that I was running at a silly pace ‘Slow down you maniac!’. The conversation in my head went something like this over the next 16 minutes:

‘You need to slow down, you can’t run 5 miles at this pace’

‘Haha -you can’t run 5 miles’

‘Yes I can’

‘But NOT AT THIS PACE’

‘Slow down you idiot’

‘What bit of slow down is too complicated for you, just go slower’

‘SLOW DOWN’

‘Oh shit I’m dying here’

‘I told you to slow down’

I hit 18 minutes and walked for a minute, then ran the next 2, then walked 1, then ran 3, then walked 1 and was then going to run 4 but a minute into that run just decided to keep going until the 3 miles beep came. Every time I set off running again I told myself to go slow. I walked for a minute when I hit three miles and then set off again ‘Go SLOW you stupid cow’. I walked for 90 seconds when I hit 4miles and set off again ‘Go Slow, just go… oh F-it just go at whatever idiotic pace you want’. I got to 5 miles. I had done it in just over 58 minutes – a faster pace than the pace I did all running the other day.

I was absolutely shattered, even more of a sweaty mess than usual and it took much longer for my heartrate to come down again. The walks had been slower than normal and the runs faster. But I just couldn’t make myself run slower. I walked the half mile to mum’s and had just about recovered enough to speak when I got there.

Now if only I was preparing for a 10km run – I reckon I could have done another 1.2 miles at the pace I was at and that would mean a new personal best by more than a minute. As for a marathon, having speedy legs really isn’t going to help.

Forgetting Friday

Jess Guth6 Comments

After the giddy excitement of the last two days I suppose the come down was inevitable. Today I can barely make it off the sofa. I didn’t sleep well and this morning had a telephone appointment with the mental health service for a therapy assessment – turned out not to be a big deal and I am now on a waiting list for a stress management /anxiety course in the new year.

After that I was going to go for a run but the weather turned nasty so I didn’t. It’s gone down hill from there. I’ve felt rubbish about not being at work and all the stuff I’m not doing; I’ve been worrying about our sheep, I’ve been worrying about the travel for the trip, weather, delays… I have felt totally incompetent in pretty much everything.

Then I started worrying about the running, then about weight. I started the day quite healthily with muesli but then we had pizza and salad for lunch and then I was still hungry or bored or whatever and had a piece of quiche that was left, then I was still hungry and had a porridge bar… Then I worried about all of that and decided that the marathon was an utterly stupid idea anyway.

I picked up the last issue of Runner’s World to try and snap out of it but it is full of ‘proper runners’ and a marathon plan which just made me cry because it is so different from the one we’ve been following and it doesn’t look like anything I could do (neither does ours though, so…). I thought maybe looking at the Disney stuff would snap me out of it. I grabbed our folder (yeah, I know, we have a folder, how very me) and retreated to the sofa. It didn’t do the trick. I just started worrying about the dining reservations and wether we’d made the right call for pre and post race food, I started panicking about currency and wether we’ve ordered the right amount and when it will come; about what I’ve forgotten and what on earth I am going to take on our trip. Oh and actually, forget the trip because I shouldn’t be going, I should be, oh I don’t know but I shouldn’t be running a marathon.

So let’s just forget about today. Let’s just accept it for what it is. I’m obviously just worrying today – so let’s make today a worrying sort of day, watch crap TV, eat whatever and just start again tomorrow.