Ah well that glorious few seconds at the end of the last run I wrote about was short lived. I’ve been out once sine then and it was fairly miserable. Although I was excited I’d got out at all. Then I got a little busy with stuff and with excuses so did sweet FA for the rest of the week. Yesterday was supposed to be ‘Dopey proof of time day’ but there was absolutely no way I was dragging my arse round the Manchester Half Marathon and Kath is still coming back from injury. So no proof of time for us so we will be starting our Dopey races at the back – hopefully not dead last though. It’s a bit meh to have not started yet another race. But we went to Manchester anyway and had a lovely Saturday, wandering round the city, watching the world go by, drinking mocktails and generally just being. It was lovely. Somehow though on Sunday I was exhausted. I slept for a chunk of the afternoon when we got back and I went to bed really early and slept for about 11 hours. I feel marginally better today. I am not really up for doing hard things though. Every excuse busting trick in the book isn’t really working. I am happy on the sofa and not at all interested in moving off it. Possibly a bit of depression, maybe just end-of-term fatigue. Who knows but it’s meh.
I need to something else. I am going to see if posting my plan for the week here helps me actually do it – I am not promising. You might just get a week of excuses but here goes:
Today I was going to run. I haven’t. I have done an upper body strength session and 5km on the bike (was meant to be 10k but my legs died – meh). I will do my Daily stretches and the foot injury prevention session 1 before bed
Tuesday: I am off work so no excuses! 45 minute run and I would like to re-start the Dynamic Runner strength programme. Daily stretches and Foot session.
Wednesday: Re-try the 10k bike, Daily stretches and foot session and the 2nd strength session
Thursday: Rest (I am away for work) so just daily stretches and foot session. If I want to do something because I am bored in the hotel, there’s a beginner barre that doesn’t need equipment or much room
Friday: Still away so a morning run from hotel – 45 minutes ish. Daily stretches and the last foot session
Saturday: 5 mile run, Strength Session 3 and Daily Stretches
Sunday: Bike, Daily stretches and Session 1 of another injury prevention programme – maybe the ankle strength one (7 days)
The Daily Stretches are always around 15-18 minutes and the foot programme is no more than 10 minutes each time. The strength sessions are 20-30minutes. And yes I know it is not the ideal plan with the strength sessions back to back etc but it’s where they fit in around being away. I’ll keep you posted!
Ah yes, running. It’s been crap. I am totally inconsistent, I have zero motivation, my lungs don’t feel right (Covid damage? Just totally unfit?), my back and hips are niggly, everything is tight, hay fever is a bitch and my head is not up for doing hard things at the moment. I want easy, comfort zone, not pushing anything anywhere. I am not currently convinced that it might be kind of fun to do the impossible. I’m really not.
BUT, I also really want to be able to do stuff. I miss my fitness, I miss running just being a thing that I do and not an endless drama and mind games to actually get myself out of the door. I want to do the Dopey Challenge in January, I want to do the Great North Run in September and all the milestones and adventures in-between and I want to do them with joy. I want to have fun. I don’t want it all to just be one big long miserable slog. So I need to get fitter. A lot fitter. Which means I have to go do the things that are impossible and hope that somewhere somehow the fun comes back and I re-discover the joy.
So today’s step 1 or the many many step 1s and re-starts and re-boots and whatever over the last few weeks and months: Get out and run. I had put off going for a run all week. One thing I am good at is excuses. I could give you a perfectly reasonable sounding one for each run I didn’t do. None of them are justifiable really. though. So anyway the plan today was for us each to go to our own thing before breakfast and by the time I properly woke up, Kath was already out on her loop and just about back home. We had a coffee together and Einstein cat came into bed so there’s 2 excuses to not go right there – first that we were going to have breakfast together and I had slept a lot later than Kath and she was already back and so she’d be hungry so I should just make breakfast and go later (going later basically never happens). Kath put that excuse to bed by declaring she was happy having granola and we could just do our own thing. Einstein is Kath’s cat through and through so I rarely get cuddles with him so I really didn’t want to disturb him cuddled right into me curled up under my legs. Again Kath pointed out that I could just go when he moved and it really didn’t matter – nowhere to be today.
So, vaguely plausible excuses put to bed, I got out of bed. I’d been thinking about where to go. I really struggle on any sort of up. It’s like the minute my lungs have to actually work they can’t. I get out of breath really quickly and sort of grind to a halt. Obviously therefore I avoid up. That’s not going to help. So I decided that I would start with up this morning and walk towards Keighley Gate. Added bonus here that setting off walking is less scary than setting of running. I couldn’t actually remember whether I am supposed to be on a 3 mile weekend or whether it’s a 5 mile weekend and honestly at this point I don’t care. The plan is gone. I just need to build some sort of consistency somehow. I thought 2 miles up and 2 miles down would be good.
I set off on a good march up the hill. After about 50 metres I was huffing and puffing and after a further 50 metres I thought maybe this was a really bad idea. Lungs were burning and I was huffing and puffing and really wanted to slow down. I slowed a little bit just to breathe but kept walking. I made it to be mile in about 19.5 minutes which actually in my history of walking that stretch really isn’t too bad.I was knackered though. Onwards. At 1.5 miles my back said Hi with a sharp pain across the bottom right. I might have yelped. My hip joined in. At 1.65 miles I thought it was all a bit silly and I should head back down before anything really hurts. I started jogging and it was ok. Pain wasn’t worse really but now I felt hot. I put 30 seconds walk breaks in every minute or 90 seconds. I was making a really conscious effort to make sure the run was positive overall. I was slightly irritated that I was using walk breaks on what is essentially a long downhill but it also felt like the right thing to do.
And then, for just a brief moment the magic returned. As I turned left onto our road, everything felt perfect. There was no pain, no niggle even, my form felt perfect, my glutes properly engaged, my speed picked up but felt almost effortless. For just a short 30 seconds ish at the end of my run everything came together, rhythm, cadence, breathing, form. It felt perfect. It is fun to do the impossible. There is joy in hard after all. Now how do I bottle that? How do I hang on to that when my body and mind are screaming at me that it’s all pointless and I can’t run anyway so why bother trying? I don’t know, but for now I’ll take it.
And, if I told you that Disney pace requirement is 16 minute mile, you will understand from the screen short below why today’s effort had an added bonus level of excitement:
Nearing the end of January and I haven’t run as much this month as I wanted to but I have definitely made progress. As of today I have run just under 20 miles – not far off a 3rd of the entirety of last year’s mileage. I have done some yoga almost every day. Sometimes only 10 minutes and often sabotaged (supported?) by Storm Cat but this is huge progress and I have done a few strength and HIIT sessions. I have lots to feel good about really. And I am trying. There’s that niggling voice in my head that keeps reminding me that I am way behind where I should be given the things I have coming up. A voice that keeps telling me that I am insane to think I can do the Yorkshire 3 Peaks in 90 days. A voice that keeps pointing out the obvious fact that I am still close to the heaviest I have ever been. A voice that will not accept that losing about 6 pounds over the course of a month is fine, good and steady progress and instead insists that the weight loss needs to be faster.
Storm Cat helping with Yoga
But while the voice is there, it is less forceful than it sometimes is. Yesterday I eventually managed to get out in the afternoon. I had all sorts of plans when I was still sitting on the sofa. I was going to run the 2 miles down the hill and along the canal a bit before turning round and running 2 miles back including the hill. But as I set off it soon became very clear that my lungs were not playing. I couldn’t get air in, I was puffed after just a couple of 30 second running intervals and the idea of taking a walk break out was ludicrous. It was tempting to just give up and there was a time where I would have done. But not yesterday. I physically shrugged and said to myself that it would be silly to turn back. I’d done the hardest bit and got out the door and being out was good. Plan A might not be on the cards but doing something is better than doing nothing. So I carried on, I stuck to my 30 seconds runnings followed by 30 seconds walking and gritted my teeth. The voice was there but it never got into monologue mode.
Me after the longest 2 miles ever
My back was niggly (lack of core strength) and I sounded more like a steam train than human but somehow I made it to a mile. ‘So’, I thought to myself ‘If I just do that again, I will have run 2 miles, and 2 miles is good’. On I went, suddenly conscious of the people along the canal, conscious of what I looked and sounded like, the assumptions people would make. The voice got louder and at about 1.5 miles I nearly stopped and walked home. I was, rarely for me, running with music so instead of stopping I just turned the volume up and focused on the lyrics to push the voice out of my head and then, suddenly there we were, 2 miles done. Everything seemed to hurt, I felt slightly dizzy and I couldn’t get air into my lungs fast enough. I started walking home and I recovered. I was fine. I did it. Perhaps not plan A but I was out and moving. Good enough.
This morning we went to Bolton Abbey and right up until we set off I was looking forward to it. I like running at Bolton Abbey. I like running through the wooded bits, I like the paths – not really trail so my scaredy-cat brain doesn’t need to worry about mud and slippery and all the silly things it worries about – but not tarmac either. I like listening to the birds, looking out for herons (none today) and the otters which continue to be elusive. I like listening to the musings of the river that sometimes whispers in confidence and sometimes shouts in anger but mostly just tells her own story as she meanders. But Bolton Abbey isn’t flat and I was not at all sure I had it in me today. Plan A was the Barden Bridge loop, Plan B was the Aqueduct loop and Plan C was to run to the Strid and back (actually plan C was to get back in the car and find somewhere for coffee and I wasn’t far off implementing Plan C after having gone for a pee). Kath set off to run the Barden Bridge loop and for a while I could see here ‘Dopey in Training’ shirt make steady progress ahead of me. She looked comfortable (she later said she wasn’t and it took her ages to settle) and that made me smile.
I walked the first 3 minutes to get moving and then I started running 30 second intervals. I was struggling physically from the go. Lungs struggled and my back was sore. I was in real danger of spiralling into negativity and just giving up. But I was wearing my new Dopey in training shirt. Kath bought it for us for my birthday, we designed it together and it came the other day. I couldn’t give up on its debut. I needed to give it a proper inaugural outing! I thought about what doing the short proud could look like today. Well so much of Dopey and certainly the training is actually just getting it done. It isn’t always pretty and more does it have to be. It’s about getting in the right mental place to just grind it out. So doing the shirt proud today meant doing the distance today, no excuses, even if it meant walking lots. I walked up the path by the Strid noting that Plan C was conquered – I was not turning round now. I ran down the hill and managed a few more proper 30/30 intervals along the flat. I was coming up on the aqueduct. The loop would still be 3.5 ish miles, that’s good. I’ve been struggling so doing that would be progress, right? Maybe – but that’s not what I set out to do today. Remember: The distance. Today. No excuses. Dopey. Proud. Nothing was seriously hurting, nothing was getting worse. I was tired, I was huffing and puffing but I was fine.
I carried on. I saw Kath on the other side of the river still looking good. I waved. I smiled and dropped back into running intervals. I’d walked a fair bit but I was doing ok. I hot two miles and in spite of being a chunk slower even than yesterday, it hadn’t felt too bad. I crossed Barden Bridge, I tried to stick to the 30/30 intervals on the flat and once past the aqueduct again I walked the slopes, ran the downhill and did a bit of both on the flat. Nemesis hill doesn’t seem so bad just walking and I ran down the other side. Back on the flat I tried to drop back into 30/30 but my calves were cramping so I jogged/hopped /walked from random landmark to random landmark. Through the last gate, onto the bridge and I could see Kath sitting with a coffee at the Cavendish Pavilion. I jogged to her and was done.
The running itself was pretty awful but it was a great run. I got a little bit better at doing hard. I reminded myself that the little niggly voice is not in control. January has not been perfect but it has been good enough and good enough is bloody brilliant!
Some of you may have notice that Cycle 4, or what is actually Intermediate Cycle 1 on the Body Coach App has lasted rather longer than 28 days. It has in fact been about a 6 week cycle. Honestly, the cycle just never really happened. I checked in this morning partly for a re-set really. I have put on a kg since the last check in and the rest of the stats have pretty much stayed the same. That’s actually better than expected given that I have done very little and not really stuck to the food plan that well either. It’s nothing the app does wrong. But sometimes life just happens. And life happened.
But let’s think about the app and review it for what it is. Let’s start with the exercise sessions. There did not seem to be a huge step up from Beginners Cycle 3 to Intermediate Cycle 1. It was pretty much more of the same. To be honest I was so crap with this that I think workouts 1-3 I only did once each. In fact I am not entirely sure I ever did workout 1. I did workout 4 and 5 a couple of times and quite liked them. I think that’s all I can really say because my head just wasn’t in it. What I did notice though is that just changing the order in which exercises are done or how they are grouped can make a huge difference to how the session feels so even if it looks like more of the same on paper, subtle differences can make a huge difference.
The food for the cycle adds another set of recipes for both refuel and general meals and another set of snacks. Honestly I can’t remember what was on that cycle and what came from previous ones but there is certainly a pretty nice recipe library building up overall! We probably stuck to the food plan 80% of them time in terms of meals. However, I have been really snack-y with nuts and cheese and chocolate and we’ve had hot chocolate more often than not.
Exercise wise, over the last 6 weeks I have been for a few walks. If I have tracked everything then 17 walks. Some of them have just been 2 miles though. 9 of them were over 4 miles with the longest being about 8. I went for one run. A 2 mile run which doesn’t sound like anything but was actually very positive. I did 9 Body Coach app workouts and 7 yoga sessions. So all in all not a great 6 weeks for fitness and mental health. Too much going on and I sort of just didn’t have anything left for self care in that way. I know, I know, I should prioritise it and if I did I would probably feel better. But I didn’t.
There’s lots of change and lots of shifting energies etc and this weekend I felt ready to check in from the Intermediate Cycle 1 and start the next cycle as part of a sort of re-set. I am acknowledging me tiredness and my need for rest but also the fact that I am ready to move more and push a little harder with this. Let’s see what the next cycle brings.
I am again writing the review as I go through the cycle and before I see my stats so that my thoughts are not skewed by what the numbers eventually say. I will add the stats and update the post just before I publish this. So, The Body Coach App Cycle 2. Hm. As I wrote earlier, Cycle 1 was pretty good. I have struggled more with cycle 2. I suspect progress has been limited. If I had to guess I would anticipate a slight weight gain and a small loss around my chest and maybe waist with everything else staying the same. Motivation has been harder to come by and a lot of Cycle 2 has been a little half hearted if I’m honest. Or at leas that’s what it feels like. It actually isn’t all doom and gloom when I think about it. Week 1 was pretty solid. Week 2 threw me off and weeks 3 and 4 were mixed. If you want a more detailed look at how the app works, have a look at my review of Cycle 1
The exercise sessions
Cycle 2 steps up a little from Cycle 1 but it is not unmanageable. On the beginner level there are no weights, so all exercises are bodyweight only. Having already done some of the bootcamp workouts that Joe Wicks did live on the app throughout January and which are available on demand, Cycle 2 workouts feel ok and not really a huge step up from what I had been doing in Cycle 1. I do think if you just do Cycle 1 workouts in Cycle 1 and then step up there is quite a difference though. Cycle 2 workouts definitely do not feel easy. I quite like workouts 4 and 5 which surprised me because I generally don’t like a low number of exercises and high number of sets. I generally prefer lots of different moves and just 1 or 2 sets. So the workouts are fine and challenging and sometimes fun and sometimes just bloody hard. The first 3 workouts continue the ratio of 30 seconds work and 30 seconds rest familiar from Cycle 1 but they are 30 minutes long rather than the 25 of most of Cycle 1. Workouts 4 and 5 go to 35 seconds work and 25 seconds rest. Who would have thought those 5 seconds either way make such a difference. Well, they do! Workout 4 doesn’t look like anything. It’s 5 moves six times and I have picked it twice thinking it would be a bit easier so I would have enough left in the tank for a run. Ha! It’s a bugger. It must be the repetition and using the same muscles. I have been a sweaty mess with jelly arms and legs every time. I have also done the odd bootcamp session. I think I have done all 20 at least once now. I like 17 which is a bums, tums and core one and I have a love hate relationship if 18 which is a killer cardio session (and I can’t do it all but will keep working on it) and 20 is just plain evil with the 40 second work/ 20 second rest ratio for the second round.
The food
Initially when we scrolled through the food for Cycle 2 we weren’t excited. There didn’t seem the be the same number of meals that made us think ‘oh good, yummy’ as there had been on Cycle 1. But when we actually sat down to plan our food, there is actually plenty of yumminess there. Refuel favourites have been Spaghetti Bolognese, Toad in the Hole and the Full English Frittata which I prefer deconstructed to a full english breakfast. The Chicken Jalfrezi from the general meal section is delicious, as is the Low Carb Lasagna. It was nice to try more new recipes and add some to our list of keepers and know that some others were just not for us (I am just not a Chia and Coconut Breakfast Bowl with Spiced Plums kinda girls, just no). For many the biggest change from Cycle 1 to Cycle 2 is that the plan now suggests 2 refuel meals a day rather than just one after a workout. We’d already been doing some of that because we know from when Kath did the 90 Day Plan that it works better for her.
So how did I get on
Well week 1 of Cycle 2 kept the motivation and enthusiasm from Cycle 1 up and I had a strong week with 5 workouts and 4 runs. I felt pretty good and like I was getting stronger. In week 2 I started the period from hell. I only ran once and while I did manage 4 workouts that week the first 2 were a little half hearted and I didn’t really push myself and the the other 2 were half hearted and lower intensity. One was bootcamp 17 which was focused on core strength and the other was the introduction to weights from the 90 Day Plan. I definitely didn’t want anything jiggling! Week 3 still felt a bit half hearted. Period bleurghness lasted the full 6 days rather than being confined to days 1 and 2 and I felt sluggish and heavy. I did however manage the 5 workouts and I went for 2 runs. One of the workouts was just a short ten minute one but still. In week 2 the February Abs Challenge started on the app and I managed 2 of those and then did 4 of them in week 3. Week for was a funny one. I had more energy and worked harder during the workouts and deliberately chose harder ones but motivation was tricky and I ended up not doing anything on Thursday. I did have good runs on Wednesday and Saturday managing to run for 30 minutes without walk breaks for the first time in absolutely ages. Maybe the way I have the rest days structured at the minute needs a little re-think. The Saturday rest days seems pointless as I often want to do something so maybe I need to put both rest days in the week.
Week 1 was mostly still using Cycle 1 recipes just because of when we do our shopping. From memory week 1 was pretty good in terms of meal planning and sticking to the plan. We used recipes from Joe Wicks’ books, the 90 Day Plan and the app throughout this cycle and meals were overall good. Snacks however are another story! I made some peanut butter fudge things but got my measurements wrong because I didn’t realise my scales were wedged on a spoon – so they had far too much peanut butter in. They were delicious though and I couldn’t stop eating them – a snack was meant to be 2 of my little pieces but I could have eaten them all so I gave most of them away to Kath’s mum. It was just pre period which explains everything. I continued to have ridiculous period cravings and basically just hoovered up any food I could find. I had toast, I had extra peanut butter, I had nuts, I had chocolate, I had cheese and and and. We’ve also had hot chocolate on most evenings throughout the Cycle. Somehow it has felt important and nourishing and calming to have a mug of bliss as we curled up for some downtime before bed.
In all the general grumpiness I stopped tracking my water intake and of course drank less as a result. A lot less I think. I restarted the tracking for week 4 and intake went back up but I am still not hitting 3.5 litres. I’ll keep trying.
Towards the end of week 3 my cravings and general food hoovering finally subsided and I felt like I had more energy for the workouts. During weeks 2 and 3 my knees had become really quite sore. I am not sure whether it was just because the workouts were getting harder and therefore my knees were struggling or whether my technique had been poor because my exercise had been a bit half hearted and I had aggravated something. I tried switching from barefoot to trainers but that made things worse so I ordered some HIIT trainers which arrived in time for week 4. I also stepped up the stretching for a couple of days with some 20 minute post run yoga sessions which really target the hamstrings and calves which, as usual, are stupidly tight. The combination of stretching and HIIT trainers made the first half of week 4 ok on the knees. There was still some residual nigglyness but easing and not getting worse during workouts but on Friday after the HIIT session they were really sore. I had been really careful during the session, had avoided squat jumps because my technique is a bit questionable when I get tired and had really focused on form -so it was annoying. I decided not to go for a run on top. During the Saturday run my knees were fine but a bit niggly during the day walking upstairs. More stretching needed!
The Facebook group is still not my tribe. I thought I might try and engage a little – after all you generally get out what you put in. I have commented on some posts and posted a couple of things but I’m not feeling it. There is too much diet talk, too much I have x amount of weight to shift, too much ‘my progress is too slow’, too much ‘how can this be allowed’, too much feeling guilty of going ‘off plan’. I find it quite hard to read that. So many people basically feeling guilty for living their life normally. I can’t decide if I want to hug them or scream at them. I scroll on. There are also lots of repetitive questions about stuff that actually is really clear on the app if people bothered to read the information or which has been answered countless times in the group if people bothered to search or even just scroll a little. Odd. Why pay for an app and then not look at it properly? Weird. The other thing I just don’t understand is sharing the progress pictures. Keep in mind these are generally pictures of you in your underwear. Why would you want to share them with a bunch of strangers – lots of strangers – on a social media platform? I just don’t really get that. The pictures are actually a really good way to see progress but the progress doesn’t change depending on how many people see or like the pictures. I’m not sure posting pictures of yourself in knickers and bra in a Facebook group with close to 10000 members is a smart thing to do. And I generally have no issues over-sharing!
The Wins
Like I said, this cycle was harder, I pushed myself less because of general life stuff and because my knees were sore. I also snacked quite a lot, particularly through week 2 and into week 3 and I didn’t once hit my water target. But there were still wins. My push-ups are getting better. Obviously I still can’t do a full one but I can now do 10 from my knees and I am getting much lower down than I was. I have started jumping out and in for the slow motion burpees rather than just stepping out and back in and I can now hold the bear crawl pose without the crawling for the duration so next time will try a little crawl with it. I haven’t felt hugely energised or motivated or more confident or anything like that but I also haven’t felt worse. My black puppy, while still very much there, has been confined to her place in the corner of the room and is allowing my poorly brain to recover and heal. I think the exercise and the relatively healthy food allowed things to stay calm-ish over the last 4 weeks and that’s a big win. Remember also that my main exercise thing is running and that’s really the only exercise I don’t hate. If I keep the workouts in perspective as something to help my running I find them easier to get into and more fun. Seeing benefits in running helps with that. And there have been running wins. I ran for 30 minutes nonstop twice this week and I can really feel the increased strength when, for example, running up short sharp hills. I have butt muscles and they activate and work! Whatever the numbers say, the app is doing it’s job at keeping me vaguely on track to do the things I want to do.
The numbers
So, Cycle 2 round-up. I struggled. Motivation didn’t come easy. I think that horrendous period has a lot to answer for here though rather than it being a reflection on the app. I definitely had the munchies but I don’t think that had anything to do with the food plan or portion sizes. There’s also been a lot of crap to deal with and I can’t wait for all that to be over which I think will help with head space and motivation to get off the sofa. Overall I have done 16 full HIIT workouts, 1 short body blast, 7 abs sessions and I have been for 5 runs and 2 longish walks. I have not yet done anything today on the final day and maybe I should have done before doing check in stats but that’s not how it worked out this morning. Given that my knees are still niggly I think I will run instead of a HIIT today and maybe tomorrow as well. I have lost 1kg on this cycle and a total of 8cm although apparently gained 1cm round my chest. The thing about some of these is though that it is actually hard to measure in the same spot each time so the measurements are not actually likely to be all that accurate. Interesting to note how the one place I felt like I might have lost a bit is the one place where the numbers suggest otherwise – and we measured repeatedly to check!
Roll on cycle three and a new set of recipes and workouts. I think it might even be quite fun.
really (not) a runner 