Tag: marathon

Getting back in the zone

Jess Guth1 Comment

As I write this there are gorgeous smells coming from the kitchen where Kath is making healthy blueberry bran muffins as well as our late lunch/early tea of quorn chilli; we’ve had a lovely morning (after a very long sleep for me) at Bolton Abbey where we went for a roughly 3 mile walk and we have spent most of the time talking about training, the runs we’d like to do from home as well as from starting locations locally. I am in a much better place mentally today. A number of things have contributed to that.

1. The little messages of support and tips on here, Facebook and Twitter and the very generous sponsorship/ donations made to Panthera. Thank you

2. It is Sunday which means weigh-in day and I have lost another pound. If I can shift another 2.2 pound I will drop into the next stone and it is exciting to see that first number go down rather than be an irritating and slightly depressing constant. I will be close to being the lightest I have been in over 3 years and not far off being the lightest I have been in over 18 years.

3. Our next run will be the first run of our marathon training programme. Now yesterday this freaked me out. Today I am excited about this. I am even more excited because Kath has bought me some smileimagey star stickers so I can mark of each run (yes, I know I probably need to get out more – but smiley star shaped stickers!). Here is the first page, blank. I’ll post again when it is full of happy little stars

4. Our first ‘race’ is two weeks today. That was just stupid yesterday but today I see it differently. Today I see it as part of my learning curve. It won’t be fast, in fact it will be very slow but it has been a very long time since I’ve run in a crowd, the timings for when to eat, when to pee, when to warm up…. are all different so it will be a great, if difficult experience. I know I can do the distance. I’ve done it twice now in the last 4 weeks and once I did it when I really really wasn’t in a happy running place.

So, yesterday running  made me miserable, and it really did. Today I feel better. Today I am pleased that the 6.5 miles yesterday haven’t resulted in any niggles or even stiffness. My legs were a little tight but the walk sorted that. Today I am proud of how far I’ve come and (while still totally unfit) how much fitter I am than I was. I am back in that tiny little zone in my head that knows that I can do most things I really put my mind to. It’s a little zone, a tiny one, one that I don’t manage to get myself into very often, one that shuts the door on my depressive black Labrador and on all the doubts, questions and negativity. It’s the zone that knows that this girl can and it is the zone that is learning to shout and be heard over all that other crap. So, Leeds: here’s my number. Look out for me. I won’t be running fast but I will be running because I have decided I am doing this so whether I can or not is actually irrelevant, I am doing it.

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When you feel like giving up, remember why you started in the first place

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I saw that somewhere – maybe on the running bug website or facebook or something. So while I don’t actually feel like giving up at the moment, it is always worth reminding myself and others why I am doing this and there could be no better reminder than watching the BBC Natural World programme about Panthera’s work the other day. The programme Mountain Lions: Big Cats in High Places was shown on BBC 2 last Tuesday and it is still available on the iPlayer until mid July (for anyone not in the UK, not sure if or where you can catch it). Watch it if you get a chance. It is amazing footage and shares some of the latest insights and information about Mountain Lion behaviour. It is also a really good example of why I want to support Panthera’s work. The Mountain Lion project which is the focus of the programme shows how Panthera enables scientists to do their thing and to fully understand the big cats and their lives. The programme shows how detailed and rigorous scientific work can challenge our preceptions of how  big cats live their lives. The better we understand them, the better we can protect them.

So, this is just a quick opportunity for me to say thank you to Panthera. Thank you for doing the work that you do. Thank you for protecting the big cats of this world and for trying to make sure that we do not have to experience a world without them. Thank you for bringing us amazing pictures and amazing stories of amazing creatures. This is also an opportunity for me to reiterate our support for Panthera. Our running efforts are about that support. It may have all sorts of benefits for us personally but ultimately this is all about raising money so Panthera can continue the brilliant work they do. Our first ‘race’ is in 2 weeks’ time. If you can support us and therefore Panthera then please do. Thank you to those of you who have already sponsored us. If you haven’t already then you can do so on our Justgiving Page. Seeing donations come in or hearing about direct donations to Panthera really does help! It reminds me why I started in the first place and it reminds me that giving up just isn’t an option!

Thank you

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.

A month to our first race

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A month exactly to our first race – The Leeds run for all 10km. Can’t decide if I am looking forward to it or not. I am sort of keen to see our progress and whether we can post a half decent (by my standards, not by actual runner’s standards!) time. I don’t like crowds though, particularly not at the moment, and I’m a bit worried about how I’ll cope being surrounded by people who actually know what they’re doing. However, I am holding on to the notion that maybe, just maybe we also know what we’re doing. Or at least we are trying to follow the guidance of someone who does by following the RunDisney plans designed by Jeff Galloway.

That brings me to another little rant about Runner’s World (I am actually beginning to quite enjoy reading the magazine and would actually recommend it – my rants say more about me than the mag!). I was looking at the April issue which had something about training which has easy runs/sections and hard sections and less of the middle ground. All sort of made sense (except that ‘easy’ in my case would have to be walking) until I looked at the table for a sample week. According to that table a 6 miles ‘easy’ run would result in 50 minutes of easy running. 8 miles in 65 minutes. What? 6 miles in 50 minutes? I know that’s doable. I’ve seen people do it but that IS NOT an easy pace; that’s an impossible pace for me. Runner’s World is full of stuff that to me just seems impossible. And when everything in a magazine is just so far out of reach it is easy to get completely disillusioned with the whole thing. So I stopped reading and instead took another look at the Jeff Galloway website. Ok, looking at this I do feel a little bit like a runner. Here the numbers make sense, they are possible, even now. We haven’t quite stuck to the run/walk ratio suggested and we haven’t really done the magic mile measurement since the beginning but we are working with the principle of walk breaks from the start and not worrying about having to keep running for long stretches. We are comfortable at 2 minutes running and 30 secs walking for now. It gets me to the end of the longer distances without injury and without feeling that I can’t do it. It means I finish each run strongly and usually feel pretty positive about it even where I’ve had a wobble along the way. Other than when I had my little calf niggle the other day, there hasn’t been a run I couldn’t finish or one I could barely finish.

I also love the fact that his advice is to not worry about time for a first time marathon. He says:

“I don’t recommend that first-time marathon participants try for a time goal. Do the first one to finish, running/walking at a comfortable training pace.”
Yes! I can do that. I actually believe I can do that. And what is even better, the examples he lists include the sort of pace we’ve been working at. Jeff Galloway also says:
“You are the one who determines how much you run and how much you walk. One of the wonderful aspects of running is that there is no definition of a “runner” that you must live up to“
Oh my – is it possible that I am a runner after all?

5 Miles!

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It seems very few things are impossible (apart from doing the extended puppy yoga pose without face planting first!). I did the 5 miles this morning. That’s 8.04672km, also known as a long way. We ran along the flat along the canal and we went for scenic rather than even path and headed towards Silsden/Skipton way. It also has the advantage of being slightly quieter than going the other way. We ran 2 minutes walked 30 seconds for most of it (see below – go me!) and we were out 1 hour, 7 minutes and 59 seconds which gives us an average pace of 13.37 minutes per mile. So how was it? Well I didn’t hate it. I remember some very young ducklings – 8 or so in a brood (they move, so counting is tricky) and further along there were some bright yellow ducklings – bathtub rubber duck lookalikes and very cute. There were also a few people out on bikes and one or two dog walkers but mostly it was quiet. So I remember stuff from the run which is a good sign. The first couple of runs were awful but then we settled into things and as we went through 1 mile it seemed to be going fine.

A little while after that 1 mile mark the path turns from proper footpath to just a track and grass bank and I lost all confidence in my footing. I felt like bambi on ice and had a couple of nasty little pulls in my calf muscle and in my left ankle. We slowed off dramatically with the pace dropping to something like 14.5 minutes per mile. I wobbled myself on to 2.5 miles and we turned round. I still felt a bit unsure of my footing for the next two runs and then something changed. Partly I just wanted to get off the uneven ground and partly I gave myself a right good talking to in my head. We started running again and I felt great (well I felt like I could go a bit faster and I wasn’t huffing and puffing); we missed out the next walk, I still felt strong, we missed out another walk. I ran for 7 minutes at what I now know was a fairly even pace around 13 minutes per mile. Then we walked our 30 second walk break and all felt pretty good. Another couple of runs later and it was starting to get hard but then, quite suddenly really, there was less than a mile left, then half a mile and from there I just kept going – focusing on the bridge where we started. 5 miles, done and I feel ok. I paced up and down a bit sucking in the air and then we walked back to the car. I was talking before we got in the car, I could breathe. I felt fine. I’ve had a shower, nothing hurts, all good. 5 miles. Done. Oh and for those of you are wondering what an extended puppy pose is. Here you are: The one on the left is from a yoga classes page – the one on the right is more akin to what I am sure I end up doing!