Tag: running

The one where Jess has an outrageous idea

Jess Guth3 Comments

Sometimes I really wish the filter between my brain and mouth was a little more effective. Before I had really thought through the implications of my thoughts I had said them out loud: ‘should we try a completely different route today and go up?’ What an idiot! Should we go up!?! Go up! Seriously! Up as in uphill. You stupid girl.

So there you have it – we went up, we left our house and turned right rather than left at the end of our road. What an outrageous idea. It is seriously up. Not massively steep but relentlessly, steadily up – even when you are going down a little slope you are actually still going up. Why oh why can’t I keep my mouth shut. We walked up the first stretch and then we set off. As well as going uphill we also extended the running section of our run/walk routine to 2 minutes 30 seconds, what an utterly brilliant idea, yeah really. By the time we got to the end of the second run my thighs were actually burning. We kept going – slowly, in some sections probably running slower than we could have walked, but we kept running until the watch beeped and told us to walk. It was an utterly outrageous thing to do. I huff and puff enough on the flat and too much going up the little slopes that our ‘going past the sheep’ route has. Stupid.

But sometimes outrageous ideas are the best. The uphill route is an utterly stunning road to run along. There is virutally no traffic – it is a dead end for traffic and eventually turns into a track which is unsuitable for cars  – we didn’t get that far though. That would be another level of up at the end. Not quite ready for that. If you keep going you get to Ilkley across the moors. (It’s about 5 miles I think). As we set off there was a curlew on a drystone wall watching us as if it was waving us off. We saw cows and sheep and lots of birds, curlews mostly but also lots of smaller ones. There was lots to see and that kept me going for a bit as well as the fact that running uphill had been my idea so I couldn’t very well complain now.

As we got about half way through run number 7 we were heading up a steepish bit  and I felt my right calf muscle twinge a little bit. I was also completely puffed so I’m actually not quite sure whether my calf twinge was just an excuse to stop. We stopped and walked the rest of that run interval and the 30 second walk break and turned round.

Now we were essentially heading downhill all the way and even when we were going up little slopes we were still essentially going down. I got my breath back and settled in. The views are spectacular. We were minutes from our house really and in breathtaking scenery. Obviously I know it is there but most of the time I take it completely for granted and don’t stop to look. While running I was enjoying looking. I took the next walk break out and then the next and the next. I was looking around and taking in the view. Then we caught up with a dog walker who turned out to be someone we know  – she was walking really fast so we slowed our jog and had a  chat with her for a couple of minutes – but kept on running. Then we carried on and I was still running. It was odd, it was fun. We ran all the way home. We finished a little early but it seemed silly to run round in circles round our street for the sake of it. It made sense to just stop when we got home. So, we ran about 41 minutes and just over 3 miles with a pace of just over 13 minutes per mile.

We’ve been home about 2 and a half hours – we’ve had breaded cod pieces and sweet potato oven chips with a yoghurt dip for tea and I am about to jump in the bath – if I can move that is. My legs have had to do all sorts of new things today – go uphill far more than ever before, go downhill far more than ever before and keep going for far longer than ever before without a walk break – no wonder they are protesting a little!

Food plans, 3 miles and neglected feet

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Sunday weigh-in. I wasn’t looking forward to this one. Last week was not a good healthy eating week. I was therefore surprised to have lost a pound and a bit. Still going in the right direction!

I could not wake up this morning, just couldn’t. I actually wanted to go for the scheduled run but I kept falling back alseep and when I did eventually get up we decided that we’d better brave our trip to Ikea before it got too hideously busy and postpone the run until this afternoon. We were going to do 5 miles. The programme actually stipulates 3 miles for this weekend but we thought it was important to get really comfortable at the 5/6 mile distance so we were planning on doing 5 instead of 3. However, once we got back from Ikea, we still had loads to do this afternoon and Kath wanted to try out a camelback water bottle belt thingy she got free so we thought we’d just do the 3 miles. That way we’d stick to the programme but could also get on with other stuff (haha – I’ve been curled up on our spare bed since we got back!).

The water bottle holder thingy was utter rubbish. It doesn’t sit tight enough and is obviously made for blokes and not for hips at all. Luckily we were going past Kath’s mum’s  on our run so she could discard it there. Taking water etc with us is going to need a re-think. Kath was obviously on a bit of a mission today and kept pushing so we got round with a pace of 11.41 minutes per mile. I was rather puffed but happy with that.

I mentioned that we had a better plan for food for the coming week (if we stick to it). We are going to have (no particular order) salmon steaks with sweet potato oven chips and a yoghurt dip, a veggie home made curry, quorn chilli, chicken and avocado salad, beef stirfry and if we really can’t be bothered a baked spud. Breakfast – the usual really: Scrambled eggs, mushrooms on toast, porridge, peanut butter on toast, fruit and yoghurt… Lunches will be mainly left overs and salads. We don’t yet have any naughty nibbles. I was going to make a banana loaf but our bananas were too far gone even for that. We’ve got some chocolate biscuits but that’s not really quite the ‘having a relatively healthy treat’ thing that we had in mind with our usual weekend baking. They might have to do though.

We stopped at mum’s after our run and as I stretched my leg out towards her she pointed out that I had blood on my sock. My feet have gone a bit weird recently. I have always had pretty solid feet. I don’t tend to get blisters easily but I’ve had a couple lately. Interestingly I didn’t get them on the longer runs – maybe I just take more care when setting out on them. The blood was however not from a blister but from a little cut on the inside of one of my toes. The nail from the toe next to it must have caught it. I have now cut my nails and cleaned it all up. It seems fine but I do think it is probably time to give my feet some tlc and pay a bit more attention to them, I probably have been neglecting them a bit!

5 months to go to the runDisney marathon – I really am insane.

Default setting ‘Hungry’

Jess Guth2 Comments

Well, since the Leeds 10k it seems my default setting has been ‘hungry’ and ‘not running’. It has also been a really busy week with work and other stuff. So here’s my weekly run re-cap

Monday: rest day (intended, went out for curry)

Tuesday: rest day (shearing sheep, drank lots of coke, had crisps and chocolate)

Wednesday: rest day (Yorkshire show, hot, walked a lot, had brownie and ice cream and who knows what else, went to see friends, drank lots of wine)

Thursday: rest day (graduation  – late-ish home, betteron food I think but there were crisps at graduation)

Friday: rest day (ran out of excuses, had lots of biscuits at work)

Today: 45 minute run – 3.72 miles I think. It was quite a nice positive run. No wobbles along the way, no ‘I can’t do this momements’ just a steady plod past our sheep, through the wood, down the golf course and along the canal. It was nice to be out but motivation for running has been at zero.

This evening I’ve been looking at the World Disney World site to start planning and think about booking a couple of nice restaurants etc which we know get booked up. Looking through everything and seeing the pictures I got a little bit excited and that running motivation I’ve been struggling to find this last week came back. If I am going to go to all these nice food places and if I am going to enjoy the trip I need to be able to run the marathon. Anything else would be disappointing – the only way I am going to achieve that is by getting my butt on the road now! I’m looking forward to heading out for our 5 mile run tomorrow and we’ve gone through our diaries to work out when we can get the weekly training runs in including making up for the one that we missed this week.

We have also got a plan for food next week and went shopping based on that plan so I think we are back on track and a better food plan might help me nudge my default setting to something that doesn’t result in me eating my own body weight in biscuits, crisps and other crap! I am not looking forward to the weigh-in tomorrow but I am back in the game (again).

Running in Paris

Jess GuthLeave a comment

We’ve just got back from Paris. It has been an interesting few days of conference, museums, sun, people watching, lots of walking and yes – a run. We were really aiming for two but somehow that didn’t happen. Although I was looking forward to running in Paris, the idea of running in the city wasn’t that appealing. After arriving on Tuesday evening we went for a little walk and found one of the running routes I had seen online. It was only about 5-10 minute walk from the hotel  – so a nice little warm up really. So Wednesday morning we got up and got ready to run. We walked towards the Jardin du Luxembourg and started our run at this rather odd looking fountain in the Jardin Marco Polo (according to Wikipedia it is the Fountain de l’Observatoire)

We went left along the garden/park. When we got right to the end, the gate wasn’t unlooked yet  (you can see the gate at the end of Jardin Marco Polo and the big ones to Jardin du Luxembourg in the first picture below)- there was someone just going round unlocking everything so we did a little circuit round that section and by the time we came round again the gate was open. I do quite like the turtles in the fountain even if the rest if pretty hideous – there was no water on yet when we went for the run but I’ve included one picture with water just for fun. At the end of Jardin Marco Polo, you need to cross a little road and then we entered Jardin du Luxembourg through the gates  and turned left to run clockwise round it (mainly because everyone else seemed to be running anti-clockwise). It was relatively flat with just a very very gentle slope in a couple of places and the gravel path all the way round was even and easy to run on. There were quite a few runners and I was quite surprised that they didn’t really bother me. Everyone was just doing their own thing and some were going quite fast and others were just plodding along – possibly even slower that we were. It was a spectcular place to run with the path taking you right in front of the Palais du Luxembourg, home of the French Senat and through the gardens which was nice. Here are a few pictures to give you a sense

I was too busy looking around to really think about running and it was quite warm and I wasn’t used to having to go round obstacles (usually metal chairs left randomly in the path) and other runners so it was quite slow. A pace of just over 13 minutes per mile but it was a good positive run around people so all good practice and doing two loops of the park before then heading back towards the hotel meant I got to see stuff I’d missed on loop one.

The second run didn’t happen because we slept in, bought a breakfast picnic and sat in the park rather than running round it. As far as excuses go we did pretty well because we decided that we were walking so many miles (we did walk most places just using the metro a couple of times) looking at the sights that we could get away with not running. As excuses go, this is one of our more plausible ones!

Just to be clear though – I’m nowhere near actually liking running as ‘a thing’. I’m doing it and I’m quite proud of myself for that but I am doing it because I want to raise money for Panthera, anything else is really just a bonus. So as a reminder of what this is all about here’s us in our Panthera t-shirts in a silly Paris selfie (do not get me started on selfie-sticks) and us training hard (ahem – celebrating Kath’s birthday, our run in Paris and my pretty successful conference).

Thank you to those of you who have already sponsored us – and for those of you haven’t, if you can please do so here –  we’d really appreciate the boost just before our first ‘race’ tomorrow – the Leeds 10km Run for All.

Looking forward to running in Paris

Jess Guth3 Comments

Yes, that’s right, I just used looking forward to and running in the same sentence without a negative. I am quite excited about running in Paris. I have just spent the last half hour looking at possible running routes and printing them off. We are heading to Paris on Tuesday (until Saturday). I am going to a conference and Kath is tagging along. I have been to Paris before, once but that was a long time ago and I really don’t remember all that much about it. I think it was in February and I think it was cold. Not likely to be cold next week!

It’s only a week to go until our 10km Leeds run. A week! I am a little anxious but actually I feel quite positive. We are sticking to the training. I am doing the runs, ticking them off one by one. I am getting stronger and I know I can do the distance. I am not setting out to go fast or finish in a particular time, I just want to re-learn what it’s like to run in a crowd, figure out how to make the run/walk intervals work without pissing other runners off and of course I want the medal at the end – obviously. There are only two more runs before then and at least one of them will be in Paris (travel times are awkward so we may go tomorrow and then do one run in Paris or we may not go tomorrow and then to Wed/Thurs back to back in Paris). I’m excited.

We did our weekend distance run yesterday. 5 miles. It was tough, it was hot. I had spent all day at our Open Day at work and most of that was spent at our stand in the main atrium of the university which has a glass (or whatever) roof. It’s a bit greenhouse like at the best of times but as the sun made its way up into the sky it seemed to focus all its energy on little me at the stand so by the time I got home I was hot and bothered and sweaty and tired from being on my feet all day. We debated putting the run off until this morning but I decided that as I was already sweaty I might as well get more sweaty. I coped better with the heat this time than last time we ran in the really hot weather, I didn’t have to shorten the runs and increase the walks. It felt slow but ok. I was also mentally stronger. I nearly suggested we just do 3 miles  – it was hot you know – then we passed 3 miles and I thought I might suggest that we stop at 4 miles but then I got distracted watching a moorhen and her chicks and suddenly Kath said ‘that’s 4.1 miles’. Well it seemed silly not do get to 5 then however much I was struggling.

I had no sense at all of pace etc. I just knew I’d found it really quite tough and that patches had felt really really slow. I was surprised when Kath said that our  average pace had been 12.54 minutes per mile and we’d been out 1 hour, 4 minutes and 37 seconds. It’s the first time our pace has been under 13 minutes per mile on anything over 3 miles. I walked up the hill happy, if a little puffed and very sweaty.

So, bring on Paris, bring on Leeds actually! Oh and it’s Sunday – weigh-in day. I’ve lost a pound in spite of the midweek pizza and quite a lot of bread and eating on the go more often that I would have liked.

Happy Sunday