Tag: run/walk

December running

Jess Guth1 Comment

Right well December running hasn’t quite go to plan.  So after the speed work session I last blogged about, I next made it out 4 days later for a rather pitiful 2 miles on the work gym treadmill (urgh). I wasn’t really motivated and I was busy at work and tired and just didn’t kick my butt out the door. It also got icy. I am terrified when it gets icy.  On the 16th we managed a run out to post/deliver our Christmas cards  – just short of 4.5 miles, During that run my feet and calves really started hurting but I just put that down to me being stupidly tense and bambi-esque because of it being slippery.  On the 19th it was finally warmer and we headed to Bolton Abbey for a 7 ish mile loop – of which I managed 1 and a bit before having to hobble back to the cafe in agony. I sat having coffee, waiting for Kath to finish the loop and feeling miserable until a gorgeous little robin joined me. Then I remembered that just being able to get out and enjoy being outside is so much more than many have.

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I tried two more runs of 5km ish but on each I had to walk pretty much everything after the first mile because of pain in my feet/calves/ankles or a combination. My calf muscles just seem to go incredibly tight and then every step feels like it might make them pop, my feet feel bruised on top and achey and like they’re on fire everywhere else and my ankles just feel like they are not strong enough to hold it all together. It eases a little if I walk very slowly but as soon as I start running again it comes back immediately. From past experience I suspect that the actual problem is really tight hamstrings coupled with weak calf muscles so I’m working on both those things

IMG_8159I did throw in some hill sprints on one of the almost abandoned runs just to not be too disappointed. That worked because I’d run about a mile, then walked a bit, then run another mile and then walked most of the last mile before the hills. At least I had a decent workout. Yesterday we were going to do two loops to add up to a total of 8 miles but I didn’t make it round the first so instead I stretched, foam rolled, stretched, hydrated, stretched…

This morning I went out again. I borrowed Kath’s watch so I could set run/walk intervals. I went for 30 seconds run followed by 30 seconds walk. I set off on pretty much the most direct runnable route to the canal and was so relieved when I passed the 1 mile beep without any pain. My feet were achey but not painful and everything else felt normal. Just after two miles my calves started feeling tight so at the stone bridge where I was going to turn round, I stopped a few minutes and stretched everything out (apologies to the sheep who had to watch that). Then  I set off back. Felt ok. On the way back I tried to run the 30 second runs hard. I got a little more than a niggle in my left foot just before 4 miles but I was at the big hill anyway so walked up and then ran/walked the rest home. It was so good to get out and actually be able to cover the distance. I’m continuing to stretch and am working on strengthening my calf muscles again. For now I think I’ll be back to run/walk at least until I can do that without any niggles. Happy to have covered 4.5 miles today though and the morning light along the canal bank was stunning.

For most of my run it was just me and the ducks. I saw a couple of swans who seemed to be deep in conversation as they floated down the canal, heads close together leaning in to each other. Further along I saw a guy fishing and we exchanged good mornings both of us slightly irritated that our solitude had been interrupted. Towards the end of my run, as I left the calm and quiet company of the ducks and made my way up through the housing estate, I saw a child in a Rudolph onesie playing on swings in a garden and a bloke trying to untangle his headphones from his dog’s lead. That’s it. There was something of the magic of Christmas eve out there and I was happy to be part of it.

Re-setting the mind

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Why did I start running? Well I suppose the handful of attempts at various Couch to 5km programmes in my late teens and twenties were about getting fitter but my heart was never really in it. Then there was the 2013 half marathon in memory of Rachel, well my heart wasn’t really in the running bit then either.  Then I started again because it was a way to try and shift some weight and then there was Dopey and London and and and… At some point though my reason for running became running. I run to get out, to enjoy being outside, to explore, to see places, to notice nature, to be healthier. But recently that’s not where my focus has been. It’s been on performance. It’s been on distance, on pace and on measuring ‘better’ by how far I could go and how fast. Sometimes that’s fine I suppose because sometimes running regularly means I am able to go faster and further but mostly it’s not helpful for me to measure ‘better’ by distance and pace. Measuring better or even good in that way just makes me miserable.

I was thinking about all this as I was plodding my way through 4.4 miles using run/walk intervals this early lunchtime. After a few weeks of feeling the pressure of running and of trying to distance myself from the idiocy of about 80% of what I, along with most academics, do at work, I could feel myself slipping towards that place where the sofa becomes the safe space and leaving it gets harder and harder. I was beginning to feel like I wasn’t good at anything and that everything I was doing wasn’t good enough. But of course that’s not true and when I stop to think rather than just feel, I know this. So after a morning of feeling like I couldn’t really get out of bed, postponing our planned adventure to Haworth for a run and eventually going out for breakfast instead I somehow made it out the door for a run. I agreed to running intervals and taking the pressure off.  I didn’t actually want to go at all but I’d run out or energy to argue. 2 minutes running, 30 seconds walking – that seemed doable.

There were bits of the run where I managed to just enjoy being out and being able to move, to feel the wind in my face and be aware of the sweat tingling down the middle of my back. There were moments when seeing the geese grumbling irritably at the swans and their young made me smile and when I remembered to look out for the kingfisher (no luck today). There were stretches where I was completely aware of my body doing what it can to move as effectively as it can, I was aware of my breathing, of my feet striking the towpath lightly and moving off again, my arms moving in harmony with my legs that even at 3.5 miles weren’t feeling the slightest bit tired yet. Running can be the easiest and the hardest thing to do all at the same time. I couldn’t quite get my head out of better being distance and pace because I was pleased to have gone further than the last run and a little annoyed that it was quite slow but also happy it was under 13 minute mile pace. But if we take a healthier, happier definitions of what a good run might be then this was on the right track. It was a good run because I wasn’t miserable, because I enjoyed being out, because I looked around and saw the autumn colours and the ducks and the dogs going about their business.

So I am trying to re-set my mind – to stop thinking about ‘good’ and ‘better’ using traditional or usual measures of progress. And I don’t mean just for running. It’s all about trying to work out what’s important and hanging on to that. How fast I can go is really irrelevant. How far I can go is a little more relevant but actually not much – I can always walk and if how fast doesn’t matter then the how far question is far far less important. So today’s run was the start of refocusing on the things that matter.

 

 

Running with Kingfishers

Jess Guth3 Comments

Isn’t it funny how things get in your head. I don’t remember being particularly bothered by the man on a bike incident yesterday. It was irritating but I found it almost funny yesterday but it seems it got to me. It seems it got into my head and stole my running mojo, shattered my confidence and confirmed everything I should bloody well know by now: I can’t do this. I’m too fat to run. I’m unfit. I have no place parading my wobbly bits out in public. I should go back to the sofa with my packet of biscuits.

I woke up terrified of our long run. The last time I was this anxious about a run was, actually I’m not sure. Disney Paris half marathon maybe. I actually felt like I might be sick. It’s idiotic. It was a gorgeous morning, the planned route was flat and a point to point run. There was absolutely nothing to be scared of. It’s a little further than I have been recently but only by a mile and a bit. We had time, we planned to run/walk, there was no pressure…and yet I was terrified.

I had my slice of toast with peanut butter and a drink of water and then we drove out towards Skipton to drop our car off to be serviced. Once that was sorted we found a path onto the canal towpath and set off. We ran/walked the first two miles using 2 minute run/30 second walk intervals. Almost immediately we saw 2 gorgeous herons in a field IMG_6866on the other side of the canal. They were stunning and a few steps further on we found 2 heron feathers (now a little worse for wear after spending the next 2 hours in our pockets). In spite of the herons – our good run omen – I couldn’t settle. Both knees felt niggly, my feet felt like they were moving too much in my shoes, my left shin felt tender. The phrase ‘you’ll have to run faster than that’ kept popping into my head. I kept pushing it back. It changed to ‘I don’t know why you bother running at all’. I pushed it back. Then I got ‘come on, you’re part of an online running club for fat women – they can’t run and neither can you’. I got a bit cross at that because those women are bloody inspirational and amazing and brilliant runners. I pushed it back but my mind wasn’t having any of it. ‘You’re such a disappointment, look at you wheezing after less than 2 miles’. I wasn’t wheezing, well not until I thought that anyway. By mile 2 I was mentally exhausted and my tummy was gurgling ominously too.

I suggested that Kath ran on and I’d just walk. I felt awful for ruining her run and generally just pretty crap. I was losing the battle in my head and was beginning to firmly believe that running just isn’t for me, that I had no business being out there in my marathon T-shirt which I don’t deserve anyway because I walked most of it. Kath wouldn’t leave me. I was furious and relieved at the same time. I’d resigned myself to walking home sobbing my way through the remaining 6 miles and I really really didn’t want to ruin her run. We just kept walking. I thought about how disappointed all the lovely people in the Run1000miles Facebook group would be. They’d said such lovely things about my running and progress recently and now they’d realise that it was all just a fluke and that I’m just an imposter. Not really a runner, not even any good at pretending to be a runner. I wasn’t breathing.

As I walked and listened to nothing but my footsteps my breathing got easier and deeper and I realised I’d stopped thinking about anything. My mind was quieter. We’d been walking for most of mile 3. Kath was still there with me having refused to leave me behind. I wondered if she might help me run a little bit, just a little bit to see if I could do it mentally or whether everything would start screaming at me again. We walked past some dog walkers and then had a little jog to the next bridge. It felt ok. We crossed the road and then set off on another little jog and I felt ok. So we kept going, slowly and steadily. Then we saw the familiar yet often so elusive flash of blue – a kingfisher darted out of a tree and flew down the middle of the canal. It landed in a tree further ahead and then we saw a second one. They were catching up and leapfrogging each other, sometimes flying a little loop around each other, sometimes coming quite close, sometimes staying further apart. They both dived into the canal with hardly a splash and re-emerged looking magnificent. Eventually we lost sight of one of them but the other was still flying ahead, waiting for us, showing the way. I was still running.

Then there was a sudden unexpected movement just to my left, a thud and then a weird, and I mean really weird, noise as Kath tripped over something, hit the floor and somehow deflated. The noise and her staying down for an unusually long time really worried me but she was fine. In an effort to protect her garmin, she’d lifted her wrist up and got her elbow underneath her into her ribs, deflating and winding herself in the process. Like a true runner though she’d stopped the garmin before she even hit the deck. She’d been watching the kingfisher rather than where she was going. A little more carefully we kept following the kingfisher for a while longer before it flew a loop over the field opposite and headed back towards its mate which was now somewhere behind us. We’d been running with them for just over half a mile.

After having run a mile, I walked a bit to give my tummy chance to settle again – it was getting ‘unreliable’ with running. I was beginning to feel better. I was better at pushing the negatives back. I was making progress. I reminded myself that there was a time I couldn’t have run any of this. I took time to note that the slightly muddy and uneven terrain wasn’t bothering me whereas once it would have sent me into a meltdown. I noted that I was recovering from running segments much much much more quickly. I ran a bit of the 5th and 6th miles but we also took the opportunity to walk and chat about work we want doing on the house and holidays we’re planning (how to spend money basically). Then I ran the 7th mile and at about 7.5 miles Kath crossed the canal to head home and I carried on to go get milk. I didn’t run much after Kath left. It felt a bit lonely all of a sudden and I knew that my running form had gone. My hips were tight and the niggle in my shin I’d forgotten about was back.

Another blue flash, another kingfisher. I watched it fly down the middle of the canal until it went out of sight. It was stunning. I decided to run in short little bursts between landmarks and really concentrate on maintaining good running form for those short bursts. After the first two short bursts my phone rang. The garage  – they wanted to let me know that the car was done and they were on their way to drop it off – so the car got home before I did – luckily Kath got home before both of us. Once I’d stashed my phone again I had another short little burst and that’s how I made my way to the post office where I bought milk and some “Green Machine’ juice (apple, banana, kiwi, pineapple, spinach and some other green stuff) because I just really really wanted something other than the water in my little bottles which tasted like rubber left out in the sun for too long. Then I walked up the hill home.

I don’t know what to think about that outing. 9.1 miles, 2 hours 22 minutes. I am disappointed but I’m not quite sure with what. I’m ready for my rest day. I need it physically but maybe more importantly, I need it mentally. I have seen amazing things today. The herons at the start were just fantastic, they were walking in the field and some lambs were having  good look at them and then the herons flew off showing off their pretty spectacular wing span. There were swans and geese and ducks – all with young ones. Close to home there were cows with calves in a field on the opposite side of the canal and the calves ran along the canal bank with us for a bit. And we ran with kingfishers. Maybe it’s a good outing after all because running with kingfishers is pretty special – whatever else is going on.

A sort of commute run

Jess Guth1 Comment

Today I was working in a cafe about 3 miles away from home. My initial plan was to walk but then I thought I might as well run. I didn’t want to overdo it as we’re supposed to be doing a longer run tomorrow and I ran Monday and Tuesday as well so I thought just a steady run there and then a run/walk back or perhaps the bus back. I haven’t run with a back pack for ages and ages and I have never run with it with work stuff in like this. But I comfortably fitted my MacBook and some papers together with a jumper, my rain jacket, my wallet, some baby wipes and some deodorant into my little Jack Wolfskin pack (I reviewed it after first buying it here). It felt ok on my back, not too heavy and not bouncing much. I set off and ran down the hill and onto the canal bank. I felt comfortable and kept telling myself to slow down but somehow I never really did slow – I was happily running under 12 minute mile pace. At this rate I was going to be far too early. I’d been expecting to go slow and then slow down even further because of the backpack.

At about a mile and a half I decided to run to 2 miles and then walk the final mile-ish to IMG_6858cool down a little and not have to hang around outside the cafe for ages. It was a lovely little run out.

On the way back I was going to run/walk 1 minute 1 minute to take it nice and easy. I walked the uneven bits negotiating the huge puddles and planned to start running when I got to the proper canal towpath. There was a cyclist just in front of me cycling just above my walking pace. He then stopped and adjusted his boot and was then cycling next to me which I found a bit irritating. Just as I started to run he deliberately pulled his bike across the path and blocked my way. I wasn’t too concerned, there were loads of people around but it was irritating. He said ‘You’re going to have to run faster than that’. I said ‘For what?’ He said ‘If you want to lose weight, you’ll have to run faster’. This really pissed me off but I just smiled and said ‘Really? Cool. I’ve got a pen and paper here somewhere, could you write down the references to the research explaining how that works, I’d love to check that out.’ He shrugged and said ‘Well it’s obvious innit’. I said ‘Well you’re obviously the expert so if you could just point me to the sports science journals I should be looking at, that would be awesome’. His response: ‘Don’t give me that brainy shit’. I took a step forward and he moved his front wheel enough to let me through so I left him with ‘Given that you’re the one cycling at my walking pace, I don’t think it’s me who has an issue with speed’. I forgot the run/walk and kept running because I didn’t really fancy continuing that conversation. I ran until I hit a mile, then I walked a little while and then ran the last bit along the flat before walking up the hill home (where I saw the gorgeous – if slightly evil looking cat).

I enjoyed today – both the running and the writing and I’m pleased with how my little back pack worked out. It’s comfortable and crucially doesn’t bounce. I think I shall stick with that for now. I have a hydration pack for it and I think it will be ok for the really long distances in the future. I’m not going to need it for that for a while – the little bottles we bought recently and new Alpkit pants with pockets on the legs will do for anything I’m attempting at the mo. Hm. I seem to have mentioned various pieces of kit and shoes etc recently – it may be time to do some review posts. I’ll get to that over the next week or so.

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Happy running!

I don’t remember the beginning

Jess Guth2 Comments

I have had several conversations (face to face or virtual) recently about starting running and about my running journey and about how the hell I got to be someone who can run several miles without walking and who isn’t scared of taking on distance. I hadn’t really realised I was no longer scared of distance. I noticed at Endure24 that I felt like I had a right to be there whereas at a 5k or 10k road race I’d feel like an impostor and I’d feel apologetic for my lack of speed. At some point on this journey I must have realised I can do distance – it may involve lots of walking and it will never be fast but I will get there.

But how did I get here? I can trot out advice about starting running that is sort of based on my experience but only sort of because to be honest, I don’t really remember. I remember starting (at various points in my life but particularly around January 2015) a fairly typical couch to 5k programme. I’ve never finished one. The last iteration I hated. I felt miserable before a run, during a run and mostly also after a run. I wanted to do it to get fitter and shift the substantial extra weight but I hated it. Instead of giving up I looked for something else. I tried Jeff Galloway’s method of run/walk. Somehow this really helped. I don’t know what my first intervals were – I want to say 30 seconds running, 30 seconds walking but from nothing that actually sounds like quite a lot of running. I think if you’re going from no running at all even 10 seconds and then walking the rest of the minute is great.

So why did this work for me? Less pressure I guess. There wasn’t this constant ‘next time you’ve got to run for longer’ feeling. It was always – ‘you’re going out for 30 minutes and doing your thing’. I soon found that I was running faster, walking faster and overall going further in the 30 minutes. At some point I must have upped the running and played with intervals but I don’t remember how incremental this was or what we did – some of this may of course be in the early blog posts (haven’t gone back to look – I’m interested in me not really remembering). I remember for quite a while working with 3 minute running and either 30 seconds or 1 minute walking but then beginning to struggle with that as the distances increased and settling on what became my favourite of 2 minutes running and 1 minute walking. It’s what I come back to now when I am struggling – whether mentally or physically.

More recently, and I think this is a strange and tentative new found running confidence, I have wanted to run more consistently without walk breaks. It’s not that I don’t like run/walk or think it’s cheating – it’s not and I’m often faster doing run/walk than running consistently – it’s just that it feels like that’s next in my journey. I also feel like I want to be less regimented. I do often still walk a bit even on shorter runs but I run more by feel now. I use landmarks to determine my intervals and somehow that feels more relaxed than being ruled by the beep of a watch.

So do I have advice for anyone starting out? Yeah I do – it’s bloody hard and you have to try and enjoy it and the way to enjoy it is to rid your head of unrealistic expectations. Running for 30 seconds or even 20 or 10 sounds like nothing but it isn’t nothing. It’s a very very big something. Go out for 30 minutes and take each minute as it comes. Depending on your level of general fitness try running 10 seconds, 20, 30 or even 40 and then walk the rest of the minute. If you can do that comfortably for each of the 30 minutes, try upping the running bit next time. See how you go. Don’t feel like you have to keep increasing the running portion. Settle in at an interval you like and go with that for a bit. Don’t get too competitive,enjoy being outside, learn to look around, learn to smile while you’re running, give yourself permission to stop to look at something interesting. It’s not about getting through it or getting to the end of your 30 minutes having covered as much distance as possible – it’s about learning to love running and doing it for you. The rest will follow if you want it to – but it’s taken me this long to figure out that maybe I don’t care if it doesn’t. I like stopping and watching a heron on the canal bank and I like it far more than seeing a fast time on my garmin at the end of my run.