Tag: run/walk

Wimping out (sensibly?)

Jess Guth3 Comments

I have spent much of the night listening to the wind and rain. At just before 6am we gave up on sleep and instead studied the weather forecast and radar pictures. There is a weather warning in force for this area for wind and rain and the forecast radar looked wet indeed. So we decided that being out in this weather for several hours wasn’t a good plan. It did say that the rain would clear by midday and give way to showers but that would still mean running for 2.5 ish hours in heavy rain and then still have another 2.5 ish hours to go – possibly in showers and definitly in a biting, strong wind. Going later doesn’t work either because we’d run out of daylight. No 23 miles for us today.

At this point I really need to get to the start line without injury and without any major setbacks. Getting a cold because of being soaked and cold for 5 hours would be a major setback and sustaining an injury because of slipping on the mud would be a disaster. So the plan is to do a 23 mile run on whatever day looks more favourable next weekend. Thinking about it we should probably have prioritised the run over the walk this weekend – we would have been wet but it was probably doable yesterday…

The thing is, I am oddly calm about the distance. I walked 10 miles yesterday and I feel no different today than if I hadn’t walked at all. No tightness or soreness, not even in my right calf muscle. 26.2 miles will be fine – it will be slow and it will be tough and I’m sure there will be times along the way where I just want to stop but it will be fine. How slow exactly it will be might well depend on the weather over the next few weeks and how much confidence I can get from a couple more long runs – or not

I was perfectly happy with the decision we made but now it has cleared a little and I am second guessing. Maybe we should have got organised to go… although just as a type that it’s started persisting it down again..

I feel like I’m wimping out but I also feel like that might be a sensible sort of wimping out.

Happy Sunday

 

 

 

Walking in the Rain

Jess Guth3 Comments

The marathon training plan had a 4 mile walk yesterday and a 10 mile walk today. I was quite looking forward to both of these because walking isn’t scary – I can walk. The 4 miles yesterday we did once Kath had finished work and we fed the sheep on the way – it was just a nice little walk really even though neither of us could really be bothered. We just walked round in almost, but not quite, grumpy silence and ticked it off.

Today we had the 10 miles to do. We walked the 5 ish miles to Saltaire, had lunch and looked round Salts Mill (I bought a pair of shorts!) and then walked back. It’s probably a bit more than 10 miles door to door because the 5 miles were measured from the canal rather than from home when we ran it I think. It was drizzly on the way there but on the way back it was raining quite heavily for most of the way and we got soaked to our knickers. Still, it was nice to be out.

Walking doesn’t help with my depression/anxiety in the same way running does. Running gives me clarity and headspace that I am very conscious of, walking just helps me not think about anything at all. It’s probably at least as valuable because I suspect it is just letting my brain do its thing to get itself better. I noticed that after a little while surrounded by people I was overwhelmed by noise and busy-ness in my head. I was desperate to get back onto the near deserted canal towpath.

It was a good day for seeing birds along the canal. We saw a kingfisher early on and then a kestrel a bit further on. There were lots of ducks, geese and a few swans on the canal and we also saw some gulls. There were the usual blackbirds and blue tits, a few chaffinches and great tits but we also saw goldfinches and long tail tits. I do like them, they’re like little darts whizzing around and they always sound cheerful

It was good to get home and get into a warm bath and thaw out. It is funny how perception of distance changes – walking to Saltaire used to feel like a really really long way. Today walking there and back didn’t feel like such a big deal really. I was ready to be home with about a mile to go but that was just because I was soaked and getting quite cold. We’ve had a lovely tea of pasta with feta cheese, avocado and chorizo and are now both resting and drinking stupid amounts of water ready for our 23 mile training run tomorrow. I’d rather not think about that too much…

I did and now I don’t

Jess Guth3 Comments

I managed to get out and do my 45 minute run. I did it step by step, getting dressed in running gear, telling myself I could just go as far as the sheep and that I could walk lots if I wanted to… I set off. I said in the blog post early today that my body felt rested and ready to run – hm. I think someone came along and stole my legs and replaced them with lead. I felt so heavy and sluggish but I just kept plodding. I ran the loop I showed you the other day. I had turn round a bit before the usual point at the bridge because there was a sheepdog without a human and I’m scared of dogs. Other than that it was non-eventful. I took a walk break about half way to take my jacket off and then took the next one as well because I just couldn’t get going again. Other than that I ran the entire 45 minutes and ended up doing 3.85 miles with a pace of 11.42 minutes per mile. Then I crawled up the hill. Did I enjoy it? Nope, but I am glad I got it done.

Not long after I got back we had back to back deliveries. The first was for Kath and she disappeared upstairs with it. While she was doing whatever she was doing another parcel came. A lovely hamper  (from Keelham Farm) sent to me by my work colleagues with a note telling me to ‘sit down, have a brew and relax’. They sent flowers yesterday, too – feeling completely overwhelmed. It’s just as well I got the run in before the parcels arrived because Kath appeared with a gift wrapped book – the Illustrated Herdwick Shepherd – so that’s me – I will be on the sofa stuffing my face and reading for the foreseeable future!

 

Long walks, kit check and not doing the long run

Jess Guth3 Comments

Right now I am supposed to be roughly 4 miles into a 20 mile run (from Leeds to home along the Leeds-Liverpool canal) but that’s not happening. Apart from it being a change of plan I am ok about that. We were trying to catch up with the training plan but that turns out not to be very sensible. It would see us do 3 really long walks on Saturdays and long runs on Sundays for 3 consecutive weekends (the training plan actually has 2 ‘easy’ weeks inbetween). It’s too much and today our  bodies let us know. Kath has a twinge in her left knee which feels a bit like her right knee did just before it gave up the ghost for a while and if I am totally honest about it, my right calf muscle is screaming for a rest. So we did the sensible thing and turned this weekend into an ‘easy’ weekend and called the 10.68 miles walk yesterday it.

The walk was nice though. We walked from home along the Leeds-Liverpool canal to Skipton. We weren’t striding out  – just walking along nicely and the pace ended up being about 19 minutes per mile. We stopped at the post office on the way and had a couple of stops early on to watch the kingfisher whizz up and down the canal alongside us and then to watch a second kingfisher further along. It was cold, there was a dusting of snow on the hills and in places the wind was biting. It was nice to be out though. I wouldn’t say it cleared my mind but it stopped me thinking about anything at all. Once in Skipton we went into a pub for food and enjoyed a lovely beef stew before having a little look round the shops and getting the train home. So not much running news!

Skipton walk small
View on way to Skipton with flooded washland and snow capped hills

Last week I went through all my running gear and also bought the last bits and pieces I might need. So I now have a choice of kit to take. I tried the Salomon trainers I hadn’t worn yet on a short run and they were great. I will try them for one long run and providing they’re ok I will take them and my New Balance ones and see how I feel on the day. I have 4 pairs of 3/4 length running pants (including a new pair and a pair I have had years which I can now fit into – for the first time since 2013 and fit in easily for the first time ever!) and I also have a selection of t-shirts and vests to choose from. I will have one last trying on session before I pack but it is looking pretty good. I also have a new Shock Absorber Ultimate Run Sports Bra (catchy name!) which I am not 100% sure on yet. It is comfy and it eliminates bounce completely but there is something comforting about wearing an old worn in (out?) sports bra – like taking an old loyal supportive friend with you… We’ll see. Maybe the new one and I will bond over a long run next weekend. So the kit is sorted bar the final decisions about what travels with me.

It’s weigh in day. I have lost 2.4 pounds. I am really chuffed with that (it puts me on a round number) and it means I have now lost exactly 2.5 stone this year – that’s 35 pounds – that’s 15.8 kg. With every pound that comes off the running gets a little bit easier – there’s less of me to drag round and that in turn makes it easier to keep the weight off and keep losing a bit more. I’d love to shift another half stone before the marathon to make it a round 3 stone loss on 2015. That would be great but I am just going to keep going as I have been – running, eating relatively healthily and doing yoga most days.

I don’t quite know what to do  with myself today – the plan was run 20 miles which was going to take most of the day… I’m not good with changes of plan at the moment so I am on my safe sofa for now. I’ll do more yoga later, more blogging, more Disney planning, more writing… more anything as long as it means I don’t have to leave the sofa or engage with people

 

 

Building strength

Jess Guth2 Comments

As I mentioned I went to the doctor on Monday and I am signed off work. It is odd being off work without being the kind of ill that requires me to stay in bed or whatever. It feels wrong and I am struggling with that and I am feeling guilty about not being at work. At the same time I know I am not ok and not well enough to work. So  I mean building strength in both the physical and the mental sense.

Today we started a 4 day section of our training programme which aims to build strength and stamina. It consists of 4 days of back to back running/walking with mileage increasing. We started with a 45 minute run today and went to Bolton Abbey to do it. I have described the route previously. I enjoyed it today. We started by running for 11 minutes without a break – we decided it was about time we tried that out because the chances of being able to drop straight into our planned intervals for the marathon are slim to none. If we can run the first 10 minutes or so the early congestion will have sorted itself a bit.

For the rest of the loop we stuck to 2 minutes running and 1 minute walking except for the hill past the strid – we walked up that which took longer than a minute and when we got to the steepest hill we finished our run 30 seconds early and walked. I did however also take a walk out on the hilly bit and ran the last 9 minutes without walk break. We did the 45 minutes at a 13.07 minutes per mile pace which is just about the fastest we’ve done that loop. Pace wasn’t important though. I enjoyed the run. I enjoyed the clarity of mind I had during and immediately after the run.

The clarity didn’t last long at all but while I was running I felt like my brain was functioning as it should. I got a tiny little step closer to making sense of some things – just a tiny little step in a very long way but it’s a start. Now it’s about regaining that clarity on every run and trying to hang onto it for longer. It’s about building the mental strength I need not only to complete the marathon but to get myself back to a point where I no longer need my sofa to be my safe space!

Physically building strength is going better than mentally. I could definitly feel the 17 miles in my legs but after 10 minutes or so I settled in and pushed on and I was quite surprised  how well I had recovered from Monday. I am definitly stronger than I was even a few months ago.

So another 45 minute run tomorrow, then a 9 mile walk on Saturday and a 20 mile run/walk on Sunday. One foot in front of the other both physically and mentally