Tag: trail running

January Round Up and February Planning

Jess GuthLeave a comment

We finally come to January 31st (or 357th if you feel a bit like me), how are you doing? Even I am beginning to struggle with lockdown. I am not a people person, I’m quite happy not seeing people and am happy to keep in touch virtually but I would give quite a lot to sit in a coffee shop with a coffee that someone else has made for me and maybe a pastry and just watch the world go by. I don’t even mind doing that on my own, just being amongst people would actually be quite nice. So yeah, if I am feeling like this my heart really goes out to those of you who really need those face to face interactions and feel energised by them.

I thought I would have a little look back at January and share my plans for February. As I looked ahead to 2021 I really wasn’t sure what the year would bring in terms of exercise and fitness. I was anxious about starting running again and grumpy about the non-existent fitness levels. I knew I wanted to start again but I really wasn’t sure about how things would go. My review of the first cycle on the Body Coach App from the other day perhaps shows that things are actually going pretty well. Fitness and strength are very very slowly coming back. I am a long way from where I was at peak fitness (which wasn’t that fit really but a happier level of fit) and there is a long way to go but when I remember to not compare myself to when I was Dopey fit, I am happy with how things are going.

January running hasn’t been spectacular but there has been running! I finish the month on 29.65 miles (more on why not 30 in a minute) which I was initially a bit disappointed with but then I looked back and there are only 3 months with higher mileage since April 2019 and none of those months are loads higher (under 40 miles). So in the context of how running shaped up over the last couple of years, the crappiness that was flu or Covid just a little more than a year ago now and the post viral crappiness that took all my fitness (but if that’s all it is taking I know I am one of the lucky ones) and the snow and ice that stopped me from venturing outside, then nearly 30 miles is good going!

Every now and again I get grumpy about my inability to run consistently without walk breaks. I like run/walk and I think I will always want to use run/walk for longer distances but I really would like to be able to run 10km without having to walk. How hard can it be? I will get there again. Patience. I have mostly been running using 30/30 second intervals but sometimes I get bored so sometimes I run the first mile and then drop into intervals, sometimes I run the first 5 minutes and sometimes, on routes with steeper bits, I run when I can and walk the hills. I found 30/30 really quite hard at the beginning of the year and pretty much impossible if there was anything steeper than flat involved. It’s getting much easier although I still really struggle to breathe going up and I wonder if partly that is still a post viral hangover that is making it harder to get the air into my lungs.

I have mostly run from home and I miss travelling to places to run. I’d love a run on the beach at Seahouses or a hike up one of the Yorkshire 3 peaks or a joint run with Kath at Bolton Abbey. But, patience. I have been lucky in that my therapist is based at Bolton Abbey and I can therefore travel there to see her and then take the opportunity while I am there to run. I never go far though, partly because I am often tired after therapy and just a little gentle mile or so helps clear my head without adding pressure and partly because I get side-tracked by coffee and then walk back sipping it. I could go further and get coffee on the way back but that section is often busy and busy is not why I run at Bolton Abbey. When I went last I had the run from the Abbey to the Cavendish Pavilion all to myself. I didn’t see another human soul until I crossed the bridge and headed for coffee. Bliss.

Running from home has had its rewards though. It’s not a bad place to run. Even just on the roads round the village is not unpleasant at all and sometimes it is quite nice to have a nosey at people’s gardens. They might not be in full bloom or showing off all their glory but you can still see quite a lot and get ideas. Running along the canal has been mixed. Some days it has been too busy with people to actually be enjoyable. For example, today I turned back sooner than I had planned and went a different route making my run an out and back more than a loop really because the stretch of canal ahead was just full of walkers and I had already got tangled up with people who didn’t have their dogs under control which meant I had to stop until they had retrieved them before running on. But on other occasions I have seen a kingfisher and stood and watched for ages. I call them kingfisher breaks and they are most legitimate reason to stop whatever you are doing and just spend a few moments being in the presence of greatness. There is something powerfully restorative about seeing them perched on branches just above the water and then inevitably fly off in a flash of glimmering orange and blue.

Most of my running has been a couple of miles and then a walk up to come home, maybe a little over 2 miles but not much. I am ok with that. It’s actually all within the Disney 10km training plan that I am loosely following. That plan had me running (or run/walking) 3 miles today. Yesterday I looked at my mileage and got into my head that I needed 5 miles something to hit 30 miles in January and that I could totally do that even though that would be 2 miles more than the furthest run since goodness knows when. What I didn’t get into my head was that the ‘something’ actually meant I needed nearly 6 miles. So after having done my Body Coach App workout first thing this morning, I set off early lunch time to sort out these 5 miles something. I got half way down the first stretch of road, about 3 minutes in maybe and felt like turning back. Legs were tired and I was struggling to settle in the cold air. But you know, 5 miles something won’t just magically run themselves, so onwards. I looped round to the canal rather than running straight down to it – it’s a sort of cheap mile somehow and then plodded along the canal almost always sticking to 30/30 expect for the dog issue and standing in a couple of times to move out of the way of couples who clearly think they might be parted forever if they walk in single file.

I was going quite well when I bumped into a friend of ours and stopped to chat for a few minutes. I was about 2.5 miles in and intended to carry on along the canal for another mile and a half and then come back and loop up the former golf course and home. But like I said, the canal was busy and getting busier so I changed my mind, came off the towpath at the next bridge and ran along the road and back through the estate I’d run down earlier. It was hard going after that stop. I stopped my watch at 4.5 miles which happened to be just at a walk break because I felt sure my legs were done. I wanted to save the 4.5 miles run/walk and then just measure the distance home as part of the cool down. I knew it would be roughly a mile, just under. But once I’d walked for a couple of minutes I decided to have another go and ran a a couple of consecutive minutes and a bit more 30/30 so I actually ended up doing 5 miles of run/walk before walking up the rest of the hill home. I finished on 5.46 miles which wasn’t enough to make it 30 for the month. That’s ok though, my legs are tired and I am not going out again for the sake of round numbers. They’re just numbers and I am not quite sure why I’d got it into my head anyway. January finishes on a strong note.

Looking ahead to February, my plan doesn’t change much. I still plan to do the 5 Body Coach workouts each week and to run 3 times a week. The workouts have now moved to Cycle 2 and have stepped up a little as far as I can tell so far. If they end up being too much when combined with 3 runs then I will drop one but I think I can probably work round that by choosing some of the workouts which are a little easier or which are more gentle on the legs. My midweek runs are 30 minute runs on the plan so they are what they are – often I run a loop that’s slightly more than 30 minutes, I guess it might not be if I get faster. The weekend runs don’t increase much in terms of distance -they go from 40 minutes next week, 3.5 miles the week after, 30 minutes the week after that and then finally 4.25 miles in the final week of February. That’s what is on the plan anyway. You never quite know what I might decide to do. Given that I have been getting on quite well with 30/30 I thought for February I would step it up a bit and try 45 seconds running with 30 second walk breaks and see how I get on. I’ll let you know.

Ice, Ice Go Away

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Running is sort of on semi-hold while the weather decides what it wants to do. I’m trying not to be grumpy about it. I get stupidly scared in snow and ice. While part of me really wanted to go and play in the snow, face some of those fears and rediscover some of the winter childhood joy, now is not the time to risk injury or to add to stress levels. So running is paused until the last of the ice has melted and the paths are safe again.

For once I am not too concerned about the pause. I have been doing my Body Coach App workouts so I am at least doing something. I am also confident that I can run/walk the distance on my plan so am happy to just tick those weeks off for now and pick up the plan wherever it falls when I can get outside again. This weekend I am to do a 2.5 mile run and maybe, just maybe I can do that tomorrow.

I seem to be managing 1 run a week in-between cold snaps. Last Tuesday I had a therapy appointment at Bolton Abbey and took the opportunity to have a little trot out while there. I was only going to run/walk from the Abbey to the Cavendish Pavilion, grab a coffee and walk back to the car park with it. However when I came out of my session the path towards the bridge across the river and beyond towards the Cavendish Pavilion looked really busy with dog walkers and families with small children. I really didn’t fancy trying to navigate my way through that lot. I briefly considered not running and just heading home but the sun was shining and my brain was whirring from therapy. Running would be good.

So I set off in the opposite direction for a little trot out along the river and soon moved off the path onto grass. It had that delightful consistency that you only get from slightly frozen wet fields – squishy and crunchy at the same time and a little bit spongy. I trotted along in my 30seconds / 30 seconds run/walk intervals and wondered why it felt like such hard work. Then I remembered that for the last year or so I have hardly really run properly off road. The bit of running I have done has been road and canal towpath – and the towpath locally here is proper path not mud. I have not run on grass and mud for absolutely ages. And it showed.

The section I ran is only about half a mile each way so I ran a little loop round the field which also tested out my feet and ankles more on the slightly longer grass and avoided the muddy bits where lots of people had walked. Then I ran back up to the Abbey and round it back towards the car park to make up my 30 minutes. It wasn’t a great run in terms of pace or even how I felt doing it – a bit sluggish and can’t be bothered but it was 30 minutes of moving my moomin butt in the sun, it helped my brain stop whirring and it felt good.

The run really got my quads and I was sore for a couple of days after but not sore enough to not do the Body Coach stuff. I have a week to go on Cycle 1 so I’ll do a review then. I’m quite enjoying it all. I’ve switched rest days around a bit this week as I was just dead yesterday but overall I think it’s going pretty well. Now, if the weather goddess would be so kind and remove the ice, I can get going properly on that 10km plan!

It’s too hot

Jess Guth1 Comment

It’s too hot. I generally think of myself as quite good in heat really but that apparently only applies when I am not at home. West Yorkshire is not supposed to be this hot and humid and I am just permanently grumpy about being too hot. Have I mentioned it’s too hot?

Anyway, running. I went. Kath came with me. My plan said 7 minutes running three times with 2 minute walk breaks. Well even at 7am it was already warm (have I mentioned the heat) but there was still a bit of air. The first 7 minutes were ok, hard on the uphill towards the end but ok. The second 7 minutes were just ridiculous and I didn’t think I’d get beyond 4 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 6 minutes… I would almost certainly have stopped but Kath kept insisting I could do it. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that but I did feel like collapsing in a heap when I heard the beep on my watch.

The 3rd set of 7 minutes was pretty much all downhill so much easier and I recovered a little. It was lovely to run off road again too. I have been doing an out and back road route for the first part of the plan but it was early enough to head for our sheep loop (we should really call it something else, we haven’t had our sheep for quite some time now) including the canal. And the longer running intervals made a loop more worthwhile. We finished run 3 just about a minute or so onto the canal and then enjoyed a relaxing walk home from there. It was nice to do a loop rather than an out and back and it was lovely to see some greenery and ducks! I hadn’t realised it but I have missed the ducks.

Other than that it’s basically just too hot.

Spring time lockdown running

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Ok, let’s have a post that’s actually about how the running is going shall we. The last run I wrote about was the run that didn’t go to plan. Honestly, getting out and running has been a struggle. After that run and the fall I didn’t make it out for just over a week. Partly I was sensible and waited for the worst to heal and partly it was an excuse. I was anxious about running. I was anxious about people, I was frustrated with my spectacular lack of fitness and motivation. Recovering from a fall is a legitimate thing to do… but not for weeks on end.

But in the end the pull of the bluebells was too strong. Kath had been telling me about them, how gorgeous they were and how the mix of bluebell and wild garlic is just so evocative of here, of home. I dragged my butt out of bed early to make sure people wouldn’t be an issue and then we set off on a tentative run/walk to the wood. We walked the narrow path through the bluebells and it was a stunning morning and absolutely worth getting up.

I managed a repeat early start a couple of days later allowing me to run our sheep loop without worrying about people on the canal towpath. It was really hard and my ankle was stiff – it has been on and off since the fall but seemed particularly bad that morning. My hay fever symptoms were also through the roof making breathing a bit tricky. Still, early mornings along the canal with ducklings and lambs and busy little birds everywhere is always worth it. Just need to remember that.

I had another couple of short 2 mile-ish outings at the end of April. I’ve been trying to play with intervals and other things to focus on because my brain has once again decided that I can’t run at all. Some of the runs have been 30/30 intervals which is fine but feels stop start at the beginning and then doesn’t actually seem to get me much further in terms of endurance. Instead I have tried to sometimes run for the first mile and then pick landmarks, other times to run to a certain landmark or place before dropping into run/walk intervals (this used to be mentally different from running a certain distance but I am now getting to know the distance of those points so it’s not working as well as it was) or running for a certain amount of time – just to give my brain something else to think about before it spirals off into ‘you can’t do this so why bother’ mode.

For my first May run I decided to go up towards Ilkley Moor. I have never actually been able to run all the way up but I certainly can’t now so my plan for that particular route at the moment is to walk up to the top and then run back down. I was thinking that doing it once a week would be good. It’s a pull and if I do it every week I will start to feel the benefits of the hill on the up and running down gives me change to get used to running at a slightly faster pace than I could manage on a flat or undulating route. I had 2 miles up and 2 miles down in my head and enjoyed the lapwings and curlews as I walked up. As I got to about 1.75 miles I could see people up ahead and it started raining. The rain was actually lovely but the prospect of catching up with the people, passing them and then doing the same again not long after as I turned round did not seem appealing. I turned early and gently jogged down in the rain. It was gorgeous.

My other two May runs so far have been short. I wrote about yesterday’s run last night. It was a tough run. I have really struggle to run continuously. A few days ago I went out and decided I would try and run 15 minutes continuously, whatever the pace. I made it to just over 17 minutes at a painfully slow trot. Yesterday I wanted to run the loop as far as the bottom of the steep hill to come back up home. I nearly gave up so many times but the reason for running was at the forefront of my mind – particularly because I was/am still not entirely comfortable with it all. It seemed wrong to not make it to the hill. Disrespectful somehow. I made it, so just over 21 minutes of continuous running and I even managed a few more little bursts of running on the way home which is not something I have managed recently.

So why the continuous running at the moment? I know I am not running with great form, that I should work much more on strengthening and building up the muscles to run properly and that I don’t have the strength to run for more than about 30 seconds in proper running form… Yep I know. I know that I am increasing the injury risk. I know I am not running efficiently and I know that I am probably undoing some of the work towards good running form that I had put in. But honestly, my brain is full. I don’t want to go out to run thinking carefully about form. I don’t want to run concentrating hard on knee lift and foot placement. I barely have the brain power to make myself go out at all. I am already thinking more than I want to about possible routes and how to avoid people. I don’t want to think about running. I want to run so I don’t have to think. I want to run to give my brain a rest. Now is not the time for me to be worrying about perfect form. That’s not to say that I don’t think it’s important or that I am ignoring it totally. I have short bursts during my runs where I try and concentrate on form. I am also doing some of my exercises some of the time. Right now though, the relaxation yoga, the stretching, the breathing and the being able to run continuously are more important for me to stay mentally healthy. If running right now was just about drills and form and strength exercises I wouldn’t be running and that doesn’t seem like a good option.

Running feels different. It is back as something I want to do rather than something I feel like I should. It’s that old favourite book which just sits and waits to be picked up again and while for now I am content flicking through it, gently reminding myself of the favourite bits, the easy passages within it, the chapters with which I feel at ease, I am beginning to wait for the next phase. I am waiting for the little hint of ambition, the readiness to tackle the more difficult passages, the willingness to get stuck in and work harder, the wish to be more systematic and focused, to start at the beginning and work towards the end of volume 1, chapter by chapter. It’s there in the background. I can feel myself mentally preparing for it without really being conscious of it at all. One day soon I’ll wake up ready to once again become a runner.

When the #DinoRun doesn’t go to plan

Jess Guth2 Comments

A little while ago some fellow #Run1000Miles runners started what has now become a fun little running game of taking their dinosaurs out for a run and taking a picture. Kath and I thought we should do that for a bit of fun too but it turned out we didn’t have a dinosaur. I mean come on, how does that happen? How do we not have a dinosaur? Then Kath found a dinosaur while sorting out a box for the loft but I never made it out for my longer run yesterday because of a rather dodgy tummy and the day before that I had some other random excuse. In short, the #DinoRun still hadn’t happened.

Today I decided I would get out. Kath and I made beetroot chocolate cake and I took some to drop off at Kath’s Mum’s with a gentle run/walk so as not to turn the cake into crumbs on the way. We had a quick chat, obviously at the requisite distance. After that I walked up the hill passing a couple of dog walkers and enjoying seeing the views from a different vantage point. I don’t often go that way and when I do, I go the other way round the loop I was on.

It somehow felt wrong to take Kath’s dinosaur so I nicked her idea instead and took the closest thing we thought we had to a dino – a platypus. She sat happily in my pocket on my right thigh looking out, every now and again reminding me to perhaps at least try to go a little faster. About half way up the hill we had a little break and look out over the valley before continuing on. I walked up the hill. I’m not actually sure that I could have run it even at my fittest but today was not the day to try. I just wanted to enjoy the warm sun and cool breeze and being out.

When I got to the top I crossed over the road to stay the required distance from a couple walking and once crossed back started run/walking – fairly half heartedly to be honest. I didn’t quite trust my tummy and I was enjoying being out without worrying about effort. I ran/walked for a little stretch. Stopped to look at a sleepy lamb and take platypus out for another look around. She was quite insistent about sitting on my shoulder and I had to negotiate hard to get her back into my pocket.

I carried on run/walk and was just thinking I might manage the next little up slope before enjoying a longish flat and down when I suddenly caught sight of a little lamb gang bouncing around in the field. I briefly thought ‘ooooh look lambs’ and was still smiling as I hit the tarmac and wondered how the hell that had happened. I landed with an oomph and just stayed still for a minute. Then I think I swore. I picked myself up off the roadside and brushed off the worst of the gravel and dust. There was a cyclist who came past me without making eye contact as I just started walking on. He must have seen me fall and pick myself up. I shouted after him: ‘I’m fine thanks’. There, always feel better for a bit of pointless passive agression.

My left hand felt bruised, my right was grazed and my left knee and shin took a bit of a battering too. I called Kath to explain I was hobbling home and to ask her to run me a bath so I could clean myself up and pick the gravel out of my hand and knee. So my planned 6ish miles didn’t quite go to plan. Because my tummy wasn’t quite playing ball I had already decided to cut it short and then I threw myself on the tarmac because I was distracted by lambs. I literally tripped over nothing – I checked – I fell on the most even part of tarmac on the entire stretch of road. Muppet.

Anyway I shall have to try another #DinoRun or rather #PlatypusRun that is worthy of the platypus. And I need to make sure that next time I fling myself at the ground I do it somewhere more forgiving than tarmac. Trails are definitely safer! I’m also going to have to find some of the yoga sessions which do not involve downward dog or anything like that because my hands are quite sore.