Tag: training

The puppy won

Jess Guth4 Comments

After my 3 mile hell (see last post) things got worse. The plan was to get up early-ish  yesterday and get our working week off to a good start with a nice positive run. My gremlins and stupid depression mutt had other ideas. I did get up, tempting as it was to hide under the duvet. We set off. It felt physically hard but ok. I was doing it. My legs felt quite tired, I felt quite tired but hey, I was out, I was doing it. I dragged myself to the golf course – downhill from here for a bit. I get scared going downhill but it was ok, I felt pretty ok, just a bit tired. We turned towards Silsden on the canal. It was hard, really hard. Nothing really wanted to quite move. One foot in front of the other… I was slowing down. We got to where the nice path turns into track, just keep running. We turned and I was now definitly running slower than walking pace. I’d hit a physical brick wall. Everything hurt, one foot in front of the other just wasn’t possible and I had nothing left mentally to push through. Nothing at all. I did something I haven’t done for about 6 months (other than because of injury), I stopped. I was too exhausted to block out the negative voices, too drained to give the black stupid puppy dog a good kick, too ’empty’ to fight that sense of ‘I can’t do this.

It was a long walk back. I cried.

I will try again today

Early mornings, herons and stunning views

Jess Guth6 Comments

We were struggling to to fit in all our runs this week with work being a little insane (A-level results week and University Clearing are manic for me) so our schedule has gone to pot a bit. We’re just about fitting everything in though.

  1. Running with Herons

Our first maintenance run this week was on Tuesday – still on schedule. I was a little worried given the tummy incident the run before. We also needed to go really early in the morning to fit it in.We set the alarm for 4.30, got up and dressed and set off. I decided not to try food and go on empty. My tummy was slightly bubbly but ok. It was a gorgeous and completely still morning and somehow our footfall felt loud and like we were intruding on something. Nature was going about its business and we weren’t part of that business. Rabbits were bobbing about, cats were mousing, birds were coming to life stretching their wings, ducks were slowly emerging onto the canal and a group of cows came down to (and into) the canal for a drink. As we ran towards Silsden we saw Hugo the heron and he flew off and landed ahead of us as if teasing ‘you’ll never catch up’. We didn’t, we turned round before we reached him. About half way back along the canal we saw another heron and this one also kept flying a little ahead and landing again. Suddenly it was joined by a second, so we now have three Hugos and 2 of them were right there with us. I briefly wondered if they felt threatened by us and we were actually chasing them but they didn’t seemed worried. Rather they seemed to be enjoying themselves. It really was like we were running with them and just as we got to our last bridge and last 20 seconds they turned and flew off over the fields. I’d forgotten about running, it was a lovely moment.

2. Running on the moors

Today we finally managed to fit in our second maintenance run and we initially thought we’d do it at Bolton Abbey again but then thought it might be busy so decided to head up onto Ikley Moor instead. We drove up. It was a really hard run (my lungs are still rattling a bit) but it was stunning. I was up there last week going for a walk with Dad and took some pictures. Today is a very similar day so here are some of the views we tried to enjoy while running:

It wasn’t always easy to enjoy the view – the path is quite uneven. It starts off like this:

summer 2015 272

but a little further along the path is made up of big stones which are uneven and wobbly on the moor. I wouldn’t like to run it when the stones are wet but it was a dry and slightly breezy day. It was an odd sort of run in terms of fitness and how I felt. My legs felt fine all the way but my lungs were struggling. They were burning after the first run interval (which was uphill) and never really recovered. I was struggling to suck in the air all the way but still didn’t really find it that difficult to keep going. I just couldn’t go faster. We took a few walk breaks out towards the end but I enarly needed to put the last one in – I was saved by the downhill at the end of the path (the bit you can see in the photo but coming the other way).

I loved that run. I actually really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it being hard and I enjoyed finishing it and having done it and having seen the views and managed the uneven bit. I just enjoyed being out.

As for distance and pace – who cares? I wrote it down, as we always do and I think both were somewhere around the 12 and a half minutes per mile but both were gorgeous runs and that, I have decided, it was matters.

Troubled tummies

Jess Guth3 Comments

I started drafting this post a few days ago and was saving it for a day when I felt confident and happy and would be able to cope with the inevitable embarassment I’d feel when posting this. Today is not really that day but needs must (as it were). I finished the draft post with:

‘I haven’t yet had a ‘serious incident’ and I have decided to just not worry about it. If it happens it happens. It’ll be embarassing, upsetting, horrible and then life will go on.’

Well it happened, it was all those things and life is going on. Let me explain – I did say I was going to be honest about this running thing so I can’t really spare myself the embarassment. I distinctly remember one run when we started training for the half marathon 3 years ago where I had to stop abruptly because I had, for want of a more delicate phrase, shit myself – or at least it felt like it. I hadn’t actually made a mess of myself but it was still horrible. We had run along the canal, turned off over the bridge to come up towards the Riddlesden Golf Course and were just turning down the hill to continue along the road that runs parallel to the canal.  I remember being quite upset about it at the time but had sort of forgotten about it by the time we started running again earlier this year. Or maybe I had just blocked it out.

As we’ve gone through our training this time there has been the odd run where my tummy has felt a bit dodgy and where I’ve felt like I might find myself in the same predicament again. It freaked me out a bit, well a lot, initially until I realised that this was ‘a thing’. It’s not just me, it’s a running thing. Apparently lots of long distance runners get the runner’s trots and apparently it affects novice runners more. So it may settle down. What I eat and when also obviously has an impact. In the draft version I had written:

‘and the good news is that I seem to do much better with morning runs where I’ve just had a banana about 20 minutes or so before the run.’

Yes, well that may not actually be true. That’s what I did this morning. I got up, had a banana, got sorted and we set off. I had been to the toilet but almost as soon as we set off running my tummy felt dodgy. Then at around 2.5 miles we had a little downhill bit and it all went horribly horribly wrong. There’s no point pretending, I did actually poo my pants. Not much but enough to be disgustingly uncomfortable as well as mortified for the rest of the run. I didn’t stop. I just cried, quietly and kept plodding. We finished the 7 miles in almost exactly and hour and a half with a pace of 12.55 minutes per mile

I am hoping that as I get fitter my body overall will get used to running and I will have fewer tummy incidents. I got home, had a bath and slowly regained my sense of humour but it’s been a tough day mentally. It’s hard to get excited about running when in the back of your mind you’re considering nappies. So –  happy thoughts. I have lost 1.5 pounds (perhaps not surprising) and we have finished page 1 of the training programme:

image

Training during my week off

Jess Guth1 Comment

I’ve been on leave this week. Kath has been working and it has been a busy busy week for her. Dad is staying with us and we’ve been going on little day trips here and there. I was wondering how the running would fit into our lives when we’re not in our usual routine but it worked fine. We even went for 3 maintenance runs this week rather than the 2 – I feel better about no longer having a gap on the training schedule!

So here’s what we did

Tuesday: A relatively good pace for us of 12.14 minutes per mile running a total of 3.68 miles. I can’t even remember which way we went. I think we went up past the sheep and then along the canal but I couldn’t be sure. I don’t remember much about the run really.

Wednesday: We left our house, went down the hill and then along the canal towards Bingley. It felt really hard and I didn’t really enjoy it much. Having said that I must be getting better because in spite of not enjyoing it, I did see quite a lot. Dogs playing and getting their owners all tangled up, the acknowledging nods of other runners, the many cyclists who came flying past, ducks, a swan or two and Hugo the heron. It was, it turns out our fastest 45 minute run to date. 11 and a half minutes per mile exactly. 3.91 miles. We have gone faster once but that was on a 3 miler. This is encouraging!

Friday: Yesterday was a mixed bag. We tried out our new backpack/hydration system (more on that later) and I was struggling with a slightly dodgy tummy on the run (more on that later too). We slowed down a bit and ran 3.61 miles at a pace of 12.24 minutes per mile. It was a bit of a struggle particularly at first. With 6 run sections to go we turned for home along the canal and I settled into a really nice steady rhythm. It actually seemed easier to just keep going rather than stopping to walk and start again and the even rhythm was settling my tummy down. So I kept going, and going, and going and the first time I thought ‘a little walk would be nice’ there was only one left and it seemed a bit silly to take that one. So we ran to the end. 18 minutes of solid running at a completely even pace with just a little bit of an increase in speed for the last 30 seconds. And the most encouraging thing: I didn’t feel like I absolutely had to stop. I could have kept plodding along at that pace for a while I think.

The runs this week have been really tough mentally and physically but also really enouraging. Our early ‘really fast’ pace is now our normal ‘running fairly hard but looking about’ pace and our fast pace is getting faster. We are also getting stronger and are able to sustain our slower place for much longer. And, importantly for me and my ‘you can’t do this’ gremlins, our slowest, ‘dragging our butts up steep west yorkshire hills’ pace is still faster than the minimum pacing requirement of 16minutes per mile for the RunDisney Marathon.

Next up – 7 miles tomorrow. I’m not dreading it.

3.2 ish miles at Bolton Abbey Estate

Jess Guth5 Comments

We were going to head out to the coast today and drive to RSPB Bempton Cliffs to see if the puffins had all already gone or if we could spot one or two before they do. However, we’ve had Kath’s mum staying with us because she hurt her back and couldn’t anything much, least of all stairs (we have a downstairs bathroom making life much easier for her). She went back home yesterday. My Dad arrives for a 2 week visit tomorrow. The house is a tip and we are exhausted. We decided therefore that we would have a potter sort of day at home, get the house organised and just spend some time together, too. The spending time together bit came in the form of a run at Bolton Abbey. If you are every around this part of the world, it really is worth a visit. We set off from the Cavendish Pavillion, through the Strid Wood, past the Bodger’s Camp towards the Strid. I didn’t really notice whether the Strid was in full flow looking spectacular as it often can or whether it was more of a trickle – I was too concerned about the upcoming hill. If I can run the Bolton Abbey Estate hills I can run at Disney World. RunDisney has no hills! Once I’d puffed my way up the hill, we kept going north following the path’s ups and downs – mostly slopes rather than hills at this point. My next concern was the Bridge – the Aquaeduct. I’m rubbish at running up steps. We walked. Once on the bridge I took a deep breath in, remembered to take a look at the stunning views and set off again.

I knew that on this side of the river (the Wharfe in you were wondering) the hills were a little more taxing than they had been – just slopes to start off with though. My legs were burning though, as were my lungs and that voice inside my head was screaming at me letting me know in no uncertain terms that I must be totally deluded to think I could get my fat butt round something like this. I had no idea how far we’d come and was absolutely sure that there was still far too much left to run.I absolutely, totally couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t. Except I did. The hills felt brutal but there was always a view, always something to focus on, always something to run to and always a sort of excitement at having made it round the next bend, up the next slope or safely down the next hill. I didn’t quite make the steepest of the hills. We added in an extra 30 second walk. Then, actually quite suddenly, there were only 4 more running intervals left. 4 more was possible, only just but possible. Then 3. Then 2. Ok I can do two, in fact I can do two without taking a walk break. I can do two at a pretty decent pace. Yes. Maybe. No? YES.

It was one of the hardest runs I’ve done and also one of the most stunning. I’ve forgotten the exact miles – It was 3.2 something at a pace of 13.47 minutes per mile. It was hot, it was hilly, it was – in some places- bloody awful but it was always stunning, I was always going to finish and it was fun having done it.

Happy.