Tag: yoga

Training Plans and an Uphill Waddle

Jess GuthLeave a comment

I went for a run. It’s run day on the training plan and I actually went for a run. Lately, you see, I have done anything but what it says on whatever plan I’ve been supposedly following. When it said long run I’ve gone short, when it said hills, I’ve just sworn, when it said short run I didn’t go, when it said rest I went long… chaos basically which is fine. In fact I quite like chaos, it adds a surprise element to life.

It’s quite hard to make any real training progress with chaos though, particularly when you’re like me and chaos basically means you don’t do the hard stuff. A little order was called for, not regimented ‘you must do this’ sort of stuff but just following a basic framework. It’s Tuesday and Tuesdays is 45 minute run day. Some Tuesdays have  45 minutes with stuff (like surges or hill repeats etc) but not this one, this one was just ‘easy’. The notion of ‘easy’ running amuses me. Easy pace is basically walking! Anyway. I got home after a good day and couldn’t really be bothered. I hadn’t drunk enough water, drunk too much coffee, eaten too much for lunch and it was hot. But nonetheless I set off.

I kept reminding myself to go slow in the sun and not worry about pace – just plod out the 45 minutes. Enjoy, look around… I puffed my way up the hill then towards the wood, past our Dino and up the slope into the wood. I nearly walked on the slope – I suspect I would have been quicker if I had walked. Down the golf course and along the canal. Bloody hell this was hard. One foot in front of the other. I wanted to stop at the bridge but I wasn’t anywhere near 45 minutes yet. So on I went. Somewhere between the next two bridges I decided that I would plod out 5km and then try and march up the hill home. It’s a steep hill. Almost immediately after I made that decision I started doubting whether I’d make the 5km. I did but it felt like wading through treacle. I was surprised when Strava told me I got a personal best on that last section. It also tells me it was 5km in 39 minutes dead.

Anyway, for the walk home – I went the most direct route – directly up in an almost straight line up a little snicket. I was hot, bothered, slightly dizzy in places and thought I was going to puke. I felt like I kept marching, stopping, marching, stopping but it was probably more like waddle, stop, waddle, stop. I got home. I had ticked the required 45 minutes off the list  – there is some order.

I collapsed on the living room floor and just stayed there a few minutes contemplating life (actually just sweating so much I was surprised not to have left a noticeable wet patch – can your eyeballs sweat?). Then slowly I got myself together and did some fairly random post run yoga – I couldn’t be bothered to get my mat or the iPad to follow an actual sequence so I did my own. My hamstrings are little bitches and totally intent on making my life miserable so they need a good stretch to keep them in check: ‘half monkey’ seems to really work for me for that. I thought my hips had been a bit tight but alternating ‘bridge’ and ‘happy baby’ a few times sorted that. Then I went in search of water (wasn’t hard, Kath had given me a full glass as I walked through the door). In spite of the uphill waddle I now felt pretty good about that outing.

I haven’t really done enough yoga today – I’m trying to do more but let’s take the small victories – I did manage 20 minute morning yoga yesterday which always sounds like such a lovely thing but the morning one on my yoga app is actually quite tough and after moving from downward dog to plank for what felt like the 150th time (ok, 3rd), my arms didn’t work anymore and I face planted. I have therefore settled on a new ambition in life: being able to do that sequence without putting my nose in danger. I also did strength exercises much to the cats’ amusement/bemusement. Ernest stared at me intently as I side-stepped with a resistance band. Actually maybe he just got a bit excited every time I got near the food bowls. Anyway, it’s only Tuesday and I already feel pretty good about exercise for the week. Tomorrow is strength yoga day. Next run on Thursday.

 

Road Running

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Quick update

Didn’t run Sunday because K had a niggly knee and I am not known for my willpower or desire to go running on my own. So it’s just as well we went on Saturday. For today the plan said 50 minutes slow. I do like a plan that says slow. I can do slow.

We had toyed with the idea of going this morning but I wanted Kath to have her knee checked out first which she did this morning and she is cleared to run. Our track record of going for a run after work is poor. Once I get in from work I really don’t like to be parted from the sofa! However, this moomin butt needs to keep moving! We arranged for Kath to pick me up from the station and then to park at Mum’s and run from there. I got changed there and then we set off. We ran along the road which had the advantage of street lighting and of being relatively flat. It has the disadvantage of being a relatively busy road and a boring out and back route.

We set the watch to 17 2 minute run/1 minute walk intervals (51 minutes) and then the Garmin wouldn’t lock onto the satellite. Rather than messing with it we just set off. It felt fast but it also felt quite flowing. Well when I say fast, I mean fast for me – for the rest of the world I am really talking about marginally faster than a brisk dog walking pace. Running along the road is odd. We’ve never really done it before. There wasn’t much to look at and there was the traffic noise so my focus was different and I realised I was focusing on breathing – not in a ‘I can’t breathe’ sort of way but in a ‘oh I prefer to sound of breathing to the sound of traffic’ kind of a way. I was focused on me and that’s not something I am all that comfortable with but it did mean being more aware of form, breathing and when things tightened up and when things felt good.

Surprisingly, mostly it felt pretty good even if hard and on almost all runs I managed to keep the pace until the end of the 2 minutes, I just had one wobble as we were heading up a slope and I lost my stride pattern and everything felt out of sync. I kept thinking I was surprised at how ok it all felt. Ok is not something I usually feel when running.

As we don’t have the data from the Garmin we had to rely on Google Maps which reliably informs me that we ran 4 miles exactly. So that means that finally -for the first time in ages – we managed a decent length run at under 13 minute mile pace.

In other news – Sunday weigh in yesterday showed a 2 pound gain. Hmph but ok – readjusting after the few days of no food and I suppose I’ll have to admit to the chocolate biscuits and the 2 days of university sand which lunches…

In more other news – the Wanderlust TV yoga – we’ve done days 1-4 and it is helping although I was struggling to keep up a little on Day 4. It’s useful to get more guidance on technique and this morning we did the yoga Studio 20 minute beginner am sequence and goodness it is harder when you do it properly! Right I am off to have a bath and then try Day 5.

 

Uneventful week 1 of 10k plan

Jess Guth1 Comment

I’m still on plan  – I am still slowly making me way through week 1 of the 10k programme. After the Monday run, Tuesday was a core strength session so I did the strength yoga on my yoga app (and fell over several times) and then we also did some other core strength exercises (press-ups, squats, lunges and the dreaded plank which I held for what felt like an eternity until I face planted).

Wednesday was  crappy day. I was more anxious and stressy than I have been in a long time and I actually just wanted to hide on the sofa but in spite of the outrageous wind, Kath made me go for a run. The plan said 6 minute run with 3 minute walk break 3 times. So we did that. It was cold and stupidly windy and at times I felt like I was running on the spot. It was such hard work but I did feel better afterwards.

Thursday was rest day and today was a 30 minute walk. We had thought about re-doing the 6minute/3 minute run but I am a wimp and didn’t want to run because of the snow and possible ice. We walked to feed the sheep instead.

We’ve also done day 2 of the Wanderlust TV 21 day yoga challenge. We’ll try and catch up a little over the weekend as we are supposed to be on day 5. The challenge is brilliant – I’ll get to a proper review at some point but the explanations are great and even though I’ve only done 2 I think my technique is already better.

Core session tomorrow and run on Sunday but we’ll check the weather and pick the better day for the run so may swap them round

Happy Friday.

 

Look, no walking

Jess Guth2 Comments

Ok, I don’t know how to ask you all to sponsor us for this run without hassling, without it sounding really naff or annoying or whatever. Please please please just do it if you are able to. We are over half way if we count money pledged off line. No amount is too small and you wouldn’t believe the boost it gives my runs to see the total creep up. So click the link if you can, do it now. Thanks you

Our Just Giving Page

So today has been a good running day. I ran 6 miles without stopping to walk. Yep. I sort of wondered if I could. I headed out on my own, downhill for the first stretch. I did have to stop abruptly because I was suddenly faced with an alsatian not attached to a human and it came bounding up to me, circled me and then jumped up – paws on shoulders. I don’t know how I didn’t curl up in a ball and scream. Turns out its human was trying to catch it – wasn’t going well then… I also had to stop briefly twice to let cars go before I could cross the road (rude, don’t they know how hard it is to get going again). I was pretty happy until 3.5 miles and then I suddenly thought I may have been a bit ambitious. I thought I might as well keep going to 4 miles though. 4 miles seemed a bit of a silly distance to stop at though and I wasn’t anywhere sensible to come off the canal to head home so I kept going. I had to keep telling myself that one I got to 5 miles I could stop. 5 miles is respectable. I got to 5 miles and decided that I could probably run for another 12 minutes and therefore get to 6 miles – so I did.

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My ‘I just ran 6 mile and there’s something distracting to my left’ face

Then I walked the 2.5 mile loop from where I was to feed sheep and get home.

In other news – the official race guide for the marathon has been released, I have printed it and the waiver forms. I got stupidly excited about being in corrall J and I have done 2 lots of yoga and 80 squats today. More on the race guide etc next time. It’s well passed my bedtime!

And we’re back

Jess Guth1 Comment

So, flu. Is that nature’s way of telling me to stay in bed for two weeks? I could have done without it. I didn’t have time to be off work ill. The thing about academia is, if you’re off sick, your work just waits for you and piles up and you get back and there’s all the work there just going ‘hello, welcome back. You were 2 weeks behind already, you’re now 4 weeks behind and the week you had planned this week was always totally unrealistic, so make that 5 weeks’. But it is  what it is, it’s just that without running I am not very good at the ‘it is what it is’ mindset. I knew running was helping me keep a level head and I’ve blogged about my mental health and my little black labrador puppy (my symbol of depression) before but I didn’t quite realise how much it makes a difference to the little day to day niggles and stresses that we all have. So while I was getting more stressed about being off work and generally feeling crap the three things I do to destress and make sense of the world around me where all out of the question: reading – couldn’t see the page without inducing a major headache, writing – ditto and running – I could barely walk upstairs. That mix made for a particularly grumpy and gloomy me.

I started feeling much better on Wednesday and went back to work Thursday. By Friday I was looking forward to trying a run. We had talked about possibly Saturday. Kath’s knee is much better and she is keen to get going on it and start getting back into things and luckily the flu didn’t hit her quite as hard as me and she is recovering well. However, we had to move our sheep from one field to another – sounds simple, it’s only 200 metres or so along a track but add in 7 perfect, experienced and willing sheep and 7 inexperienced, highly strung and skittish ones and you end up with quite a lot of running around, then there was the 5.30am start to avoid dog walkers etc and then the work to get the field and shed tidied up and sorted… We were really quite wiped out after that. Run postponed until this morning.

I woke up and was quite surprised to see it was 8am. Not sure why I was surprised, I’ve been sleeping at least 10 hours a night for the last week or so. I got up and was even more surprised to find that Kath had only been up an hour or so – she’s usually up really early. We had a cup of tea and then did 15 minutes of flexibility yoga. We drove down the hill just in case Kath’s knee relapsed and we’d need the car to get back up the hill. Then we tried running along the canal..

The autumn colours along the canal are stunning at the moment. We’re clearly not the only ones who think so – it was quite busy with walkers, runners, cyclists and dogs. We had set the intervals to one minute running/ 30 seconds walking and planned to be out for 45 minutes. It felt so good to be out. As I was trying to suck the oxygen into slightly unwilling lungs I also made a conscious effort to look around, take in the colours, watch the ducks, watch the dogs – some excited to be out, some plodding along in the slight drizzle; same as their owners really.

It would be wrong to say that the 45 minutes were easy. That’s not quite it. Running for a minute at times felt about all I could manage (but that’s because I knew it was all I had to manage!) and my body didn’t really quite agree that this running things is a good idea. It felt like I had accumulated a load of crap in my lungs, it felt like my legs were a mixture of concrete and jelly – heavy and wobbly at the same time, I felt slightly uncorordinated and not very sure-footed but I also felt a sense of being able to do it. Maybe my ‘I can’t do this’ voice still has flu, or maybe it’s gone on holiday – whatever, it wasn’t there today. Eventhough the run was hard physically it was probably the easiest run I have had mentally. I was excited to be out, running, doing, getting back on track.

We didn’t worry about pace at all. We didn’t look until we had finished. We were at just over 13 minutes per mile. It may sound slightly ridiculous but I am really quite happy about that – we used to work hard to get to 13 minutes per mile and now this was just a first jog after weeks out. I really do think we are making progress and the training is working!

Kath’s knee held up. She said it is a little achey now and she’ll be careful and get some ice on it etc but there is no pain.We came home and did 15 minutes of yoga for runners. Then Kath made pancakes but not before we got on the scales for our weigh in – I have lost a pound, Kath stayed the same. Happy Sunday.

We’re back!