I've been reading some accounts of this year's Paris marathon this last couple of days, including some of the future plans and hopes of those that completed the event.
That reminded me of how I was feeling this time last year and, in turn, made me think a little about how I'm feeling now.
A year ago I'd completed the race in 4hrs 26 minutes and I was really pleased with that. It hadn't been a particularly cool day, I was wearing padding over a bad blister, had only trained for 13 weeks (after 8 weeks off), and had trained pretty much on a 'get you round' programme...but even without those barriers (and the fact I'd dieted for the first 11 of those 13 weeks...) I'd have been quite happy with that time.
However, over the following 6 months, I gradually increased my mileage, began racing again, worked hard on my cadence and lost some more weight. That meant that by October I was running far faster than before and my race times were predicting that I should be able to get round in under 3:30 this year.
Then injury struck.
But now I'm a further 6 months on and very much feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel.
At times being injured really got me down but now I'm running again and appear to be getting stronger from cross training and the physio's exercises.
In fact, I'm even beginning to wonder if breaking down last year may prove to be a blessing - how about that for positivity?
Ok, I'll be another year into my dotage by the time of Paris next year (assuming its Paris I go for, and it probably will be), but without having been injured I'd have just carried on running as before.
Nothing wrong in that per se and I might well have got 3:30 this year but I wouldn't have joined the gym and got into cross training and nor would I be working on core strength, pelvic stability and firing glutes with the physio.
I'm still not doing a whole lot of running and neither am I anywhere close to as lean as I'd like yet but I'm sure that both the gym and physio work are giving me extra strength and, more importantly, greater speed endurance.
In other words, I'll be a stronger, faster runner in a couple more months than I was at my peak last year, and that has to be something to be pleased about doesn't it?
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
It must have been like watching Douglas Bader line dancing.
Me doing last night's injury prevention drills that is.
It was a session organised at the running club with Alison Rose, physio for the likes of Kelly Holmes, Jess Ennis and Alistair Brownlee; and consisted of a series of warm up drills targeted to improve balance, coordination and ultimately running form and economy. It was tough. I can watch someone doing a simple repetitive movement but find replicating it extremely difficult, until something suddenly 'clicks' and I can do it. Mind you, I wasn't alone in my stomping, ungainly efforts and apparently many elite athletes (sprinters especially) are the same. That provided a crumb of comfort anyway!
Prior to the session I'd enjoyed a decent little run. It was a reasonably hilly 5.5 miles with a slow downhill first mile but everything after that was done between 7.10 and 8.01 pace. Bearing in mind I'm still nearly a stone heavier than last autumn and a stone and a half above where I'd like to be, I'm pretty pleased with that. It still feels maybe 20-30 seconds slower for the same perceived effort as last autumn and is only covering short routes but much of that will be down to weight and overall I'm pleased. No obvious signs of injury either (despite the lunges in the drills - the one bit I could do - feeling like it was ripping things!).
Last but not least, today's weigh in not only got rid of the remaining gain from the week off but took me down 0.8lb beneath the pre-break low. On top of that the percentage body fat also reached a comfortable new low.
Very happy indeed!
It was a session organised at the running club with Alison Rose, physio for the likes of Kelly Holmes, Jess Ennis and Alistair Brownlee; and consisted of a series of warm up drills targeted to improve balance, coordination and ultimately running form and economy. It was tough. I can watch someone doing a simple repetitive movement but find replicating it extremely difficult, until something suddenly 'clicks' and I can do it. Mind you, I wasn't alone in my stomping, ungainly efforts and apparently many elite athletes (sprinters especially) are the same. That provided a crumb of comfort anyway!
Prior to the session I'd enjoyed a decent little run. It was a reasonably hilly 5.5 miles with a slow downhill first mile but everything after that was done between 7.10 and 8.01 pace. Bearing in mind I'm still nearly a stone heavier than last autumn and a stone and a half above where I'd like to be, I'm pretty pleased with that. It still feels maybe 20-30 seconds slower for the same perceived effort as last autumn and is only covering short routes but much of that will be down to weight and overall I'm pleased. No obvious signs of injury either (despite the lunges in the drills - the one bit I could do - feeling like it was ripping things!).
Last but not least, today's weigh in not only got rid of the remaining gain from the week off but took me down 0.8lb beneath the pre-break low. On top of that the percentage body fat also reached a comfortable new low.
Very happy indeed!
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Great trip to the gym
Yesterday I had to haul myself to the gym. Had it been a month earlier and dark I probably wouldn't have managed it but the early evening sunshine coupled with a realisation that eating earlier in the day had left me with only 15 calories for the evening meant I made my way there.
It proved to be one of those really good sessions where once you get going you really feel up for pushing yourself hard so I did two tough 20 minute cross trainer sessions sandwiching an intense almost all out 8 minutes (2112m 'Henley' challenge on the Concept2) rowing.
Normally I go to the gym either first thing on a morning at the weekend or during a dinner break during the day about once a week. Going in the evening was fairly new to me but provided a couple of benefits.
Firstly I found it more motivating. At the times I'd normally go the gym is pretty quiet and there's a bias amongst attendees towards older exercisers. There are people in their 20s/30s but they are the minority. Last night not only were over half the cardio machines in use but (whilst there was still a range of ages) the bias was clearly towards those in their 20s/30s. That gave the place a real buzz - as well as giving some pleasant sights to look at!
Secondly, getting back after 7pm helped with controlling food intake. Exercising in the evening means I eat more food earlier in the day and then when I get back I have a recovery shake (NOT a euphemism!) then don't fancy a whole lot more beyond a small sandwich. I'd found similar things when doing evening runs with Abbey & Kirkstall so this could be a new approach I'll take from now on.
Today I'll do the physio exercises and some weights then tonight its a club run.
Finally, the scales yesterday said I'd put on 4.6lb in the 10 days I had off. I predicted this would largely be 'food in transit' and lo and behold 3.6lb of that had disappeared by this morning.
Very pleased!
It proved to be one of those really good sessions where once you get going you really feel up for pushing yourself hard so I did two tough 20 minute cross trainer sessions sandwiching an intense almost all out 8 minutes (2112m 'Henley' challenge on the Concept2) rowing.
Normally I go to the gym either first thing on a morning at the weekend or during a dinner break during the day about once a week. Going in the evening was fairly new to me but provided a couple of benefits.
Firstly I found it more motivating. At the times I'd normally go the gym is pretty quiet and there's a bias amongst attendees towards older exercisers. There are people in their 20s/30s but they are the minority. Last night not only were over half the cardio machines in use but (whilst there was still a range of ages) the bias was clearly towards those in their 20s/30s. That gave the place a real buzz - as well as giving some pleasant sights to look at!
Secondly, getting back after 7pm helped with controlling food intake. Exercising in the evening means I eat more food earlier in the day and then when I get back I have a recovery shake (NOT a euphemism!) then don't fancy a whole lot more beyond a small sandwich. I'd found similar things when doing evening runs with Abbey & Kirkstall so this could be a new approach I'll take from now on.
Today I'll do the physio exercises and some weights then tonight its a club run.
Finally, the scales yesterday said I'd put on 4.6lb in the 10 days I had off. I predicted this would largely be 'food in transit' and lo and behold 3.6lb of that had disappeared by this morning.
Very pleased!
Habitual reinforcement
When I don't track and log what I eat I tend to eat too much. When I do track I rarely over indulge or at least don't go over by much. Part of that is down to seeing and assessing the numbers but at least as much is down to the frame of mind that the habit creates.
Logging what I've eaten (or how I've ran for that matter) keeps me focused with the outlook of achieving my objectives. Not logging food makes me feel I can eat what I want and it almost won't matter - a sort of make hay while the sun shines approach. With running if I'm not working to a plan, however vague and flexible, its easy to skip a run because of the weather, time, lethargy.
Its a similar case with the use of diet/fitness/running message boards or blogging. When I go off the rails temporarily I don't do either but as soon as I get back on track I do both, arguably to excess, in a bid to reinforce my newly re-focused mindset.
So, bearing that in mind I'm going to try to blog more regularly. The more I have to 'report in', the more disciplined I should be in making sure I have something positive to report!
Logging what I've eaten (or how I've ran for that matter) keeps me focused with the outlook of achieving my objectives. Not logging food makes me feel I can eat what I want and it almost won't matter - a sort of make hay while the sun shines approach. With running if I'm not working to a plan, however vague and flexible, its easy to skip a run because of the weather, time, lethargy.
Its a similar case with the use of diet/fitness/running message boards or blogging. When I go off the rails temporarily I don't do either but as soon as I get back on track I do both, arguably to excess, in a bid to reinforce my newly re-focused mindset.
So, bearing that in mind I'm going to try to blog more regularly. The more I have to 'report in', the more disciplined I should be in making sure I have something positive to report!
Monday, 12 April 2010
Racing Weight
I ordered a couple of books by triathlete/coach/nutritionist/writer and journalist (that's some CV eh?) Matt Fitzgerald last week and finished the first of them yesterday.
Its called 'Racing Weight: How to get lean for peak performance' and is aimed, as the title suggests, at guiding endurance athletes to get to their leanest weight to improve their race and training performance.
For anyone into endurance fitness its well worth a read as its an empirically based series of recommendations written in an easy to understand manner.
Here's a brief synopsis.
The book is aimed at participants in 6 disciplines:
- Running
- Rowing
- Cycling
- Swimming
- Cross-country skiing
- Triathlon
With specific guidance for each.
The early part of the book looks at how to find, or initially estimate, your 'racing weight' which is a mix of weight and lean-ness, with much of the emphasis on being lean rather than just light, though there's also some examination of the importance or otherwise of lightness for sports like running and cycling, where the elites in the former will have a body fat percentage of only around 3%.
Fitzgerald's approach is very much aimed at improving performance rather than aesthetics.
One interesting early point is around our ability to get lean being largely genetic with studies estimating its 64% hereditary and 36% within our control. However, the author suggests that despite this most people are capable of reaching the 80th percentile across a selection of athletes i.e. irrespective of our genetics with effort we can be leaner than at least 80% of athletic individuals.
The key points I took from the main guidelines were:
- Improve your diet quality - very similar to clean eating.
- Eat early and often - aim to eat 25% of daily calories within an hour of waking and eat 6 meals a day. Again similar to clean eating.
- Fuel your exercise - to get maximum intensity workouts rather than restricting calories. Fuel before, during and after.
- Eat high satiety foods - specifically protein and certain essential oils.
- Eat foods with low calorie density - feel full for lower calorie cost by eating lots of vegetables and fruits.
- Do a mixture of exercises - medium intensity exercise, HIIT and some strength training.
On the final point the author cites a good deal of research that shows to increase lean weight while losing fat there's no one method that's better than others; and that adherents of HIIT tend to be gym based exercisers and advocates of long and slow exercise tend to be endurance athletes i.e. that each make claims for a method that they find easiest and fits with their exercise 'prejudices' but the best approach is to do both. In fact on the exercise front he very much advocates doing more training and doing it harder - hence the requirement to fuel the exercise rather than simply restrict the calories.
In the latter sections of the book there is a slightly pointless (in my view) listing of what various US athletes eat, 28 recipes and some specific strength training exercises for each of the six disciplines as well as some general ones centred on core stability.
Its 288 very easy to follow pages and at less than £9.00 is well worth a read.
And another thing
I forgot to mention that in my quest to become ever more anal and geeky about health and fitness I bought a blood pressure monitor last week, so it gives me something else to keep geeky records of.
Its actually slightly more serious than that. My parents have been on drugs for high blood pressure for most of their adult lives and my eldest brother has been on them for a couple of years. Personally, I've had the odd 'high' reading but generally have been a 'high normal' for the most part.
It looks like its the same now. I've done 4 readings so far and whilst they've varied (with this morning's first day back at work unsurprisingly being the highest) they've all been in the upper normal range.
Of more immediate interest is the heart rate. That's recorded each time as either 47 or 48 beats per minute which for my age gives me a lower resting heart rate than the top 'athlete' category in resting heart rate classification charts. I've probably got a low resting heart rate generally but even so I'm pleased that that seems to show my general fitness is pretty damn good!
Its actually slightly more serious than that. My parents have been on drugs for high blood pressure for most of their adult lives and my eldest brother has been on them for a couple of years. Personally, I've had the odd 'high' reading but generally have been a 'high normal' for the most part.
It looks like its the same now. I've done 4 readings so far and whilst they've varied (with this morning's first day back at work unsurprisingly being the highest) they've all been in the upper normal range.
Of more immediate interest is the heart rate. That's recorded each time as either 47 or 48 beats per minute which for my age gives me a lower resting heart rate than the top 'athlete' category in resting heart rate classification charts. I've probably got a low resting heart rate generally but even so I'm pleased that that seems to show my general fitness is pretty damn good!
A week off: the alternative view
It was a really good week last week but from a diet & fitness perspective it was more mixed, and has probably put my loose shedule back by a week or 10 days.
I went into the 10 days off buoyed by my weight dropping to 12st 6.0lb, and after the most recent run felt like fitness was markedly returning.
The plan was to really compound this by eating well and getting in plenty of exercise through running, gym, hill walking and maybe even a couple of swims. In the event it didn't go entirely to plan but its interesting to note what did happen and what the results were.
In terms of exercise I wasn't far out. By the Wednesday (six days in) I'd been to the gym 6 times, walked once and ran twice. Whilst I didn't go to the gym in the last 4 days I did manage one run and went walking twice.
That's not too bad, though what it doesn't show is that I got out of the habit of doing the physio exercises and missed them on 5 of the 10 days. That may or may not be connected to one of the factors that prevented my exercising more in the last days - that my injury seemed rather more sore than it has been of late.
The other, bigger factor is how I've felt in the last few days and that may well link more to diet.
Again, the plan was to eat cleanly throughout the time off as I'd managed it for the best part of the previous 6 weeks, and to track my eating as normal.
I managed that goal fully on Good Friday but on Saturday and Sunday I didn't track what I'd eaten though I did eat cleanly. Monday and Tuesday were a return to tracked clean eating but after that the wheels fell off a bit!
On the Wednesday evening we went out for a meal and over ordered. I have a thing about not wanting to send uneaten food back - especially if I've really enjoyed it - which left me to eat my curry, pretty much all of the side dish, 2 nan breads and a good chunk of the large side salad. When I got in I followed that up with 2 slices of my mum's fruit/nut cake!
That evening I felt really bloated and felt the same way the next morning and through much of the day, though I did eat cleanly again (the nan breads and cake were both made with white flour).
Friday saw a return to clean eating for the most part. Pub food in the evening doesn't lend itself to clean eating principles though I did forsake chips for new potatoes, didn't use the butter, and only drank water.
Saturday was when it really went to pot. Through the day was ok again but this time at the pub I had salted nuts and J2O, a couple of crisps, dumplings with the casserole and a huge toffee ice cream for pudding. When we got in I had a craving for buttered toast and also opened a box of fancy chocolates. Sunday was similar, cleanish through the day but buttered toast in the evening (following a baked spud with butter and cheese and streaky bacon) and then onto the chocolates again. Last night I was very bloated again and feel the same this morning.
I'm not sure whether the bloating is from large meals or is a reaction to 'unclean' foods, but other symptoms over the last few days have been lethargy, extreme tiredness on an evening, difficulty in waking up and cravings. Lessons to be learned eh?
As well as learning lessons the other plus is that I didn't quite get out of control in the way I have done in the past.
As well as eating clean 90% of the break, I went to ASDA yesterday and whilst the idea of buying chocolate bars flashed across my mind it was immediately dismissed and I've had no doubt that as of today I will be back on track.
The scales say I've put on 4.6lb in 10 days and the body fat percentage has risen. However, I'm confident that the apparent gain is largely 'food in transit' and will disappear this week - mostly in the next couple of days.
I went into the 10 days off buoyed by my weight dropping to 12st 6.0lb, and after the most recent run felt like fitness was markedly returning.
The plan was to really compound this by eating well and getting in plenty of exercise through running, gym, hill walking and maybe even a couple of swims. In the event it didn't go entirely to plan but its interesting to note what did happen and what the results were.
In terms of exercise I wasn't far out. By the Wednesday (six days in) I'd been to the gym 6 times, walked once and ran twice. Whilst I didn't go to the gym in the last 4 days I did manage one run and went walking twice.
That's not too bad, though what it doesn't show is that I got out of the habit of doing the physio exercises and missed them on 5 of the 10 days. That may or may not be connected to one of the factors that prevented my exercising more in the last days - that my injury seemed rather more sore than it has been of late.
The other, bigger factor is how I've felt in the last few days and that may well link more to diet.
Again, the plan was to eat cleanly throughout the time off as I'd managed it for the best part of the previous 6 weeks, and to track my eating as normal.
I managed that goal fully on Good Friday but on Saturday and Sunday I didn't track what I'd eaten though I did eat cleanly. Monday and Tuesday were a return to tracked clean eating but after that the wheels fell off a bit!
On the Wednesday evening we went out for a meal and over ordered. I have a thing about not wanting to send uneaten food back - especially if I've really enjoyed it - which left me to eat my curry, pretty much all of the side dish, 2 nan breads and a good chunk of the large side salad. When I got in I followed that up with 2 slices of my mum's fruit/nut cake!
That evening I felt really bloated and felt the same way the next morning and through much of the day, though I did eat cleanly again (the nan breads and cake were both made with white flour).
Friday saw a return to clean eating for the most part. Pub food in the evening doesn't lend itself to clean eating principles though I did forsake chips for new potatoes, didn't use the butter, and only drank water.
Saturday was when it really went to pot. Through the day was ok again but this time at the pub I had salted nuts and J2O, a couple of crisps, dumplings with the casserole and a huge toffee ice cream for pudding. When we got in I had a craving for buttered toast and also opened a box of fancy chocolates. Sunday was similar, cleanish through the day but buttered toast in the evening (following a baked spud with butter and cheese and streaky bacon) and then onto the chocolates again. Last night I was very bloated again and feel the same this morning.
I'm not sure whether the bloating is from large meals or is a reaction to 'unclean' foods, but other symptoms over the last few days have been lethargy, extreme tiredness on an evening, difficulty in waking up and cravings. Lessons to be learned eh?
As well as learning lessons the other plus is that I didn't quite get out of control in the way I have done in the past.
As well as eating clean 90% of the break, I went to ASDA yesterday and whilst the idea of buying chocolate bars flashed across my mind it was immediately dismissed and I've had no doubt that as of today I will be back on track.
The scales say I've put on 4.6lb in 10 days and the body fat percentage has risen. However, I'm confident that the apparent gain is largely 'food in transit' and will disappear this week - mostly in the next couple of days.
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