The dangers of planning ahead

Well exercise planning starting to get going, new ideas buzzing, running slow but steady ish, weight management still requiring serious thought and effort, so all ticking along, maybe not nicely but definitely ticking. Then a weekend away ruins the lot....

A wet windy weekend and a walk along a stony beach, where a great amount of fossils lie in wait for discovery. wet rocks and unsteady scambling are no great combination for successful exercise and...... unable to control the slipping sensation underfoot... crash, down I went, slamming into my knee and causing several seriously foul expletives to rain continuously for a few minutes. (no change there then) (Bonus fossil found while on the down bit so some redemption allowed)

Hobbling continued for at least another hour, interspersed with wailing and howling (that's me not the wind and rain) when faced with wall ladders and climbing up and down things (not good with those as anyone who has heard of my exploits trying to recover things from my parent's attic will have noted - and that's another story)so... full panic mode and childish petulant metaphorical footstamping ensues, followed by getting feet seriously soggy having to walk in the water and eventual arrival back on soggy dry land (??) soaked to the skin (love leaving the waterproofs in the car) and ready to head home immediately please, well after a spot of lunch to aid recovery.

Investigation of said knee showed swelling and discolouration setting in..Oh Bum!!! Luckily icepack to hand and travel home with knee being iced was next.

More swelling to follow with hobbling pain and cut off cirulation as the ankle and foot are also the size of a small barrage balloon.

Running is, I think, not an option for a while......a short while I hope, but definitely not this week and will not hold my breath re next either.

So hey ho, back to beginner status again. Oh deep joy, well at least I can start from scratch and try and co-ordinate everything together....ooooh look....another pink piggy flying overhead.

Mining for gold

Every now and again we stumble upon a gem of an idea, sparked by something very simple that could really develop into something much bigger with a little bit of spark and enthusiasm, a bit of knowledge and the ooomph to make things happen.

I attribute my newly found enthusiasm for exercise and fitness (as opposed to the one I know I should have) partly to a chance conversation with another running club member, who like me, suffers from post marathon injury and demotivation and reduced levels of fitness, but also like me has previous exercise qualifications and also coach training.

So we started discussing various aspects of fitness and how we know that we don't do enough to strengthen our running muscles other than by trying to go out and run, and reminiscing back to the days when we both taught various aerobic classes and how fit we were at the time.

This sparked an idea which we are currently working on to get some decent running specific add ons for those who do nothing but go out and run. Things that will help runners specifially to strengthen the running and in the end hopefully to reduce the high injury rates we all seem to suffer from.

Suddenly my brain is in the zone of planning and motivating to get things done....ah but again this relates to others, so.....

PLAN A.......information gathering
What bits of me hurt when I run?
What exercises work to help strengthen those bits?
What stretches do I need to do to help?

Next step..... try them out, do they make any difference.
If No - then ditch that particular exercise
If YES - well get it on paper quick, if it works for me it'll work for others.

I am constantly being told I am a mine of information, so time to start digging it out and flogging it off rather than burying it for future generations. Theres gold in them there training hills eh?

Will Power, my new best friend

Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been 2 months since my last confession, and..... to be fair I'm not actually much further on than I was 2 months ago. Oh Dear! The idea of getting back to fitness and the combination of the food, exercise etc. is nice in theory, so why oh why is it so hard in practice.

To be fair, my running is starting to improve, I am now getting to the point of being able to run for much more than a 2 minute stint without collapsing in a heap, well on most of the sessions anyway, and to be fair the heat of the past few weeks hasn’t helped.

So far I have managed to kick-start my training regime back onto a track of sorts. I seem perfectly able to motivate myself to take out my beginner groups and encourage them to achieve in their sessions, and have even managed to be so motivational that many of them have joined in the local free 5k park runs and amazed themselves with their ability to run 5k when they never thought they could.
So great seem to be the motivational skills that one lady who was adamant she was never going to run again after she had completed her 5k race for life, has spent money on decent running shoes, shorts and tops, has entered the park run on several occasions so far and having been encouraged to run all of it one week with a companion, now runs the entire distance on her own, and has asked to carry on with the training once our 10 weeks is up and maybe build up to a longer distance. Next target 5-mile race in September, which I really need to enter myself, just to prove I too can do it.
So......motivating others - Tick done.....Motivating self....needs more work, a lot more work, in short I think I need a new best friend. One that isn't afraid to tell me what they think I should be doing and keep me motivated along the way while doing it.

I, however it seems, am not the person to be my best friend.

So hey best friend, just a bit of advice.......I know all the rules and what I should do, I just have a major willpower issue when it comes to doing it.

I know that planning has to be the key, along with lots of tick charts to keep me on the straight and narrow as all my good work with the calf stretching and water intake seems also to be slipping fast. Though I must admit, with the increase in the running the calves seem to have eased nicely now and my fluid intake seems to be much higher than previously, so maybe, just maybe, the habits have started to reap benefits.
Well OK then in that case lets get onto some nice new ones.

Logically I know what I need to do, the basic premise of eating fewer calories than you burn off is really quite simple to grasp. The difficulty comes with putting that into practice.
I speak to others and they seem to have that magic little thing called willpower.

Ha...if only it were so simple as that.

So Will if you are out there, please come and be my best friend, it seems you are the only one who can help.

to (park)run or not to (park)run

Week two of the Parkrun started badly. The weather was great, perfect conditions, I arrived a little later than planned, I never warm up anyway, so is that a problem?
Two of my new beginner group were there....hoping to beat them but hey who knows.

Start.....breathing rubbish, legs tighten, suddenly the tingle of pins and needles, the calf cramps and running on feet that I don't think belong to me. Still..... got to keep going, have a time to beat from the previous week, just a few seconds will do. Run, walk, run, walk, all have gone past me except one that I know of, try hard to keep running, think my feet are still there, end of first lap, oh boy lapped by 6 this week. (2 lap courses are so much fun...sometimes - encouragement and despondency in equal measure)

Finish......eventually, finally remember to stop watch, still under 5k (more corners cut)and watch shows 41.55, but I did let it run, so slower, but....hey ho room for improvement at least.

Wait for results to go up on web...wait.....wait....results up.....where am I.....there is a gap and an "Unknown" in the position where my name should be.

I realise my running was rubbish, but even the results didn't want to recognise me.

Email sent to the "race crew"......frustration follows....re-read emails sent.....read as very angry and unforgiving....ooops, not the intention, send apologetic email and plead for result.
It took a while but hey I exist once more and according to their figures, not that much slower.
Avoid next weeks run due to perceived tiredness and aches and pains, but trundle along to support my beginners, who manage to run the whole 5k, well done them.

Week 4 managed to shave another 23 seconds off the first week (according to my watch anyway) and the time on the results near enough matches mine, and still my beginners are running the whole 5k while I am still struggling to run/walk.

I think it all seems to be coming together slowly, but feels painfully slow at times.

Parkruns rule....fabulous way to test out your 5k times if you have no other way to measure. And so much less pressured than a race you pay for. I think I shall be doing a fair few of these, and maybe (to make up for my outburst of frustration and anger) I need to also volunteer at a few.

Meanwhile....keep on training and maintain the pint of water first thing in the morning, with a 5 min calf stretch routine, I'm sure that is helping.

Water water everywhere

Do as I say, not as I do, seems to be how I work when I am coaching. It seems that I am able to help diagnose simple hydration problems for others, yet will not do the same for myself.

The number of times I hear myself saying to others, "Do you drink much water? Because sometimes the lack of water can cause muscle cramp" is incredible, and yet I don't appear to take note of my own advice.

Bascially I dislike the taste of the water, but I do need to make sure I consume sufficient amounts to allow my muscles to work effectively, so maybe just adding some flavour to it to take the edge away would help. I need to start the process.

In the past few years when starting the beginer groups the first thing we always say to them is "you must drink plenty of fluids" so what do I do? Complain that my calves are tight, know i don't drink enough water and then complain like mad.

So step 1, rehydration programme.

I have never been one to drink large amounts of any liquid, so to try and get into the habit of drinking more I need to keep a chart so I can tick off my "glasses of water" daily.
I need to form a nice new hydration habit, and I know new habits take about 20 times of doing to get them installed in the brain, or around 3 weeks of doing to get used to it, so i need to start small and build that up, a little like the running the training needs to begin.

I cannot deal with too may changes at once, i don't know that it is possible to effectively change more than 2 things at a time, so hydration is my first priority. This in turn may lead to natural food curbage as maybe there are times when I feel hungry when in fact I am actually in need of water.

So here we go then

Habit no 1 - A pint glass of water first thing every morning for the first 3 weeks, to establish the habit, while continuing with my other drinks during the day as well.

How hard can that be?

Better draw up a chart to tick them off though just in case.

Run....run for your life

An email arrived in my in-box "Park Run" a 5k local run, free and timed for anyone that wanted to turn up. All you needed to do was register, get a barcode printed out, then turn up, run, get a finish time and you have a marker to start you off.
To go or not to go that is the question, always easier to sit at home and think about it than get out and do it, but that's not helpful for my training or my motivation.
So I arrived at the Park Run location just after 8.30 am on a Saturday morning to give it a go. Time in my head of 40 mins.
I am sure you can convince your body to achieve a certain time by just thinking about it, because a lot of run and more walk later, I finished just under my target time of 40 mins (39.35). Looked like I'd cut a corner or two though as my Garmin read 4.92k. Hey ho, it's a start eh? And now I feel very virtuous for having gone out to do something for myself.
Checked out the website and it said I did 38.44, well who am I to argue then?
I now have a benchmark to my training, so now to get practicing and see how well I can improve it.

First stop my beginner groups. At the moment I am leading 2 groups for the new Run in England initiative and as beginners they are starting from scratch to build them up nicely, the advantage is that I too am benefitting from this gentle build up strategy. My only worry is that they will build up quicker than I can and I will struggle to keep up with them.

Then there are the regular running club nights, I turn up to most of them and manage to do something, but at my stage of running at the moment find that too much too soon is not helpful, and while everyone might be comfortable with a set off from the start gentle jog (which equates to the speed of my fast run) my body and lungs are not happy and need a more gentle build up. I had thought about turning up half hour before training begins just to warm myself up, but life has a way of intervening with that.

Structure is I think the way to go then. IF my beginners are building up nicely with a build up plan then I too need something similar. So back to the drawing board and planning stages....and then to the food intake.

Actually its a bit of a wheeze

Having blamed everything about my dire running ability on my fitness, weight, breathing and deciding to do something about all 3 the first stage of my plan was to get the breathing checked out.

I duly made an appointment with the nurse at my health centre, not appreciating how long the process would take. Anyway, first blow into a machine that tells how much I can expel, apparently not too bad. 80% is the limit of being able to cope naturally, I score 89%.

So far so good, then comes the blow out as hard as you can part, only it isn't just blowing is it? There is a 1 inch diameter tube in your mouth and trying to breathe out hard with that there is nigh on impossible, still apparently I make 80%, with wheeze still intact and a post expel cough to match the 40 a day smoker.

So I am borderline for asthma, but not quite there, hence I guess why when I tried an inhaler in the past it had little or no effect on me. Still, next stage, pump me full of salbutimol make me wait 20 mins then try again just to see if it is anything that's asthma induced and that can be cured with a dose of ventolin. In fact I had several doses of it, so should be feeling seriously light headed.

We try again.

Very similar results and the conclusion is that it may (or may not) be asthma (useful) and that, however the nurse tried to gloss over it, I have the lungs of a 64 year old and a graphic representation of my breathing that should, for the figures I have produced, be a more straight line tail off, though mine shows a nice concave curve. It seems that "Houston there is a problem" we just don't know what it is yet.

Next step. Appointment with doctor to check out potential allergies and any other problems that might cause me to wheeze like a 64 year old 40 a day smoker every time I start to run. Now if I can find who did that transplant in my youth I would like to tell him off.

I am hopeful that planning the diet (maybe the weight loss will help) and upping the exercise (fitness has to help) will both improve the age of my lungs (i.e return them to nearer my actual age) and maybe reunite them with the correct birth certificate.

Why do i think the road to London 2012 will be an eventful one?