Running Woes and What I Ate Thursday

Hello, and how are you doing this Wednesday?

I was due to do a 4 mile race-pace run and I really didn't want to do it. Earlier this evening I got caught in a rainstorm on the way home and soaked. I was debating all the way through the storm whether or not to go for a run when it stopped. It stopped, I got home, found out I only had a neon pink top and my teeny-tiny race shorts clean, but went out any way.

It was still very wet out so I opted for a run along country tracks rather than the main road because I didn't like the way drivers had to go around puddles to avoid splashing me/potential potholes. I got nettled, thistled, very muddy, and really missed my 3/4 length capris. I also wished I was wearing wellies or trainers that didn't have holes in them.

My stomach ache came back as well with a vengeance about one mile in and I had to stop due to the knotting feeling in my upper abdomen. I'm annoyed because it didn't occur at all during an intervals session on Tuesday and cross-training session yesterday. I debated turning around and going home, but decided that putting in the miles slowly would be better than not doing them at all. I think I walked about a mile in all, and feel a bit worried about how I'm going to perform on race day.

I have the sneaky suspicion the stomach ache may be due to overstraining my core muscles due to the press ups and sit ups I've been doing, so I'm going to pause the programmes until after the race. I hope this will sort it once I've gotten over them.

My weight-loss attempts have also been a bit pants lately and I haven't eaten well at all. I find that tracking everything I eat helps me lose weight and prevents me from cheating or falling off the wagon. I was going to do What I Ate Wednesday to get back on the straight and narrow, but my partner and I went out for dinner before going to see Senna at the cinema (go see it even if you don't like Formula 1 it's still a breathtaking story of dedication, rivalry, inconsistency, risk-taking and passion) and I ate a yummy hummus and tzaziki starter with lots of toasted pitta bread then even more yummy yemista, but didn't photograph it.

So on to What I Ate Thursday.

The day started with overnight muesli made from porridge oats, Tesco's low-fat natural yoghurt, a fruit and nut mix, and black cherries washed down with a mug of black coffee. Before work I had an unpictured small latte.

For lunch I had two Food Doctor pitta breads toasted and filled with Tesco halloumi with chilli, three tomatoes, some lettuce and some home-made beetroot. I also drank a couple of glasses of water. I almost forgot to photograph it, which is why one of the pita breads is half-eaten.

After lunch I marinated some tofu in a dessertspoon of sesame seed oil, a dessertstpoon of Sriracha chilli sauce, a dessertspoon of soy sauce, and a teaspoon each of crunchy peanut butter and honey then stir-fried the tofu for dinner in another dessertspoon of sesame seed oil, a Sainsbury's stir-fry vegetable pack, and some straight to wok Singapore-style noodles. It was delicious and tasted creamy, spicey and not too sweet.

If I'm hungry later I may have some Kallo hint of chilli mini rice cakes and an apple.

Toodle-oo.

Carmen - Overture

I procrastinated loads before today's run. I'm off work at the moment, which is why I was able to procrastinate loads before 4pm. I think it was because I needed to take my car to the garage to fill it up, hoover it and possibly put it through the car wash so putting off my run was a way of putting off doing that because I couldn't possibly sort my car out before I went for a run. Let me explain: I have a car, however I have an irrational fear of garages. Everyone's in a rush at the because seriously who wants to take their time when they are only stopping off on the way to somewhere else they want to or have to be? So I get stressed about messing it up somehow and delaying people. I'm terrified I'll accidentally put diesel in my car instead of petrol - even though I'm pretty sure this is impossible nowadays because they have different nozzles or something. I'm also scared I'll accidentally drive into a bollard or a pump.  I guess since I'm a new driver I'm just scared that somehow, somewhere, I am going to fuck it up for me and everyone else and someone will yell at me for it.

So delaying going for a run meant I could delay going to the garage.

So I sat around. Then I rang Mr Scientist to ask him how much it costs to vacuum your car out at the garage, because somehow it made me feel better. His answer, "I didn't know you could do that." Then I rang dad since we're visiting this weekend to tell him what time we'd be arriving and asked him if I needed to take my aerial off if I put the car through a car wash. His answer, "Maybe, why don't we jetwash it with my jetwash when you get here?" Dad bought a jetwash a while back. He loves it. It's like a grandchild to him. He's jetwashed his and mum's car many times. He's jetwashed the path and the patio. Like the Daily Mail's never-ending quest to split the world into things that either cause or cure cancer, world is now split into things you can jetwash, and things you can't. Then I cleaned the inside of my car and sat around some more.

Then I womanned up, got in my car and drove it to the garage and filled it up and put it through the car wash.

After that I still didn't want to go for a run. So I got into my running stuff, sat around a bit more, then went.

4 miles through the housing estate and onto the old railway line. I had a wind at my back on the way out and was running into the wind on the way home. We had a torrential downpour yesterday so I was splashing through the odd muddy puddle as well. It felt wonderful, like I was a proper runner and everything. My tummy ache turned into proper cramps that I had to stop for 3 times, and on the last 3/4 miles I was really flagging... until the overture from Carmen came on.

Brilliant.

Lesson from today's run: Just get off your bum and do it. Everyone else does it. It's not scary or difficult. It's just life, so get on with it and stop worrying.

What things do you do to procrastinate? Do you use exercise to procrastinate, or do you procrastinate before exercise.?

4 Miles 34:29
Total time: 35:31
Avg Pace: 08:27

No Music

Today I went to the gym with the intention of running a 4 mile race pace trial, doing day 2 of week 2 of the 100 pushup challenge and 200 situp challenge. Halfway through the situps my iPod ran out of power. I was in a workout mindset so I ran anyway.

34 minutes and 14 seconds later I completed it with only one pause - because the treadmill is automatically limited to 30 minutes. I'm not a treadmill hog, honest, there are about 30 treadmills and only about 10 were being used. I'm a very conscientious gym user, really.

The run felt good. Not as good as if I'd just packed up my trainers and gone and done it outside later on but I was in the mood and I knew if I did it after going home it would be late and I would probably put it off till tomorrow or some such thing.

But the run felt good. It wasn't easy and I spent too much time looking down as the miles crawled by as there was little else to look at. Before the run I remembered that I found last week's 3.5mile race pace run incredibly difficult because I felt like I just didn't have the energy, and I was worried I was going to need the music to get me through it.

But the run felt good. The act of concentrating on my form to keep my shoulders and arms down felt good. I tense my shoulders and my hands creep up to my chest resulting in aching shoulders. I swear to God I can come back from a run with my leg muscles feeling fine and no blisters or anything like that but my right shoulder blade killing me. Also, pushups give me short-lived headaches. WTF, body?

The act of putting one foot in front of the other, managing my breathing, keeping my body going felt good. It would have felt better with the sun and wind on my face but it still felt good. And I needed it, I really did. After last week I needed a boost to let me know it's going to be ok and I can do this 10k. I've been overthinking training recently, worrying about if I'm training effectively, if I need to speed up, slow down, do something different, use my HRM more... so it was good to just set a target and enjoy getting there.

I now know I can run for 4 miles in very boring circumstances, since I run better outside, with an average pace of 08:33.5. I would not have been able to do that before I started training for this 10k. I now know I can enjoy running for itself.

Ride

I need to stop whining and finding excuses for why I can't run. Today the reasons were: I forgot a second hairtie and couldn't tie my hair in a bun so it was left in a pony tail to flop around my neck and drip sweat down my back and irritate me, the almost-new earphones on my iPod shuffle broke the other day so I had to use my normal headphones and couldn't use the special toggle on my special iPod headphones to adjust the volume or skip tracks, I'd quickly bought some new running shorts and when I wore them today I realised they were far too short for my fat legs, a colleague got back from holiday so we all caught up on the gossip and the situation at work pissed me off all over again.

So what I'm trying to say is I failed to run a proper Race Pace Thursday again. I'm beginning to seriously doubt if I can manage the 10K in 50 minutes or even an hour. You know what's the most irritating? I started running 7.5mph on the treadmill, dropped to 7, then dropped to 6.5mph after I was finding it hard to breathe. And I still couldn't do it. I had to stop at 2 miles (instead of the planned 3) . And only the other day I had comfortably done 4 miles on the hill programme on the treadmill at... 6.5mph. So today I failed to do something easier than I did on Monday.

I have no idea what to do. Part of my thinks I should aim at a sub-55 minute 10K, part of me thinks I shouldn't be discouraged and still aim for the sub-50 minute 10K, or simply train for it and take what comes on the day.

I've signed up for a 5K a week on Sunday. A couple of us are running together and aiming for a sub-24 5K, so whatever happens I'm going to try to keep up.

Race Pace, er, Saturday? Tears for Fears - Shout

I've been terribly lazy this last week and haven't run since Tuesday.

I tried to do 3 miles at my race pace of 8 min/mile and failed miserably. I got a mile before I had to drop my speed. By the end I was gasping for breath, that horribly raspy breathing when I can't open my throat up enough to get the oxygen my body needs. I ran 3 miles in 25:26, which is slightly slower than my 5k PR of 25:31, but not shabby considering. I'm worried that with 11 weeks until my 10K race I won't be able to run it in under 50 minutes. I'm beginning to wonder if under 50 minutes, considering I can't run a 5k in under 25, would be too ambitious and that I should aim for under 55 minutes. I don't think I can do it under 50 minutes, but I'm going to try some hated and dreaded interval training to help me get quicker. 1 minute at 6mph (10min/mile) jog followed by one minute at 8.1mph (quickermin/mile)

Either way. Driving home tonight 'Shout' was on the radio and I spent a while wondering what I could do without. These include:

• Me being lazy.

• Worrying so much about running I avoid running. It doesn't matter, despite having told friends, family, colleagues etc I want to run the 10K under 50 minutes, if I don't. No-one apart from me will actually give a monkeys if I fail.

• An incompetent colleague being promoted despite failing quite hard as they were shunted from team to team because no-one wanted them.

• An irritating colleague who barely works on my team, hates the work, and want to stop helping us out anyway taking accolades my team earned, without us finding out until afterwards.

• Open season being declared on Pippa Middleton by some sections of the media. Presumably Kate's off limits since she's married now and there's that uncomfortable legacy from her husband's mother's relationship with the media.

• Me not being bothered to eat healthily for over a week now.

• Dresses you can't wear proper bras under (sleeveless dresses, dresses whose backs go too low to wear a bra underneath, strappy dresses whose straps don't cover bra straps I'm looking at you)

Anything you could do without?

Freewheel

Yesterday was supposed to be Race Pace Thursday running 5k at 7.5mph at the gym, but as I got to there I was feeling all kinds of stressed out and just couldn't do it. I wasn't in the right place mentally, I wasn't breathing well enough, I was worrying about my stiff left calf, worrying about getting a stitch, worrying about the traffic home, and the traffic on the way to the gym. After about 2k I packed it in and cycled instead.

I'm beginning to wonder if I can hit my goal of 10k in 50 minutes, considering I could barely run 2k yesterday. Maybe I should give myself a break and aim for 55 minutes instead. Maybe I should give myself a break and remind myself I have about 13 weeks until the race which is plenty of time to improve my fitness.

Anyway, the song is a very cute song with a very cute video that always cheers me up and energizes me.

Strict Machine

Today was Race Pace Thursday, so I ran for 2.5 miles at 7.5mph on the treadmill set at level 1. This is an 8 minute mile and the speed I should aim at to do 10K in 50 minutes. I managed the 2.5 miles and was a bit out of breath at the end but not gasping, so hopefully should be able to achieve it. When I started the run some serious doubts set in - would I ever be able to do this? I told myself I shouldn't forget  that I'm lazy, fat, a rubbish runner and that my flat-footed body would never be able to run 10K in 50 minutes. After all, I've never been one of those sporty girls. In cross-country I've was the chubby, wide one puffing along at the back, gamely trying to keep going despite needing to walk frequently.

But I didn't listen to this, I snapped back to 2011 and the gym with its AC on overdrive and sports on the TV and kept on running.

I'm reading Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney E. Martin. Martin wanted to explore why eating disorders are so prevalent, endemic even, among American women. Through extensive research and in-depth interviews across America she comes to the conclusion that society plants the seed of self-doubt and anxiety in women around puberty that they should be perfect, and that this perfection is embodied, literally, in being thin. Thin equals control, respect, beauty. Thin is right, fat is wrong. A woman is split into the hypercritical perfect girl and the starving daughter trying to please her, goes Martin's theory.

Yet at every turn on the road toward being perfect women are faced by the obstacle of their very own bodies rebelling against them. Their bodies get curves, wobbly bits and they themselves have to battle their own hunger and desires.  Their bodies are their own enemies.

Part of me just shrugs off the toxic desire to be a willowy size 8 with tiny feet because I will never be a 5'2" slip of a thing, nor will I be a 5'10" giraffe. I try to be realistic about my body. I have to admit weight loss is the main reason I started exercising, although now I do it to burn calories and because I enjoy it. I'm trying to focus on the enjoyment, although I still obsess about the calorie counter on the treadmill.

So why am I so terrified that I'm just kidding myself and reading this book to simply justify rejecting striving for being a perfect size 8 because I will never be 'good' enough to obtain it? Why am I beginning to feel that a 'perfect 10' is too fat? Why am I terrified that the rest of the world would never accept it if I weighed 10 stones and was pretty much happy with that ta very much because they think I should weigh 9 stones to be happy? Why, indeed, do I give a flying fuck about any of this?

I don't have any answers to this. I just hope one day I will find serenity.

I can't imagine not running. Guess what my strict machine is. ;)