In light of not much running nor blogging...

 In light of not much running nor blogging I thought I'd share some blogs I enjoy that aren't related to running, exercise or healthy eating. I'm going to do it once a month till I run out of interesting blogs that I like to read. Some will have an extensive readership with individual hits into the millions. Most won't. Some you may know already, some you may not.

I hope you will also take part in the monthly sharing of interesting blogs that go beyond the remit of the blog you write.

This month's blog is The Magistrate's Blog. It's written by a long-serving magistrate who sits somewhere in London. He comments on how his area of law is reported in the media and also about the sort of cases he sees. He's erudite, accessible and always very humane,


P.S.
Dear Mr Scientist,
Moves like Jagger will NEVER have a place on my blog.
Much love,
Fifi.

Wake Up

Quite often by the end of the day I'm tired and hungry. I feel lethargic and exhausted and by the time I've taken a train and a bus home and I'm through the door my motivation to go out running is at zero. Sometimes I even tell myself I don't want to run as soon as I wake up.

Ugh.

It's worse now it's dark and cold.

So i had to force myself to go to running club tonight. I had two slices of toast with honey and a mug of coffee and dragged myself out of the door.

A warm up run then 4 x 600 metres efforts later I feel a lot better for it

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I've a question for cookers of unusual food out there: What do I do with soya flour? I bought some to make pancakes but aside from making pancakes every day for the next month I'm not sure how to use the rest of it. Anyone got any ideas?

Yorkshire Coast 10k Recap

On Sunday 30th October I got up, had a pre-race breakfast of two slices of brown bread covered in peanut butter and topped with sliced banana.

After that I sat around for a few hours chilling out before heading to Scarborough Spa Complex on the South Beach. The Complex was busy but well signposted and it was easy to pick up my timing chip.

After that we lined up on the road outside the complex. Looking north along the Marine Drive which snakes around the coast and forms the majority of the race route, I could see Scarborough seafront with its arcades, cafes and fish and chip shops, the harbour, and the ruins of Scarborough Castle perched high on the cliffs. It was sunny but a touch hazy and a naval ship was anchored in the South Bay. It felt good to be out there at 10am on a sunny Sunday morning waiting to start a 10k race.

The race was very flat but I allowed myself to be pulled along at the start by the people around me, something I paid for later on in the race. Running along the seafront was easy but we encountered a slight headwind once we rounded the headland. However it was a gentle breeze. After running along the Marine Drive we headed into a park then back out on to the shore promenade for a few hundred metres before turning around at the Sealife Centre and heading back toward the Spa Complex.

Chip Time: 51:03
Gun Time: 51:37
Garmin Time: 51:04
Split 1: 7:53.8
Split 2: 7:53.5
Split 3: 8:06.0 (This is when I began to pay for starting too fast)
Split 4: 8:13.2
Split 5: 8:08.7
Split 6: 8:25.7
Split 7: (300 m) 2:23.0

So I've got a new PB - frustrating just out of the 50s but I've proved to myself that a sub-50 10k is there for the taking provided I keep training and shift the 5lb that have glued themselves to my hips over the last few weeks.

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So what next? I don't have another 10k planned but I've decided to continue following training plans as if I were.  I'm continuing to go to the running club and have signed up for a winter cross country league. This and parkrun should keep me ticking over throughout the winter.

I've decided to declare a temporary truce on weightloss. I don't discuss this much on my blog but I'm at the high end of a healthy BMI and body fat percentage for my height and would like to lose about a stone by cutting my fat percentage further. I'm not going to try to do this over the holiday period, though, because I've got a couple of birthdays, work parties and weekend away visiting my best friend between here and January which I know will stymie any weightloss. So I'm declaring a temporary truce and I'm going to lose 3lb to get to 10.5 stones then seek to maintain until January. In addition to this I'm tired of constantly dieting and getting nowhere, so I'm going to take control and decide to go nowhere.

So there.

And now I'm going to bed!

Lots and Little

The Yorkshire Coast 10k is tomorrow.

I've checked out the weather and it will be sunny/overcast with a 12-13mph SW wind. Hopefully the cliffs will shelter us from most of it and I'm very very grateful it's not a NE wind howling straight off the North Sea! The course is along the seafront in Scarborough and makes a small detour into a park on the return leg, so it should be incredibly flat and could be a good candidate for a PB.

I don't feel particularly well prepared as I only decided to do the race 5 or so weeks ago and had to take a week off due to unhappy knees and a stomach bug. Since then I've been mostly sticking to the plan.

I'm looking forward to getting this race out of the way because I've been finding it hard to run after work. I don't usually get back till 6. While I'm not afraid for my personal safety bombing around the streets because it seems less likely you'll be attacked in the cold dark nights of late autumn than any other time, I am a little concerned for my physical safety because the other night I was running along a street and almost tripped over a discarded hubcap. So after this race I'm going to reduce my running to club runs and Saturday and Sunday.

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Aside from running lots I've been cooking lots. I bought Appetite for Reduction a few weeks ago and it's quickly become my go-to book for quick and healthy meals. So far I've made Chickpea Piccatta, Ginger Bok Choi with Soba Noodles, Garlicky Mushrooms and Kale, and Pasta e Fagioli with Spinach. All of the recipes are quick and tasty and more importantly they work. The only change I'd make to any of them is to reduce the amount of water required for the Chickpea Piccatta because there was a bit too much sauce.

Brilliant book.

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I've been very busy at my new temporary job and have an hour's commute each way which is why I haven't been commenting as much as usual. I'm still reading!

Harder Better Faster Stronger

Last week was an awful week concerning running. I was resting on Monday due to achey kneecaps from the weekend before. Then I eased back into exercise with a gentle 30 minute cross training session on Tuesday... Then I got a stomach bug and couldn't run until Sunday.

On Sunday I decided to do a tentative 6 mile run instead of the 7.5 miles on my 10k training plan. I didn't want to strain my knees again, and I wasn't sure if I were totally over the stomach bug. It was a beautiful late autumn day with a gentle wind, bright sunlight and blue skies overhead. I found a long, straight run along a disused railway line near my parent's home with a gentle ascent for the whole length of it. I planned a basic 3 miles out-and-back.

I passed dog walkers, walking walkers going down the track as it stretched out through the village where I grew up and beyond. I passed where my friend used to live and the farm where another friend used to keep her horses. I passed the lane you take down to a rocky inlet which has the best rockpools in the north of England, although not the best fossil-hunting - that honour belongs to another rocky cove further north of where my parents live. I passed a cafe where my mother and I once waited an hour for sandwiches and never went back again. I passed new houses creeping into the fields as the village has slowly expanded. I caught my first glimpse of the North Sea, blue-grey in the autumn sun. I passed one of my favourite pubs, which is conveniently located 100m from the track. I passed wooded valleys and rolling green fields.

At 3 miles - the point where I should have turned back - I felt great and decided to go the extra 0.75 of a mile that would expand the run into 7.5 miles. I stopped at 3.75 miles next to a house that was directly adjacent to the track. It was a former railway station. This was the end point of the bi-annual sponsored walk my secondary school used to do. Every other year the whole school would walk along the railway track from the town the school was in to this station. I stopped in the sunshine to catch my breath then turned back for my parents house.

I felt wonderful.

Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Be kind to you knees - you'll miss them when they're gone.

I went for a gentle 30 minutes on the elliptical this afternoon and my knees still feel stiff. I'm going to try a gentle job tomorrow.

I love this song. Full lyrics after the jump.

Ice, Ice...

I've done something quite stupid and something that you should definitely not do while training for a race. Two weeks ago I went from running 15-20 miles a week over the last month to running around 26 miles a week in order to jump into training for the Yorkshire Coast 10k halfway through a schedule. This is what everyone tells you not to do. Increasing mileage by more than 10% a week is foolish and you risk hurting yourself.

I think I have hurt myself. I think the extra miles coupled with a 6lb weight gain, and mainly the extra miles have made my knees a little cranky.

So my kneecaps started feeling a little stiff while running earlier this week. I ignored it thinking it was one of those niggles that would go away but now they feel a little stiff all the time and with a vague ache while running. I was supposed to do a long slow run of 7.5 miles today which I had to abandon at 4 miles because the ache and stiffness was increasing. I wasn't in particular discomfort nor experiencing any sharp pains, but that couples with my shorts chaffing me made me decide to abandon the run and return home. I'm icing and resting and I'll see how I feel tomorrow. If my knees are still aching and stiff I'll have tomorrow and Monday as rest days.

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If you're interested in the story about Paula Radcliffe losing her world record (it's now merely a world best) due to a ruling from the IAAF check out Episode 90 of Marathon Talk  where they discuss the rule change, particularly in reference to Radcliffe and also in reference to the use of male pace-setters at the recent Berlin Marathon. The presenters do explain that the IAAF ruling was intended to be a positive one recognising women's achievements without men being present in the race, but make the entirely sensible point that it could lead to unnecessary specialisations in marathon records. To quote: What next, the world best for fastest downhill marathon? The fastest marathon on a Saturday?