Run Mileages (Brett)

This month at work has been health month and the one aspect associated with it is seeing what everyone’s mileages were either walking or running. Upon seeing what my mileages are a number of people have been asking how me how do I do it, not only from a time perspective but also physically.

This is when I break out into one of my random philosophies on the world…so here is one of them. Many will follow in due course.

Regarding finding the time to run or do some form of exercise all you need is half an hour of your day whether in the morning or evening. So instead of merely working that extra hour at work because it is “the thing to do” or faffing around the house, just crack on and spend that half an hour doing some exercise as you will feel a lot better for it and it also provides with some me to time think about the world and how to solve the euro crises or if you are feeling really inspired you can question how relative is quantum physics… I just generally ponder about the weather and what is for dinner during my runs in the week.

Regarding the mileages which I run. There are a number of fundamentals associated with how I manage to run the miles which I do.

1. Enjoyment – I really enjoy running as to me it is an excuse for me being outdoors no matter what the weather. When I see these guys running and they look totally miserable as they think they have to run at a certain speed or HR I enjoy joining them getting them to slow down and relax because if they hate what they do they will never get back out there tomorrow.
2. Intensity –I just generally run at a level which feels good for the day and take things from there. Fair enough I might throw in some “hurt” when in the mood but that is generally VERY randomly as I am generally to busy enjoying cruising around.
3. Time – I always try and make time to have a run so for example if I have a huge work load I will make sure that I get to work extra early so that I know that I can run in the evening or visa versa.
4. Rest – The key difference between any pro athlete and sociable runner is the fact that he/she is able to rest and have sport massages, thus when I feel rather knackered I will either take the day off or merely go for a light cruisy run as when you try and act like a hero the only thing which it will lead to is an injury.
5. Socialising – It is great running with mates, you don’t have to always focus on your training program. Just heading out with them no matter what is their standard will provide the opportunity for good banter. My weekly running partner definitely has this approach as he is very rapid compared to me but hopefully my banter is of a light enough nature for him to keep coming back for more. Even if you are on a long run and you see someone battling along join them for a few minutes as it will refresh the both of you mentally and physically and you never know who you will meet as running is the great equaliser in society.

Training in the Surrey Hills

I really like this photo of our run in the Surrey Hills yesterday - Brett, me and my brothers.

Reading material (Hannah)

I’ve just read two really good books on running / endurance so I thought I’d write an entry on my various bits of reading material...

I love reading about sport and sports related stuff – getting immersed in other people’s adventures, understanding the science behind sport and nutrition, learning about new ways of doing things, ...  Brett and I are beginning to build up a good collection of books and magazines as well as making use of the growing number of sources of information on the internet.  Brett is also a huge fan of Twitter and follows an impressive collection of elite sportspeople – cyclists, ultrarunners, ironmen, etc.

The book I’ve just finished is Relentless Forward Progress by Bryon Powell.  One of the things I really liked about the book was the fact that Bryon included loads of articles by other top ultrarunners.  This made it a great collection of advice and experience.  It’s a really practical book – something I’ll definitely keep dipping back into as we train for the Transalpine and whatever other adventures follow that.  It’s also supported online on Bryon’s website – iRunFar.  Brett already spends a lot of time on there and follows the site’s Twitter feed.  I’m looking forward to going and exploring the site, especially in terms of looking for advice on training for multi-day races as there’s only a short section on that in the book.

Before that, I read Survival of the Fittest by Mike Stroud.  This was much more detailed and so took a lot longer to read.  But the amount of information in it made it well worth the effort.  Each chapter deals with a different aspect of endurance racing – e.g. extreme heat or extreme cold.  To give an example of how the body reacts to these different stresses, Mike describes a race that he's taken part in - some pretty hard core things which are quite inspiring and daunting at the same time.  This story of the race is mixed in with explanations of the science behind the reactions of the human body.   I find this really fascinating as I love understanding how my body reacts under stress and why.  One of the key messages that Mike is trying to get across is that the human body is designed to deal with a lot more than we think.  It's not  designed to sit behind a desk all day or in front of the TV.  And it's not designed to eat processed crap.  This fits in really well with so many of the other messages that are breaking through in sports and nutrition literature - see also Born to Run (Chris MacDougall) and the Primal Blueprint (Mark Sissons).

When we're not reading books, we have a couple of magazines that we enjoy reading.  The two we subscribe to are Trail Running and Triathlete Europe.  The first has a big focus on getting out into the countryside, getting muddy, exploring and having fun - doing slightly more alternative stuff.  What we like about Triathlete Europe is that it's quite detailed and doesn't just re-hash the same articles year after year like some other magazines.  A lot of the articles are written by pro athletes or top coaches and they cover some really useful and interesting topics as well as give us an insight into their racing or training.  It gives a lot of food for thought...

Back on the bike (Hannah)

It's three weeks since I twisted my ankle and I'm still not able to run - I think I probably tore something and running the final 11 miles of the marathon on it wasn't very sensible.  But experience has taught me that I mustn't rush back into training or it'll be a problem that drags on for months.

So, other than a few walks, I spent the Christmas period resting.  And I think my body needed it - once it had realised it was time to rest I found myself sleeping a huge amount each night.  It's been a shock heading back to work this week but I do feel a lot better.

But the problem with catching up with myself and doing minimal exercise is that I've not been sleeping particulary well over the last few days.  Definitely time to start tiring myself out again!  So, I'm back on my turbo trainer, doing lengthy endurance sessions in the hope that these will help my running.  And I'm also walking lots.  I followed this approach last year when I had calf problems - but I'd definitely prefer to be outside running rather than inside on a turbo!

I've also been doing lots of balance work - to get the nerves etc firing properly again and to build up all the small stabilising muscles.  So I'm spending lots of time standing on one leg, doing one legged squats, balancing on the bosu, lunges, ...  I've been doing lots of googling on ankle strengthening and I found one article that suggested that, if you can't stand on one leg for 30 seconds with your eyes closed, then this indicates that your risk of going over on your ankle is increased.  So I've figured that I need to get to a place where I can stand on one leg for a lot longer than that!

Things are definitely improving so hopefully I'll be back running in the next week or so...  And definitely continuing with all the strengthening exercises.