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Running in a different world

The world is certainly feeling a bit different at the moment, isn’t it?

It’s crazy and scary and sometimes overwhelming. It feels very odd to be sitting down each evening listening to the Prime Minister. It feels like we’re going through some sort of world war… except the people are on one side and nature is on the other (arguable it’s always been this way I suppose).

I’m trying my best to be sensible in all that I do… if I take Alfie for a walk, I avoid people… if I go to the shop I space myself apart from others, if I run I cross roads or give wide berths to people I pass. I just hope that we don’t get forced indoors completely. I just hope everyone follows the “rules” of social distancing.

Sadly this has meant that Kyle and I are social distancing from each other too. He lives with his family and I live with mine, and we can’t keep seeing each other (physically). One of us could take something to the other. And with my mum being a nurse, it’s just a big risk.

It involved a lot of heart ache and sadness to make this decision. I mean, technically the decision was made for us – this is bigger than us, of course. But it’s hard when you know some others aren’t being as stringent. It’s frustrating and honestly I’ve cried a few many tears and stamped my feet, got grumpy and snapped at loved ones (Kyle very much included) and then realised I can’t change anything and I also can’t risk anything. Other people might be happy to up the risk, but we can’t.

So we’ve been Facetiming, House Partying (well, attempting – I feel very old trying to work this app out) and messaging. Sending photos of silly things like what we’re having for dinner, Alfie, and randomness throughout our day. It helps. It’s tough not having a timeframe on this. Is it weeks? Is it months? Who knows.

I’ve been trying to do some home workouts since this all started (yes, I’m one of those people posting their workouts online). Sharing these things helps me stay motivated and apparently it helps others so I’ll keep doing it.

Trying to do circuits in my living with the small amount of equipment I have is tough but actually quite fun. It’s nice to mix it up a bit. I do four rounds of seven exercises and focus on injury prevention rather than burning calories. So I do a lot of leg and glutes work with my resistance band and core work. It helps wake me up in the morning and get set for the day at least!

Running has still been going on. I’ve basically finished my marathon training plan now as next weekend would have been Rotterdam and I continued with the long runs I had scheduled regardless. I don’t know what to do now really. Just run for fun and enjoyment. I’m happy with that.

Of course I’ve been running solo now. But a couple of weeks ago (before the more strict rules were in place) Kyle and I ran to Southsea together from his house. I did 3.5 miles beforehand and then we ran together to the promenade.

I had originally intended to “only” do 16 miles, but I felt so good on the run I ran a bit more. I just felt like everything had slotted into place and I could keep running. It was just one of those lovely runs, and the sun was shining!

In the back of my mind though I was thinking “this could be my last long run” and that definitely motivated me a bit more.

Last weekend was an entirely different long run. While I felt good running, I felt a bit sad and lonely. No Kyle to run with, the roads so quiet, my route altered to avoid the usual busier promenade on the coast… it just felt very different indeed.

I felt the constant guilt of running as well… should I be running? But I luckily do live in a relatively quiet area and the routes I choose are normally, at the best of times, very quiet and so now are almost dead. And with the roads being quiet as well, it’s very easy to jump onto them if I do happen upon a walker to give enough space.

I listened to my film review podcast from BBC 5 Live while running and lifted my spirits somewhat. Despite there being no films being released, the presenters still managed to do the podcast and talk about movies and just generally keep things going. It was a nice moment of normality in this madness.

So what now? Who knows. But I’m going to continue running and being sensible. Hope you’re all safe and well!

How are you doing during this time?

Are you working from home?

Are you still running?

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Well that escalated quickly…

Life has really taken a dramatic twist hasn’t it?

Since the last time I posted (blissfully happy in a bubble of long running and marathon hopes), well, everything has changed.

For us in the UK things have really ramped up quickly in the last week. From advice of washing hands regularly to now schools closing and instructions to work from home, avoiding social spaces and parkrun cancellations.

It’s undoubtedly a scary and uncertain time but I don’t want this post to be all about that because let’s be honest we all know what’s happening and it’s pretty overwhelming and consuming. I’m actually quite glad to now be working from home because it’s all everyone talks about in the office. So I’m at home with a little set-up in my room adjusting to this new way of life.

Anyway, on to what this blog is about: RUNNING. Of course all the races I’d signed up for have been cancelled or postponed. I had the Eastleigh 10k this weekend, of course Rotterdam, and then I’d optimistically signed up to the Southampton marathon as a back-up, but that too has been postponed. Rightly so. And parkrun being cancelled.

Of course this is all the right thing to do. Not going out to social areas, not mixing unnecessarily, limiting chance of exposure. My dad has a heart condition so I’m worried. But we can only control what we can control and there’s point wasting emotional energy on things outside of that. Obviously easier said than done, but I’m trying.

So no marathon in the near future and a bunch of long runs and weeks’ of trainings that seem worthless now on paper. However, for me I really enjoy the process of marathon training so personally it’s not a waste. It’s just a shame there’s not a big shebang of a race to celebrate those long runs.

That said, I’m almost certain I will run 26.2 miles in April. My plan is to run the distance around where I live. I mean, it’s going to be ridiculously tough – so much harder than if it was a race as it’ll just be me on my tod running along. But part of me is curious as to whether I can actually do this… We’ll see. My plan would probably be to run it over the Easter weekend. I’d properly plan a route, maybe get my family out to support me, do everything I’d normally do. Well, watch this space!

Last weekend Kyle and I ran 18 miles together. We both knew Rotterdam had been cancelled and potentially the miles were “pointless” but we wanted to do it anyway as we’d planned it and had mentally geared up for it. Kyle is not a huge long distance fan and now that Rotterdam isn’t happening he’ll drop his mileage back down. It makes sense.

It’s such a shame for him because he did so well with the long runs – far better than last time when he trained for the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon and got injured halfway. He was very much on for a solid race. But such is life right now. He’ll be able to train up again if he wants to (Rotterdam is technically postponed until later in the year so this is real possibility all being well in the world, of course).

The 18 miler we did around where I live, my usual along the coast style long run which I love so much. We reversed the route and set off Sunday morning. We had a more relaxed start as no parkrun to get to (this was to be a “true” long run in the sense we wouldn’t be stopping or sandwiching anything in the middle). The wind was a bit blustery which was somewhat annoying  but generally the run went really well.

It’s funny though because when you’ve been doing a run route in one direction for so long, when you change it suddenly it makes everything different and you notice all these hills that you previously hadn’t!

However, we maintained a decent pace and then towards the end I stretched it out a tiny bit just to get my legs going. It’s my usual way of running long runs that I like to speed up a bit towards the end if I have the energy. Kyle wasn’t far behind at all though.

When we got back to mine my parents handed me a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts that a lovely friend had dropped off after I’d done a favour for him. What a fantastic way to finish a run, I tell you! We didn’t eat them straight away 😉

Instead we showered and then celebrated with an almighty carvery. Honestly, so satisfying and extra delicious after all those miles!

I had roast gammon with all the trimmings. It was glorious. The doughnuts were had later when we were chilling. Perfection!

Delicious Lotus Biscoff

Anyway, stay safe and healthy everyone!

What’s your favourite doughnut flavour?

Are still long running if you’ve had a race cancellation?

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17 mile parkrun sandwich

So marathon training for Rotterdam is still going well.

I mean it could all be for nothing if it gets cancelled though. Races and events are dropping all over the place. Europe doesn’t feel a particularly stable place right now – and who would have thought the problem would be a virus and not Brexit eh.

And not only this but FlyBe went bust which scuppered our plans a little. We were heading out from Southampton Airport which is so easy for us being local. It meant we could go after work on the Friday rather than take that day off. Alas, we’re now flying from Gatwick.

We managed to save some money so that’s something! And we will get our money back apparently (after the legal dust has settled) so it’s not a terrible outcome (for us at least).

Anyway, with all that in mind, we’ve decided we’ll still go to Rotterdam even if the marathon is cancelled. It’ll be a nice trip as we’ve both never been to The Netherlands and though perhaps crazy for me, it might be nice to go on holiday for holiday’s sake rather than a run 😉

That said… amazingly there’s now a Z parkrun nearby too! Well, I say “nearby”, it’d be about an hour’s journey I think but if the marathon isn’t on we’ll definitely do that on the Saturday instead of doing the much closer parkrun to where we’re staying. Either way, a parkrun will happen! This is very exciting. They only just started up in The Netherlands so I am STOKED.

So the training. Kyle and I had a 17 miler in the plan for Saturday. We decided to combine it with parkrun to break it up a bit, at least mentally. While I don’t mind the long runs (in fact, I really do love them most of the time) it was something Kyle wasn’t looking forward to. And 15 miles to 17 miles is a large step.

So to help ease us into it we planned a 10 mile route to Lee-On-Solent parkrun, then we’d do the parkrun, then run four miles back. By chunking it like this it was easier to digest.

We started off running at around 7.30am (ish… we were a tad late) and in our heads it was just “let’s run 10 miles”, which is a far more manageable distance. Unfortunately due to my very “fine-tuned” planning (ahem…) we got to about 8.5 miles and it was almost 8.50am. Right, we needed to pick it up a bit.

We started discussing strategies. If we got close (and happily because we were running along the coast we would eventually be able to see parkrun in the distance) we could make the decision about whether to do parkrun or just run on and find some more miles as we headed back to mine.

Very luckily it started about five minutes late and by the time we arrived they had literally just started. So we ran to the start line, turned around and began the parkrun course (basically back to where we’d come from).

The only snag in the plan was that because Lee-On-Solent parkrun is quite narrow it meant that we had to navigate our way through runners who were running a bit slower than us. This was easier for me as I’m a little person whereas Kyle is a bigger person so the gaps I could meander through, he could not.

Kyle mentioned it was somewhat frustrating (our own fault though of course) but actually it probably helped keep his pace consistent. I increased my pace a bit more as I wanted to get a bit of a tempo on and it worked nicely for us both in what we wanted from the  long run.

It was hardwork and I felt like I was putting in a lot of effort for a pace that wasn’t, when all said and done, *that* fast (relatively speaking). A bit like when you “sprint” the final 0.2 of a marathon when realistically you’re crawling along.

But it was good to get the legs working hard. All good training.

After we finished we scanned our barcodes quickly then immediately carried on with the run. It was so nice to know we just had to run home. We picked up the pace on the final two miles and we felt like we cruised home. 17 miles, done and dusted.

A real confidence boosting run for us both. And really helps bolster Kyle for the coming 18 miles we have planned for this weekend…

To celebrate of course we needed something epic. So we headed to 7Bone Burger in Portsmouth that afternoon (after a proper refuel of porridge for me and scrambled egg on toast for Kyle of course #health). It did not disappoint!

I had a chicken burger with an added halloumi patty (ABSOLUTELY A MUST IF YOU GO THERE), with a side of halloumi fries and a portion of chicken wings. I mean, it was truly magical.

#health

Do you like to celebrate long runs?

Do you like a parkrun sandwich long run?

Have you ever been late to a parkrun? I was once 10 minutes late to Eastleigh which was a bit stressful!

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Training for the Rotterdam Marathon

So Kyle and I are currently training for the Rotterdam Marathon, which is on April 5th.

We’d signed up to it last year. I’ve always been interested in this marathon because people say it’s very scenic, it’s flat and it’s a bit different to the more popular Amsterdam Marathon (which I would still like to do as well at some point). I needed a spring marathon to look forward to and this made sense.

Kyle decided to sign up too as he wanted another crack at the marathon after his not so great Portsmouth Coastal experience (it’s a very tough first marathon and he only just scraped under his goal of four hours). We’re pretty sure he can run faster and Rotterdam gives him the opportunity to try on a much better course.

Anyway then the whole knee drama happened and I was resigned to not doing it (which Kyle was more than happy about – he’s not a natural long distance runner and to be honest was quite happy for any excuse not to do it). But then my knee got better and by the time I was back running we had enough (ish) time to train for Rotterdam. As Kyle had pretty much stopped running as regularly when I was injured we were both on the same starting block and could do most of our training together as we’re very similar in our paces.

I created a plan and while it was a fairly steep climb, it was doable. We have a limited taper (one week basically) but I tend to prefer this anyway. Long runs increase each week from 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 18, 10-13, to the marathon. If we had a few more weeks it would have been nice to have dropped down again after the 17 miler, and/or in between the 18s, but we sadly don’t have that time.

So how’s it been going? Well with all the storms recently it has been tough.

Handily we were able to run 10 miles with work on one of the Wiggle Run/Ride Outs which happen every month. It was such a fantastic run.

I felt like I really got into it and got strong and stronger as it went on, finishing with a sharp blast at the end. I’ve had to sit out of these Run/Ride Outs for a number of months so it was so good to be back at it again. A nice way to bond with colleagues and get out of the office.

The weekend after we ran 13 miles from Kyle’s house (near Waterlooville) to Fareham and it was a toughie. The weather was horrendous and it was just so taxing.

For the entire 10-11 mile mark we were straight against the wind. We saw a chap running towards us who looked like he was absolutely loving life – being pushed along nicely, while we were gurning our hearts out just to push forward.

But we survived. It was a gruelling run and character building.

Good for the marathon bank at least!

Last weekend we ran 15 miles. I had planned a nice route round where I live, lovely and flat for the most part and along the sea front. It follows part of the Stubbington 10k route, then the Gosport Half Marathon route. It’s my usual long run locations and I love it because I can run anywhere from 6 to 18 miles around that area without looping back on myself. It’s a very satisfying and pleasant route.

Despite the weather beautiful GORGEOUS, the run didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. As we got into it my hip just started to niggle very slightly. I had somewhat expected this as the other day it had randomly started annoying me when I was at work. Very bizarre. Nothing crazy painful, just a little nag.

During the 15 miles the nag got a bit worse and it just felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t making me slow down or change my gait but it was generating some horrible thought processes in my brain. What if this develops into an injury? What if I’m out for months and months again?

When you’ve had a couple of injuries (and close together) then any sort of niggle gives you The Fear. What if, what if, what if. I have just got going again! Don’t do this! It really killed the vibe of the run for me as I sunk into my brain and ruminated on the worst case scenario. Afterwards I felt a bit “meh” about the run. My brain was in overdrive.

That week I foam rolled and iced and did all the good stuff I know I needed to do (or avoid doing) and went for a trial run on Wednesday morning.

Pre-early morning run

The run went absolutely fine. My hip was fine. I couldn’t believe the relief. What a panic over nothing! And my run the next day equally felt as good. My hip niggle has disappeared. I’m so relieved.

I wonder whether the hip thing was something entirely unrelated to running and then putting it under pressure during the 15 miles aggravated it a bit to inflame it a bit more. But then it died away as quickly as it had arrived.

This weekend is 17 miles and I feel a lot more positive. Kyle’s running has been going well as well. He had a minor misstep in trainer choices and felt his shins start to annoy him. But he switched to a more cushioned shoe (Hokas) and things have hugely improved. Happy days indeed!

Have you ever done any of the marathons in the Netherlands?

Do you like a long taper?

How many weeks do you train for a marathon?

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All the things I’m loving lately

There is so much good stuff happening right now, I’m loving life.

2020 really has been a great year so far. So let’s get cracking with a few life updates.

I got a promotion at work! I really love my job at the moment and enjoy what I do, and so getting a promotion is just the icing on the cake. My job hasn’t actually changed that much, but I have more authority and “clout” in what I do. Changing careers a few years ago was 100% the right thing for me to. I love my week and I work hard. I feel confident and happy with where things are going. Rather than despondent, lost and confused as I was previously (and a short commute MASSIVELY helps too of course).

And another happy life event is that my flat has a buyer (did I mention it was on the market? It has been since before Christmas…but thanks to Brexit and the election it was slow times) and Kyle and I have found a house and had our offer accepted! So all things are in motion for us to move out in the coming months. SO EXCITING. Obviously my promotion certainly came at a timely moment as well for this with all the mortgage application process and finances. I’ll share more when things get more finalised 😀

I’ve also been kindly sent a few products to test out.

I was sent some KALME Day Defence www.kalme.co.uk facial cream to try out. It contains SP25 and is clinically shown to reduce skin redness and sensitivity. I’m a HUGE fan of any sort of face cream that has SPF in it because…well, wrinkles. Yes, entirely vain but there we go. Other than things like alcohol and smoking, the sun is a big reason for wrinkles and I for one and trying my best to look ever youthful 😉

While I’ve never suffered from acne, the cream also contains zinc oxide which helps reduce inflammation and combat breakouts, which I do get occasionally.

The cream has got lots of good stuff in it for sensitive skin and for looking after you, so I’m more than happy to use this. Especially when doing long runs out in the open with the sun beating down. The only thing I will say is that it’s quite thick so you don’t need a huge blob (but works for wearing on runs).

I was also recently sent some cold brew coffee, funnily enough called Calm Coffee – a lot of calming stuff going on in this post!

It’s coffee that is infused with 10mg of CBD (Cannabidiol). I was sent the Americano and the Caffe Latte.

The American uses 100% Arabica Brazilian coffee beans and is basically black (as Americanos tend to be), whilst the latte contains oat milk. And because they’re served in cans, this means they’re a solid environmentally friendly choice.

With this I was sent the ground coffee version too, which is also infused with CBD. I make this either using my coffee machine (which is not an all-singing all-dancing variety but your simple “add scoops of ground coffee and water” to variety) or in the coffee press.

So CBD… what’s the crack? It’s not like THC (the more infamous variety) in that it doesn’t give you a high and it’s non-psychoactive. But CBD is commonly taken by people with anxiety, or insomnia, and inflammation or chronic pain. It’s not classed as a medical product however, it’s classed more of a supplement, but it (at least ancedotal at the moment) is said to help relieve these issues to an extent.

I really enjoyed the cans. Very refreshing, no strange tastes… just like a cold brew coffee really. And the ground coffee was delicious too. I like the fact that it’s touted to help you focus and energise you – definitely something that combines well with the caffeine. I wasn’t “buzzed” or running about that place and I wasn’t “zenned” out, but it was just like drinking a nice cup of coffee and feeling the benefits of that.

I’ve also been sent a number of turmeric supplement products too. This is something I am super excited about because there’s a lot of hype about turmeric being good for reducing inflammation and being good for injury-prevention and recovery (something I’m definitely no stranger to as I’m sure you’re aware).

I was sent three turmeric supplements: two capsule varieties and a bio-fermented liquid which has both probiotics and digestive enzymes in as well. All the products are vegan as well.

The turmeric capsules both have a combination of black pepper and ginger and contains zero additives and fillers. To counteract the fact that the compound curcumin, which is the active ingredient, gets quickly metabolised by the body, the added black pepper which contains piperine helps get the maximum absorption and bioavailability from it. The ginger which helps with the digestion and absorption too.

The Bio-Fermented Turmeric is a liquid that you drink (well, you have a shot of basically). Again it contains the black pepper necessary for decent absorption as well as live cultures to help with digestion. It actually tastes quite nice as well! I thought I was going to have to hold my nose and take it but I really enjoy having a spoonful before my porridge in the morning.

Considering I’m marathon training at the moment, I’m loving that I have all this turmeric to take. Reducing inflammation from running is a key priority to me. I’m not one of those total hardy souls who can run all the miles every day. I have to be sensible and really focus on recovery and looking after my body so these supplements have come at the perfect time for me. I take the liquid in the morning, then the capsules with dinner at night. You can get them in Holland & Barrett soon 🙂

Do you take any supplements?

Do you enjoy drinking coffee?

Do you wear any SPF creams throughout the day?

**Full disclaimer: this post contains products that I was sent for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own honest ones.**