Running - AnnaTheApple

March 14, 2016

Sundays were made for sunshine, long runs and roast dinners

There’s nothing like some sunshine to make everyone happy and full of good vibes. Spring is definitely on it’s way, thank god!

Saturday morning I was back at Netley Abbey parkrun. It feels like ages since I was there last having spent the last two parkruns elsewhere. It was a chilly morning but sunny. Because of an event on our usual course we were on our backup course, the cricket pitch. The cricket pitch is a Marmite course as it’s five flat laps which makes it great for PBs but boring as hell.

Setting up the course is also a lot easier as it’s just one 1km-ish route we need to walk – rather than the mile of the other course. I spotted a rope hanging from a tree and couldn’t resist a bit of monkeying around…

Photo credit to Mike Head

One guy said he’d pay me a £1 to get to the top… I didn’t quite make it to the top but I did get a fair way up. I used to love climbing trees and stuff like this when I was younger.

As we got ready to line-up someone asked me what my aim was and I said nonchanlantly “21 minute something would be nice” as that’s what I’ve been achieving on other flat courses lately. I genuinely didn’t think it would be an issue. Until I started running. My legs were heavy and it felt like running through treacle. I literally felt terrible. My friend Mark ran up next to me and said “What happened to 21 minutes then, Anna?”. Yes, thank you Mark for pointing on the blaringly obvious Not my day! So I decided to just do what I could and get through it. To be honest, I probably deserved it considering how blasé I’d been about 21 minutes being achievable.

Photo credit to Mike Head

I felt cold (despite having warmed up) and just demotivated. The three miles just draaaaaagged on Mark kept me company until he raced off at the end to “stretch his legs”. No hard feelings (she says bitterly ).

I wasn’t bothered too much as these things happen – some runs are good, some aren’t. What did make me sad was because of my parkrun tourism I had previously dropped to third place in the overall female points table for Netley and there was only one point separating the second female and myself…As it as the last week for this year’s points to count until it resets for next year (weird split I know) all I had to do was beat the second lady at parkrun that day. Normally I’m speedier than her so I didn’t think it would be an issue.

My time was 23:03. Hers was 22:49. So I’ve come third, despite so much of the year being in second place Ahh well. Just too much time off from injury last year and too many tourisms! Third is still good.

I got home after parkrun to find I had no water in my flat. I checked with others in my building and it was the same. So annoying as I obviously wanted to shower and do some chores. I also needed to cook some food for an evening at my friend’s that night. Luckily I always have a couple of bottles of water in my fridge so I could have breakfast but then I just had to pack my stuff up (clothes, ingredients, Alfie, etc.) to head to my parents to utilise their facilities. Thank god they live close by!

After showering, I prepared some BBQ ribs with a homemade sauce and some Buffalo chicken wings (original recipe HERE). The wings sauce was amazing. I’m definitely doing them again! This is what I used:

3 garlic clove, crushed
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 tbsp. cider vinegar
1 tbsp. paprika
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. Tabasco
3 tbsp. honey
1½ kg chicken wings

I marinating the wings for a few hours in the fridge before baking them in the oven for 25 minutes (170C). They turned out awesome.

The ribs, however, were a disaster. I basically threw together a sauce as I couldn’t decide on any specific recipes… Pretty much Heinz BBQ sauce, tomato ketchup, salt, garlic, cider vinegar, bit of Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. As my parents and me were heading out for a coffee and a spot of shopping and the ribs would take three hours my dad suggested I put them in on a timed setting so the oven would turn off automatically. I said to him they needed to be on 170C but he was faffing around with the timing settings and must have misheard me (and I didn’t check). So they roasted away at 220C for three hours instead.

What was the worst part was just how bloody amazing they smelt as they cooked and when we got back. I excitedly opened the oven…to charcoal. Devastated doesn’t quite cover my emotions at that time.

It didn’t really matter in the end as my friends had done two rack of ribs, a whole turkey leg and homemade chips so really it was fine in the end. We had a nice evening just chilled out chatting and enjoying some good non-burnt food.

As I had a fairly late night (for me) I decided to set my alarm for 8.45am. Normally I’m up 7.30-8am so this was amazing. I did wake up at 7.30am but rolled back asleep and it was glorious. I then got up and headed out for my long run. I’d planned a route for 16 miles and felt really quite relaxed with that distance looming ahead. In the back of my mind though I knew I was actually going to run 17 miles as I had an easy way to add on a final mile at the end if I fancied it. It was such a good way of doing it because I still told myself I was doing 16. If I didn’t fancy 17 I wouldn’t do it.

The weather was fantastic. Sunshine and not too hot. Perfect. A little wind but nothing horrendous. I headed off listening to a podcast and felt so much better than the day before. My legs seemed to glide along. So many people were out and about: cyclists, dog walkers, normal walkers. It was lovely.

(Ave. pace 7.55mins/mile)

There was a big hill on mile three (with a good downhill) but otherwise it was generally fairly flat. I added on the final mile as I still felt good, though I was quite thirsty. It brought back memories of hot summer long runs.

At the end my dad got me a glass of water and I sat down outside on their apple core that sits outside their front door. I love that apple core (obviously). For the rest of the day I was on an amazing high. Good weather and good running!

As it was fairly late in the day now I had to shower quickly and get myself together. I also forwent breakfast as we were heading out for Sunday lunch fairly promptly. We went to the Solent Hotel Spa (where my mum is a member of their gym) as they have a lovely restaurant there. My parents get a discount due to the membership which is great.As a starter I had a salad bar selection which including so many different types of seafood (smoked salmon, prawns, mackerel, etc.) and cold meats along with olives, stuffed peppers, cheese and salad. I unashamedly stacked my plate high! For main I went for the roast beef with a Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and vegetables. Perfection. Then sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream to finish.

I was well and truly re-fuelled! And ready for a nap…

I headed home, walked Alfie in the still beautiful sunshine and then chilled out. I think it should be mandatory for roast dinners and pudding after every long run!

How was your weekend?

What’s your favourite roast dinner?

Have you ever had a cooking disaster?

March 9, 2016

Heartbreaker Half Marathon (and last of the MT Run Camp)

So the final part of the Marathon Talk Run Camp weekend recap is basically the race recap of the Heartbreaker Half Marathon that took place on the Sunday.

{Catch up with PART 1 and PART 2 of the MT Run Camp}

Not everyone at the Run Camp was doing the half but most people did. The others that didn’t did an 8 mile or 16 mile run with Tom.

The handy thing about the race was that the race HQ and the start line was at Sandy Balls so it was really easy to get to in the morning, obviously, as that’s where the Run Camp was based. I knew the course was going to be tough and I had no ambitions to get a good time so I wanted to add some miles on beforehand to make it into a good marathon training long run instead. Happily some of my new (and old) fellow Marathon Talkers had similar plans so a small group of us planned to meet up at 8.45am to run five miles. The race started at 10am so it was more than enough time.

My fellow lodger, Hannah, and I headed down to meet Matt and another guy, Aidan.

Thanks to Hannah for the photo!

We planned a fairly easy pace and a 2.5 mile out and back to keep things very simple so we wouldn’t be at risk of getting lost and missing the race.

We asked a passing dog walker to take our photo before starting so we could get a “Sandy Balls” photo. Annoyingly he missed the “Balls” off! Ah well.

The route was actually quite tough as it was rather undulating but it was just a precursor of what was to come really.

We saw lots of marshals heading out to their positions as we were very close to the actual race route and we waved and smiled. A walker wished us good luck for the race as Hannah and me were wearing our bib already to save faffing time later. Then we got back in time to have a quick pre-race pee and listen to the brief. I also spotted a few of my running club friends as well which was nice. It’s a fairly local race so I wasn’t surprised to see them (one of them had previously told me he was doing it but I was just an idiot and had forgotten).

Then we walked down to the start. “Down” being the operative word here. The race begins at the bottom of a rather steep hill. An actual hill, not an incline or undulation. If I’d have come across this hill at any other point during the race I would have walked it!

My friend Matt and me decided to run together which was nice as without any time goals it can be a bit boring just plodding out miles. Plus we’d both done the first five miles together so we were both fatigued to begin with. We tried to pretend the five miles hadn’t happened. Annoyingly my ankle chip thing had come undone and so I had to stop to sort it out mid hill. I told Matt to go on and this was pretty much the theme of the race!

After the awful hill we were then on to a very gentle incline along the road for about a mile and then onto the track in the New Forest proper. The ground was easy underfoot and the scenery was beautiful.

The course is a sort of T shape where you run down the stem of the T, where the aid station is based (water or a carb-based drink on offer), and then it’s a left turn to head down an out back of three-ish miles. There was an almighty downhill and then some sharp uphills before turning around and heading back…to that almighty uphill.

Matt is further along in his marathon training and in general I think he’s slightly faster than me so he was springing up the hills whereas I was struggling. I walked without shame when it got too tough, but I always caught him up again – though it did require me to burst some speed out.

Mid-race photo of Matt on the downhill

As we got going along the next bit of the T out-and-back we were going along quite nicely, chatting away. The good thing about these out-and-backs were that we could see so many other people either going out or coming back. We waved and cheered other Marathon Talkers and people we knew, which was great. We saw Martin Yelling zooming along several times too. I waved and shouted to my running club friend, Mark, but he just looked daggers at me and grunted.

“Must be having a hard time, I guess”, I said to Matt. Then we got to the turnaround and began our final way back (after just being passed by Steve Way heading back on the last stretch of the marathon – the marathon began an hour earlier and was twice the course). As we turned around the wind hit us in full force. Jesus! Suddenly we were faced with a ridiculous wind and some nasty uphills. No wonder Mark reacted like he did when I cheerily greeted him. I would have been the same! Matt broke away from me again on the hills and I vowed to catch him up again on the flat – which I did (though I can’t be certain he didn’t just slow down for me).

Then finally we turned again to head back to Sandy Balls. Thank god, we were now out of the wind. The good thing about the course was that you could split it into segments psychologically I found this easier than one loop or point-to-point (ahh Boston is a point-to-point…).

We just had one final nasty long slow incline to power up. Before that we had a nice downhill so I sprinted down it to put some distance between Matt and me so that when I inevitably slowed down on the hill the distance between us both wouldn’t be so huge and my catch-up wouldn’t be so hard.

The hill was relentless but we powered up and Matt, once again, got ahead of me.

Matt on the left (Photo credit: Gary Derwent)

But on the final mile back we were on a gentle downhill with the wind behind us. I did my fastest mile and felt completely in the zone of strong running. I caught Matt up and we pushed on to the end. Whew!

At the finish line we received our medals and a free cup of soup and bread roll (though I somehow missed the roll as I was talking too much). What a great way to finish a race! My time was 1:44:37, 58th overall, 10th lady and 6th in my age category. 18 miles in total. Not a bad training run!

The race was fantastic but it was really hard work. The hills and wind… it was tough, tough, tough! Especially with five miles to begin with. But the medal is great – with the race and date engraved on the back.

I rushed back to get showered and sorted and then met the MT crew back in the usual events room for a carvery lunch. Before the lunch we had another talk, this time from Andy Lane who’s another Marathon Talk podcast interviewee (it also gave people a bit more time to finish and shower before lunch). Andy Lane is a psychology professor and does a lot of research into emotion regulation in sport. I was a bit zoned out at this point and very hungry. I hadn’t had breakfast or anything during the run, only the small cup of soup and it was now heading towards 1pm. My concentration levels were a bit blurred. What I did hear was interesting though.

He talked about how as runners we need to have more of cyclist mentality where not every training session needs to be goal-driven and pressured. We should have more “cake rides”. Cyclists are renowned for just going out and cycling a fair distance but then stopping and enjoying some cake and social time. This rarely happens with running (OK logistically and stomach-wise it’s obviously tough, but we rarely have a run where it’s just about catching up with people and not focusing on the actual run). He said that goals don’t always need to be time-driven and hard. They can be things like: take some photos during this run or simply enjoy the outside. parkrun is a great example of this – it’s not all about your finishing time.

Then it was finally time to eat. It was a carvery so we had to go up and serve ourselves. Our table was about sixth to go up and I was getting increasingly hungry. Thankfully chatting distracted me so I wouldn’t turn into more of a monster.

When we got up there I piled my plate high with vegetables, potatoes, gravy, and what I thought were stuffing balls, and then roast beef was placed on top from the chef. I tried not to wolf this down at breakneck speed… Turns out the ‘stuffing balls’ were actually vegetarian falafels. An interesting addition to the roast dinner! It was so lovely sat there eating this delicious meal amongst running friends and discussing the half marathon and running in general. I was very content.

This is actually from the Saturday evening but it’s mostly of the same people (Photo credit: Gary Derwent)

Then we went up for seconds The chef gladly gave me more meat (there was loads!) and I was in my happy place. Until I was in my very full uncomfortable place (arguably this is also my happy place…).

I plucked up the courage to go up to Martin and Tom, similar to the last Run Camp, and asked them for a cheeky photo. I told them I’d been there two years ago and showed them the older photo. They found it quite amusing.

Martin, me, Tom and Toms daughter, Rosie

They’re so friendly and lovely! I really hope I can make next year’s running camp. They’re just fantastic at organising the camp. It’s so well put together.

Then to finish Martin explained his epic running he’s got planned: running the South West Coast path! Twenty-one days of running 630 miles! Ouch! On the website you can sign up to join different stages or parts of the run with him which is quite cool. I might think about doing that – maybe! And not an entire stage!

And then that was it! I headed home with a lovely warm fluffy feeling in my stomach, and not just from all the food Anyway, the Marathon Talk Run Camp was EPIC, amazing, so much fun and just fantastic. I learnt a lot, met some truly brilliant people and did some really enjoyable running. Fully recommend it to anyone interested in running: whether a veteran marathoner or a newbie runner just doing 5ks. It’s so inclusive and friendly. No one is left behind or made to feel like they’re not good enough.

Would you be interested in a training camp?

Are you better at running up or down hills?

What kind of course do you prefer – an out and back, a loop, laps, point-to-point, etc.?

March 7, 2016

Locked in a Room, ribs for days, a bloody long run and Mother’s Day

Whew, check that out for a title! This weekend was pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself. On Friday I worked from home so when I was finished I popped Alfie in the car and drove to Bristol to meet up with my university friends. We stayed with Kate and her husband, who I went on holiday with last year to the US, as it was her birthday the other week.

Kate is a little obsessed with pugs and has her own pug, Doug, who’s adorable. For her birthday I bought her PugOpoly (a pug themed Monopoly) – how cool!?

One of my other friends bought her a pug welcome mat.

Hehe, I think she was pleased! Alfie, though he didn’t enjoy the drive up (he’s a bit of a car wuss) did appreciate me taking his bed with us so he could chill out a bit when he got there.

Kate and Jamie had made us fajitas which were very tasty and we chatted and chilled before picking up another friend from the station. Then we were all there and ready to go with our usual tradition of making brownies…

I’ve blogged about the epic brownie tradition previously, but basically we just make a huge brownie and then eat with spoons (we kind of cook it so it’s still quite gooey in the middle – a bit pudding-like). It’s a ridiculously indulgent tradition but we love it.

The key is to crumble up some Milky bar and Mint Aero and mix through the mixture just before it goes into the oven. You won’t regret it

The next morning I got up early and headed to the very nearby Little Stoke parkrun to quickly get in a parkrun (I’m now on 92! So close to 100!).

It looks rather wet and grey but it didn’t rain thankfully and actually wasn’t that cold. I did a lap warm-up and then headed to the start. It was a different start and finish to when I’ve previously done it. I’m presuming this was because it was briefly on the grass which was very wet so they sensibly kept it all on the path: three and a bit loops of the field on the pavement, nice and flat and barely any wind. I didn’t go crazy as I was conscious of doing a long run the next day (18-20 miles in the plan) but I still wanted to see what I could do. I know I wasn’t in the same shape I was in when I was last there where I got 20 something minutes but I wanted 21 something.

I was pleased to find out there was a pacing event on but disappointed when they only had 20 minutes and then 24 minutes and above. Hmm. So I kept a way behind 20 minutes but in front of 24 roughly.

As I got to the final lap I saw a woman in the distance and planned to try and overtake her. Part of me wanted to sprint to do it straight away but I knew that would be stupid so I just patiently increased my pace slightly and caught her up. The advantage of overtaking is that they’re unaware of it happening until it happens. The over-taker has all the control. I finished in 21:35 and third lady so I was happy with that!

Then I rushed off to meet my friends at the very nearby Starbucks (her house is so well situated) as they’d gone to walk the dogs. I grabbed a quick coffee with them (outside with the dogs) and then dashed back to get showered and breakfasted so I wouldn’t be holding anyone up.

We left late morning to go to Kate’s main birthday event. It’s called Locked in a Room and basically you get locked in a room for an hour and have to solve a load of clues in order to get out. It was so much fun! Honestly, I fully recommend it.

There’s a whole backstory and theme and inside the room is full of different objects and boxes with locks on and combinations so you have to work out what the codes are to find more clues. There are other teams in other identical rooms doing the exact same thing so it’s a big race against the clock and against them. There’s also CCTV cameras watching you and if you start to get super stuck they give you more clues via a screen (otherwise I guess it would be rather rubbish to spend a huge chunk of time having no idea what to do).

It’s very frantic and you have to think carefully but you’re obviously keen to get it done quickly so to get out in time. You’re racing around the room looking at different objects, reading a clue you’ve got and trying to make sense of it. Really good fun. And we won! We escaped with seven minutes to go and before any of the other teams.

You come out into another holding room where you can then watch on the televisions the other teams trying to solve their clues. Quite amusing.

We then walked through Bristol to get to our restaurant of choice. We saw a couple of Banksy’s and we walked through the area that had been the race village for the Bristol half marathon (that I did a number of years ago).

We then arrived at Spitfire for lunch.

Spitfire is a restaurant that pretty much calls to my heart. My friend Kate is very much on the same page as me with food and meat so she had suggested this BBQ/meat smoking restaurant.

Bless my vegetarian friend, Charlotte. She took one for the team as there really wasn’t a huge veggie choice for her, but she did enjoy her halloumi burger she said!

Oh my god, the menu. Jamie’s husband (a huge rib and meat fan like myself) recommended the spare ribs so I was set on that. I’m quite glad for the recommendation as honestly I wouldn’t have known what to have gone for! So many tasty sounding things. For starters Kate, Shell and I shared some pork rashers to start.

And then we all (apart from Charlotte) had the spare ribs.

Good lord they were good. Literally heavenly. They came with a cranberry and apple glaze and were just so tasty. I had sweet potato fries with them (a superfluous item to be honest that probably wasn’t necessary… though of course I did have some of).

For my shame I was the only one who finished theirs (let’s be honest, I’ve had a fair bit of practice). I left some room for pudding of course though (hence not finishing the sweet potato fries – pick you battles!)

More brownie! It was very tasty but to be honest it wasn’t anything special. It wasn’t all that hot and not really that gooey but it was tasty nonetheless. I’d probably just been spoilt the night before…

Then I rolled myself out of the restaurant. Standing up I sudden’’ly felt extremely full (what a surprise eh). The problem was my friend needed to get to her train rather sharpish so I was required to walk slightly more quickly than the snail’s pace I wanted to. Ooooof that’ll teach me for being so greedy (but will it?? I never learn!).

Luckily she got to her train on time and it was time to part ways. It was lovely, as always, seeing my friends and I had a great time. I drove back to Southampton listening to the audiobook version of Room. Oh god that book. It is incredible – so good but also very unnerving.

Surprisingly I didn’t need dinner that evening… I woke up the next morning fairly early to meet my friend, Shantha, for another long run. I didn’t have anything before the run because I was pretty sure I had enough inside me to keep me going!

We had a lovely run around her area (Hamble and Netley) which was great. It’s nice to go somewhere different from the usual routes I always do on my long runs. It was quite cold but the sunshine was bright and I was warm fairly quickly. We chatted away about this and that and the miles flew by. I hadn’t been that worried about this run because I knew I’d get at least 10 with Shantha and that would break it up so it wasn’t such a huge mileage on my own.

Our pace was nicely matched (though I always do worry I’m slowing her down as she is quite speedy) and it was nice to leave the route-planning to her. I’m awful though as I have no sense of direction so she did have to keep guiding me as I’d randomly turn off or miss hear her directions! But I was grateful for a lovely route

As Shantha had to get back for her Mother’s Day service fairly promptly we only ran 10 miles together before parting. My plan was to run 18-20 miles but I’d decided to run 18 unless I really felt the urge to go further or if my route ended up that way. I had a vague idea of where to go. I put my headphones on and listened to more of Room. It was actually quite stressful at points listening to it while running because the story got quite dramatic and I was so absorbed. But it did help the miles fly by.

I didn’t feel like the run was that tough in terms of speed or pace but I could feel a tiny glimmer of my foot niggling so I stopped at 18 miles to be super safe. Happily my route also ended up back near the car then anyway and I only had to do a small run out and back from it to get up to 18 miles in total.

I had a small casualty of a bramble attack during the run which had caused my leg to bleed. It looks worse than it is. I did have a few people give me worrying looks and one man tried to stop me and point to my leg. I patiently explained I was aware and it was OK thank you.

I quickly got back, had breakfast, got presentable then headed to my parent’s to celebrate Mother’s Day with them. My dad cooked steak (rib eye for me, rump for them), sweet potato wedges, roasted veg and salad.

We were meant to have a baked camembert to start but my dad had put it in the oven but only turned the light on, whoops…so we had that after the steak. Still good though!

No pudding as my mum and dad are trying to eat sensibly and, let’s be honest, I didn’t need anymore pudding either. The whole meal was delicious. And I actually felt pretty good for the rest of the day in terms of tiredness and hunger. My body seems to be adjusting to the miles

So a huge happy Mother’s Day to my lovely mum. She’s always there for me and she’s pretty damn special. And so the weekend was finished off nicely!

How did you spend Mother’s Day (for those celebrating it!)?

Can you eat more than your friends? Embarrassingly I just have the hugest appetite out of most people I know…

Would you enjoy the Locked in a Room game?

March 4, 2016

The Nitty Gritties–Recovery

Marathon training is relentless. It seems that as soon as you finish your long run on Sunday you’re back on it with a hard training session for the next week. And after each long run you can’t imagine running any further. But you do.

The most important factor behind this is good recovery. This covers such a range of different things: fuel and nutrition, rest, foam rolling, a sensible training plan and, the often forgotten or least prioritised, sleep.

Nutrition

I mentioned in a previous post about ‘good’ nutrition but here I’ll specifically talk about pre-run. Like with most nutrition (and marathon training in general – are you sensing a theme here?) it really is what works for you. I’d be wary of anyone saying, “this is when and what you should eat before a run and this is what you should eat afterwards”. There is not an exact science. Obviously there is science and research which can give good guidance on ratios of carbs to protein and fuel timing but in reality, you have to find what works best for you. Everyone’s tummy is different and everyone’s training is different.

Personally I find eating straight after a long run is actually quite hard. Oh sure I can spend a good amount of time before and during the run imagining all the amazing things I’m going to eat (platters of ribs followed by cakes dipped in chocolate…) but in reality as soon as I’m done food is the last thing I want to think about. I’ll rehydrate with water straight away and then probably take some time to let my body chill. It’s just run a fair distance and it needs to adjust to no longer being running anymore.

There seems to be this panic in the running community (and training world in general) that you must refuel immediately. There is a teeny tiny tight window and if you miss it you’re going to EXPLODE. I highly doubt this is the case. Your body isn’t stupid. If it’s telling you that food is not sounding good right now, don’t force it. Wait a while. But make sure you do refuel of course.

An interesting point that was made by Liz Yelling at the MarathonTalk weekend was that it is so important to eat good nutritious food. Don’t think “oh I’ve just run 18 miles I can now eat half of KFC and a jumbo chocolate bar”. Firstly, you probably haven’t burnt as many calories as you think you have (or that your watch/app is telling you). And secondly, you need to top your body up with vital nutrients in order for your body to repair itself (long runs take a lot out of our bodies, not just burnt calories). Macro nutrients are important but micronutrients are even more so. Treat your body like a temple and use food as a natural medicine. It doesn’t have to be complicated either, something simple like scrambled egg can do! Avoid crap and choose instead wholesome food. You want to be able to wake up the next day feeling good, not fatigued, foggy and with a sugar hangover.

Foam Rolling

Ahh the nightmare that is foam rolling. As most of us are mere mortals and can’t really afford the luxury of weekly physio appointments and massages we have to make do with what we can. The foam roller. It’s a painful, it’s awkward, it’s a chore, it’s boring… we never do it enough. I personally find it a great way to keep niggles at bay and help keep my legs fresh.

Obviously I’m not an expert but I believe it’s to do with self-myofascial release. It can help with increasing the blood flow throughout the body which can help reduce muscle tension and help decrease muscle tightness. You can also use it to warm-up the muscles before a run as well.

After a long run I always find a good foam roll session the next day can do wonders for helping me recover ready for my next run. Here’s a great list of tutorials for foam rolling different areas from Kinetic Revolution (a great resource for injury-prevention and running in general).

I mainly use my trigger point foam roller (not an affiliated link) and a tennis ball, though there are lots of ‘interesting’ rollers out there for more aggressive and specific targets (see above). I use the trigger roller on my calves, hamstrings and quads and a regular tennis ball on my glutes, hips and more specific calf focus. I tend to do it watching TV or listening to a podcast to keep myself entertained. It takes 10-15 minutes if I’m really being thorough, but if I only have five minutes I’ll focus on my glutes and calves which are always my trouble spots. I tend to foam roll the day after a long run and then maybe once or twice more in the week depending how I feel.

Another great way to help my calves recover are compression socks/sleeves.

I find after a long or hard run wearing my compression socks feels wonderful. I can’t say I notice a huge difference during the run if I wear them but I do wear them during 18 milers and all my marathons. I find they can help reduce cramp (though this is highly anecdotal on my part). I used to take ice baths post long run but I don’t anymore. I just didn’t find it helped enough to go through that trauma, but there are lots of people who swear by them.

Sensible Training

Granted this is a bit vague but what I mean is: don’t be a slave to your training plan. You don’t have to follow every single workout it’s got written down. It’s a generic plan – it doesn’t know you personally. It’s not an actual coach where you can feed back how you feel. If you’re really struggling, miss a run or swap it round. Honestly, it’s not a big deal.

What does this have to do with recovery? Rest. If you’re really struggling, take a rest day. It’ll be far more valuable to you then a sub-par run that you’ve forced yourself to go on just to tick it off the calendar. You’ll feel better resting and then smashing out your next run on rested legs and mind.

Sleep

This is the big one. Out of most things this is the thing that people let slide or prioritise over. “I’ll get up an hour earlier so I can get in another run” or “maybe just one more episode tonight…”. Or the uncontrollable and unchangeable issues that invade our sleep, such as young (or old!) children. But honestly sleep is one of the most important things you can do to help your running.

It’s where most of the recovery is going to happen. Liz Yelling said that when she was training as an elite she’d get at least 10 hours a night! And a nap in the day! Steve Way agreed (he’s a childless “house husband” so can have that luxury). Liz also said that Paula Radcliffe would usually have 12 hours a night! This is crazy but also makes a lot of sense.

As someone who has a fulltime job and a long commute, getting 12 hours sleep would basically be impossible for me unless I slept at work. But I do make sure I hit the pillow no later than 10pm every single night. As I get up 3-4 days a week at 5am, I don’t find it a struggle at all to fall asleep early. Sometimes even 9pm and I’m ready to snooze. At the weekend I can obviously sleep a bit later.

If you’re feeling tired and training is getting harder and harder, honestly do yourself a favour and go to bed a bit earlier if you can. This isn’t for life, marathon training only lasts for so long. I run four times a week and go to the gym through the week, but if I have a crap night’s sleep I won’t go to the gym or I’ll postpone a run. Sleep is more important. It’s like your whole system becomes a powerhouse of recovery, repairing muscles, smoothing out kinks, flushing through your system and mind.

I heard a very interesting MarathonTalk podcast a while ago about the importance of sleep and it said very few people can last on less than six hours of sleep. Yes people are different and some need less than others but generally speaking most people really do need around eight hours. Don’t kid yourself that you can survive on less. Don’t use coffee to get yourself going. Use actual sleep. Your training will feel the better for it!

What are your key recovery tips?

How much sleep do you usually get?

What do you eat after a run/tough workout?

March 2, 2016

MarathonTalk Run Camp –part 2

Continuing on with my recap from the MarathonTalk Run Camp (catch up with part 1 HERE)… So where was I? The interval session was fascinating to watch, especially seeing Steve Way taking it ‘easy’ in the third group at 7.20-30min/miles. I wish that was my easy interval pace!

(Photo Credit: Gary Derwent)

During the interval session (that I didn’t take part in) my feet were literally like blocks of ice.

Larking about (Photo credit: Matt Fowler)

I was wearing simple Van shoes without socks so really it was my own fault but it took a good while of them being in front of the electric fire in the lodge to get feeling back into them!

I was also starving as I hadn’t had lunch and it was now 4pm and dinner wasn’t until later. Luckily I had a whole load of snacks back at the lodge so it wasn’t too much of an issue. I wolfed down some beef jerky, a protein bar and a couple of apples. After relaxing for a bit we headed down to the events room again to hear the next talk.

This was from Jamie Ramsay who ran 18,000km in 600 days from Vancouver to Buenos Aires solo with no support crew. I mean, WOW. I’d heard the interview with him on the MarathonTalk podcast and remember being blown away by his incredible story – which he was in the middle of during the time of the interview. Now he was back and was staying in one of the lodges and was involved in the whole weekend too.

He was incredibly charismatic. He had a PowerPoint which showed photos of his trip and some geeky stats (us runners love our stats) of elevation, miles, etc. but mostly we just focused on him telling his story.

It was clear that he was very much a ‘happy go lucky’ kinda guy. He decided one day to quit his job and just go do something incredible. He’d been inspired by other adventurer’s books and enjoyed the feeling of completing marathons and found his life was just grinding along without purpose. So he typed into Google ‘Vancouver to Buenos Aires’ and that was his route – not even joking. He tested out running 10km every day for a month to see if his body would break and when it didn’t he worked out his notice, sold everything and got on a plane. Mind blown? Mine was!

He ran most days and usually over a marathon distance. He didn’t plan ahead, he just ran vaguely the route he needed with everything in a buggy (tent, some clothes, money, passport, food…the bare minimum). His journey sounded absolutely incredible. The people he met, the memories he made, the things he saw, the scenery around him… I literally sat there with my mouth open. Injuries and illnesses were few and far between (I’d hate him but he was far too likeable). Mostly the illnesses came from swimming in dodgy waters! Because I was so blown away by his talk I just had to go and speak to him afterwards (and get a shameless selfie with him – what a legend).

I asked him several things, like what pace he ran and he said he aimed for 60 minute 10ks and that if he needed to stop and rest he would. There was no real time pressures (most of the time). He did say he got dependent on Ibuprofen though and had to wean himself off it as he found when things started hurting he just took the pills. I found him so fascinating to speak to and super friendly, I could have grilled him for hours. He was so passionate and enthusiastic. I have so much more to say about him and this in general that I hope to do another post on it… watch this space! (Also, if you fancy voting for Jamie for the National Adventure Awards you can do so HERE – he deserves it in my opinion!). He’s also writing a book, which I’ll definitely be buying when it’s out!

Then it was time for dinner! Luckily (I say luckily as if this wasn’t well planned on my behalf noticing where the food would be served…) we were sat on the best table for food. Our table got to go up first to pile our plates up.

Don’t let that salad fool you one bit, underneath there was lasagne, chilli con carne, chips, garlic bread and potatoes. Would you like carbs with your carbs…? My empty stomach was definitely making the decisions here. And I went back for seconds. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve eaten so many carbs in one sitting in my life – usually I’m all about the meat but I think the caterers realised we were runners! This was then followed by a fruit salad and cheesecake. I still manage to surprise myself (and others) with how much I can eat.

It helped me with my decision about the next day though as I’d been wondering what to do about breakfast. I had brought porridge with me and also a Trek bar in case I wanted something lighter. I was going to run five miles before the half marathon (which started at 10am at Sandy Balls) to get a total of 18 miles. I’d planned to meet some of the running camp guys at 8.45am to run it with them (pretty much everyone is marathon training!). If I was to have breakfast it would mean getting up a lot earlier so things could digest… but if I didn’t have breakfast it meant I could sleep until 8.15am. What a luxury! Anyway, the decision was made after the sheer quantity of food I ate. I knew I wouldn’t be needing anything before the run now (and, spoiler alert, I felt absolutely fine on the run – really well-fuelled in fact!).

After dinner and pudding, it was quiz time. To make things interesting each table (team) had to write down six questions on ANYTHING and then the questions would all be collated and that would be the quiz. It didn’t even have to be about running, though obviously there was a theme. The questions were so random and hilarious. A few of ours were (which were running-related):

When did women get to run the marathon in the Olympics?
How many official marathons have been run in space?
When did the Marathon bar become Snickers?
How many marathons would you need to run to complete the circumference of the Earth?

One of the most random questions from another team was “how many Lego bricks would need to be piled on top of each other to crush the bottom one?”. These were not easy questions clearly!! (By the way, I think the answer was like 300,000). The best one was “should an adult man wear Crocs with jeans?” referring to Tom Williams who was stood on stage wearing exactly that. It was hilarious hearing him read it out and realising it was talking about him!

Damn, you can’t see his shoes!

It was so funny to actually see and hear Martin and Tom having banter in real life, rather than in an edited podcast. Martin is a lot more rude (lots of swearing and rude humour) and Tom clearly has to keep him under control. You can tell a lot of editing has to happen in the show for it to be ‘family friendly’. But it was hilarious to watch.

We scored 16 out of 60 which was obviously ridiculously bad, but not that far off from other teams. It was good fun though. I also managed to get a photo with Steve Way – who by the way, is the most easy-going and friendly person ever. Despite being a super amazing eye-wateringly fast elite athlete he joined in with everything and was always interested in what other people had to say and how their running was going.

He’s so chatty and funny. God I look so star struck in this photo it’s ridiculous… but I was just really chuffed!

As the night got later (oof past 10pm, can you even imagine! ) we headed back to the lodge to get some decent sleep before the next day. Most people were doing the half marathon, a couple were doing the full marathon (Steve Way included) and some were doing a guided run of either 8 or 16 miles. But we’d reconvene afterwards for a carvery and a wind down.

My tummy was so full I worried I wouldn’t sleep, but actually the carbs sent me off nicely. Despite my alarm being set for 8.15am I woke up after 7am as I’m such a light-sleeper and anything wakes me up. It was also FREEZING. Seriously our lodge was so cold! But I stayed in bed until 8am and had a black coffee, got ready and felt raring to go.

And I’ll leave the run and race recap and the end of the MarathonTalk weekend to the next post!

Have you ever gone travelling round the world?

Do you eat a lot of carbs the night before a race/long run?

Do you enjoy pub quizzes? I’m so rubbish at them but I do enjoy them!