Training and food lately

I know I start 90% of my posts about the weather, but I’m British soo… It is raining ridiculous amounts at the moment. I realise I’m extremely lucky to not live in any part of the UK that has flooding risks or issues, or places in America that were snowed under, but I can only comment on where I am right now. And it’s soggy to say the least.

Despite the rain and wind, I went out after work and did some hill training on Tuesday evening. I’d wussed out last week to do this specific hill because it’s not lit at all. It’s a long path off the main road and there are no street lights along it so it’s actually really hard to run up it without any light as it winds and turns. I don’t normally run in a headtorch unless I’m trail running when it’s dark, but I needed it for the hill.IMG_7854

Despite the rain, the shorts are back in action – as is my new Forever21 ‘Focused’ top (light and waterproof)

I’ve mentioned this hill before in this post, but basically it’s a12% incline for over 0.2 miles, which usually lasts about 3 minutes. It’s a beast. There’s a Strava segment on it as well and I love to test my fitness to see how well I’m currently running.

I did a mile warm-up then ran up and down the hill three times. I’d planned on four but three was enough! I had my music going (the only way I can survive a solo speed session) and just focused on my form (swing arms, use my bum, look ahead), trying to ignore the pain. The rain was pounding down but I was oblivious to it. I then continued on with my hilly route to make a total of six miles. Honestly, this run was awesome. OK it was painful and tiring but for whatever reason I felt like I was flying. I felt like my form was on point (or as on point as I can achieve!!) and like I was cutting through the rain. When I checked back to my splits and the hill segment I found I’m doing nicely in gaining back my speed. I’m not at my fastest for the hill but I’m getting there.

I love this about marathon training (when I get it right that is…). Seeing the progress, even if it’s tiny, is just so motivating each week. For me the two important things that really help my running are hill training and long runs. I’m always a bit weary of intervals and, whether justified or not, I feel like I dice with injury with them. But with hills I feel I get stronger.

Another important factor for me for marathon training is maintaining my strength work. I know I say this so often but my glute, leg and core work are really important for me to remain uninjured. This involves lifting heavy weights to keep my body strong; big compound moves like squats and deadlifts help strengthen not just your legs but your core and posterior chain. And the more running-specific moves, like wall sits, glute kickbacks, crab walks and box jumps help too. For me the strength side of things isn’t to increase my power or speed, it’s to keep me healthy. It’s also a something I thoroughly enjoy doing – who’d have thought?! Fabletics leggings

I know my focus shouldn’t be on how much I can lift and squat but there is something so empowering about increasing your weights or reps. It’s also, in a weird way, a nice comfort to know I have the love of lifting to fall back to if running and me have another fall out (*touch wood* I don’t!).

I just need to make sure I don’t burn out. Nutrition is a big factor in this and I can assure you, I’m eating lots of good nutritious food. For one thing I’m on a culinary exploration of all the cheeses. So far I’m in love with Stilton… but Camembert and Brie make regular appearances. I’ve found some nice cheese from MuscleFood as well (the French Chevre and Lincolnshire Poacher).Cheese

Lately a lot of my dinners have been fairly simple with meat, veg and cheese. And honestly, I’m loving it!

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Most of my carbs happen earlier in the day: porridge for breakfast and with my lunch at work I have my standard popcorn (home-popped with salt and pepper). I’m not a huge carb eater, as I’ve said a few times on the blog. I don’t eat a lot of bread unless it’s good stuff at a restaurant and I don’t eat pasta. It works for me though!

Tonight I have an easy 5 mile planned, then parkrun on Saturday and a 16 mile run planned Sunday. The long runs are getting longer! Speaking of long runs… In a couple of a weeks I head to my grandad’s in Wales, who I’ve visited a few times. That weekend I had an 18 mile run planned and I mentioned it to him and asked if he had any ideas of good routes. He came back with this:Boston marathon prep

He planned an 18 mile route that compared to the Boston marathon course elevation!! How amazing is that?? I’m so pleased. He’s also offered to cycle alongside me to help navigate and provide a bit of support. I mean, can you get better than that? This is my 82 year old grandfather by the way, who has his own Strava account capturing his regular walks up and down the nearby hills of Llandudno. Yep.

How do you plan your really long runs? Do you go anywhere interesting?

Carbs, protein or fat? What’s your favourite? Unsurprisingly mine is protein!

What do you prefer: intervals or hills?

Those buns were made for running…

If I could only give one piece of advice to a new runner it would be: work those glutes. So many running-related injuries are caused by weak glutes. When your glutes aren’t working this means your hips are dropping and other muscles are over-compensating to take on the unnecessary strain.

I’m not a physiotherapist or a qualified sports person but I’ve had I fair few injuries. Last year I was consistently plagued with one thing after another: hip issues, groin issues, knee issues and IT band issues. My physio said to me my glutes (specifically my gluteus medius) weren’t playing ball when I was running and this caused a whole chain of compensations and over-working of muscles that shouldn’t be working so hard.

I took time off of running and hit the gym. My physio gave me some great exercises to specifically focus on improving my glute strength and hip stability and I scoured the Internet and magazines such as Women’s Health to further supplement my training (they actually had a great article in their December addition giving good focused moves to help strengthen your buns).

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Big compound moves can help improve overall lower body strength:

  • Squats (single leg variation are great for addressing imbalances)
  • Romanian deadlifts
  • Regular deadlifts

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Whereas accessory moves can specifically target the glute areas:

  • Glute kickbacks
  • Bridges
  • Lateral leg raises
  • Clams

And obviously overall core work is essential with running in general:

  • Planks
  • Russian twists
  • Leg raises
  • (The above compound moves help target the core too)

Swiss ball plank

Obviously I’m still not immune to injuries (hello 6.5 weeks of not running because I make stupid choices and do too much), but I can say that my glutes are far more strong than they used to be. I can physically feel them working when I run. The telling point for me was after my first marathon (before all the strength training) my quads were on fire. After working on my glutes, the aches were more general. My quad dominance had hugely decreased as my glutes were taking on more work.

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Getting my PB (3:24:06) at the Liverpool Marathon earlier this year

And it made me realise that I do actually enjoy going to the gym. Aside from PBs and running strong, there’s nothing better than lifting heavy weights at the gym and feeling like a superwoman!


**Full Disclosure: My subscription to Women’s Fitness is provided for free from magazine.co.uk as part of being in their blogger network. All opinions and content are my own.**

Rants and Raves #22 and an injury update

Morning, morning. A few rants and raves this morning and another injury update.

Rave: I’m really enjoying the gym. When I have a focus this always happens.

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It makes me feel bad ass 😉 I love making my workout plans the day before and deciding what I’m going to do when I get there. There’s no way I could get a proper workout in if I turned up to the gym clueless.

I’m trying to figure out what the best split is in order to do strength training…upper body/lower body, body parts, mixed… so far I’m kind of combining a few bits and bobs. For example, this morning I worked on shoulders, chest and triceps. I’ll do one or two big compound moves (such as deadlifts, squats, bench press and military press) and then follow with accessory moves or different variations to target different muscles.

I used to hate how my arms looked because they seemed a bit too muscle-y but now I love them! But my main goal is to just feel strong, any additional aesthetic gains is just a bonus 🙂

Rant and rave: Did I mention I bought some goat meat (specifically goat shoulder)? Well, I did. Goat meat isn’t that widely available in the UK. I think people assume it’s a tough meat, but it really depends how you cook it – as with all meat. Anyway, I asked the butcher how best to cook it and he suggested slow cooking it without adding anything crazy as it was my first time having it so I shouldn’t swamp its flavour.

Well, now that I have my teeny tiny slow cooker I couldn’t put the entire thing in it so had to halve it. I seared the entire thing by frying it in coconut oil quickly before slicing it in half and freezing the other half. By searing before slow cooking it helps retain the flavour and moisture.

Slow cookers are marvellous inventions and I love mine. It does help to turn the bloody thing on before you leave for work in the morning though. I only remembered as I was half-way to work. GARGH.

Anyway I slow cooked it over the evening instead (such a lovely smell to wake up to!) and had it for lunch on Saturday. I shredded the meat and then fried it with lots of veggies and roasted pumpkin in onion marmalade (a weird choice, granted, but I have limited condiments at the moment due to the move and packing etc.).

Slow cooked goat

Verdict? Very tasty instead. It’s kind of a cross between chicken and beef flavour-wise? And incidentally it has less fat than chicken.

Rant: As I can’t run at parkrun I’m still volunteering and helping set up and clear down. I take Alfie with me as well as it’s a great way for him to get a good walk in and he’s (fairly) well behaved. However with the autumnal weather and rain he gets so muddy. This means having to give Alfie a bath when I get back.

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Oh just look at his face! He hates having baths but won’t kick up a fuss. He’ll just stand there looking miserable. He smelt gorgeous afterwards though.

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He raced around afterwards and rubbed himself all over the carpet…lovely.

Injury update: So I’m almost 95% certain it’s not my IT band that’s causing me grief. I’m 4.5 weeks out from the marathon and my knee is still very painful. The odd thing is it’s not consistently painful. Sometimes I can walk around and walk up and downstairs absolutely fine. I get a glimmer of hope which is then promptly dashed later in the day when I suddenly get a sharp pain which then doesn’t go away until I stop walking.

The pain is intense, it’s a shooting and sharp pain inside my knee. There’s still a bit of puffiness around the kneecap. I’m icing, compressing, stretching, foam rolling…and no real improvement has happened. My muscles don’t feel tight at all. There’s no discomfort, just a sharp pain.

At the start of the week, I saw a sports massage therapist for another opinion (and he costs less than my physio and can see me in the evening at my home) and he’s pretty sure it’s an impingement of my fat pad in my knee. Massage won’t help it.

Bizarrely yesterday I was in agony walking a short distance to Tesco. I almost couldn’t make it. The pain was identical to the marathon pain (where I had to walk the last two miles). When I say agony, I truly mean agony. I was almost in tears and wasn’t sure I could make it back.

I’m hoping to see my physio again this weekend (he’s kindly seeing me out of hours on Sunday – I think he can smell my desperation) and I’m hoping he can confirm things and provide me with some light at the end of the tunnel.

At this point, I’m not going to lie, I’m panicking. I’m worried about Boston which I know is so far away but the weeks are quickly flying by. I thought I’d be running at some point in November but it seems highly unlikely. At the moment I can only dream of running at some point in December. As long as I’m running in January I can do the marathon. I’ve paid for the flights already and not mention the non-deferrable ridiculous costing race entry.

The only thing keeping me from falling into a dark, dark pit right now is how much I’m enjoying the gym. I’m just trying not to think about the next few months at all. Because it makes me feel sick.

What are your rants and raves?

Have you ever had a seriously painful injury before?

What’s the most exotic meat/food you’ve ever had?

Coming out from the slump

Last week was rubbish, I’m not going to lie. After my fabulous weekend in Wales I came back to reality with a bit of a bump.

I decided to not go to the gym at all during the week to see if that helped my leg. By Thursday (a week since my last gym visit) I was going a bit stir crazy and my knee felt no better so I decided to go to the gym on Friday morning. But I arrived demotivated and feeling crap. I did some deadlifts and half-hearted core work before deciding I couldn’t be bothered. I left in a foul mood.

My dad picked me up to go to work that morning and he asked how I was… and I just burst into tears. Pathetic, I know. I just felt so down about not being able to run and the pointlessness of going to the gym to do injury prevention strength work when I’m injured. I felt so direction-less. OK I don’t need to worry about the Boston marathon (YET) but it’d be nice to just be enjoying my running without pressures or training plans and using the gym as a supplement to my training.

My dad, bless him, went through the problem with me step by step. Can I run? No. When can I run? I don’t know. Is it in the next few days? No. OK then forget about running. What’s the point in every day wondering and worrying about running if it’s clear my injury isn’t going to magically heal over night? My initial estimate of six weeks is proving to be correct, even perhaps optimistic now. For my mental sanity worrying about running isn’t going to help. I need to do exactly what I did last year and focus on something completely different.

On Saturday morning I still went to parkrun and I still felt a bit down.

Netley Abbey parkrun

It’s depressing everyone asking how the injury is…and the look of pity of fellow runners when you say “yep, four weeks and counting of no running”. But I enjoy seeing everyone and the social side of parkrun so I’ll continue to go and volunteer (trying my hardest to not be the bitter grumpy injured runner).

Hunter wellies

Alfie, as usual, loved racing around and got himself thoroughly wet and muddy. After closing down parkrun, a few of us went for a hot drink in the cafe. As I had Alfie I couldn’t go in to the cafe but Mike said he’d get me my drink, which is usually a peppermint tea. Bless him, he came out with a green tea… I’ve had green tea quite a few times and every time it’s made me feel really nauseous, despite really wishing I could drink it. But never look a gift horse in the mouth I thought I’d give it another go. It tasted nice… though I did feel queasy driving home, but not as bad as usual so this is progress!

I had a Halloween party that evening but I was in such a bad mood, being all grumpy and just wanting to slob out, I decided to not go. I did feel bad but the last thing I wanted to do was dress up and try and be sociable. You know when you just want to hibernate away and watch rubbish TV? Well that was me Saturday night.

It was the best thing I could have done because I watched, and was seriously inspired by, some YouTube videos of health and fitness vloggers (I’ve never really got into YouTube but now I’m hooked, it’s like reading blogs for the lazy!) and decided to pull myself together and get my pathetic grumpy bum to the gym the next morning and get a new focus.

Gym selfie

I planned out a heavy leg routine and just went for it:

Legs day

(No judgements on the weights please, this was hard for me)

I literally spent an hour and 45 minutes in the gym just going through these leg exercises, taking the adequate break between sets and monitoring my knee carefully. The ironic thing is, my knee doesn’t bother me in squatting or deadlifting at all so I could do all this without any pain.

Cable machine

I also got one of the fitness instructors to show me how to use a machine (the leg press). He was very helpful and I didn’t feel like just a “stupid girl” for asking – better to have proper form and complete exercises the way you should than be too embarrassed and injure yourself. Plus, this is what they’re paid for! You don’t need to pay a personal trainer to explain how to use a machine/perform an exercise.

I came out of the gym pumped and in such a better mood. I know I’m a broken record and I’m sorry about that but it is hard when you love something so much and suddenly you can’t do it. But I thoroughly enjoyed the gym and now I’m just going to continue strengthening my body, not just for running but in general and for my mental sanity. I enjoy lifting weights. It’s not running, but it’s the next best thing right now. I detest cardio machines and think the best way for me to spend my non-running time will be doing something I love, not desperately slogging away on a machine in the hope that my fitness won’t decline (that ship has sailed anyway). Plus one of my gym days is going to include some strength-based cardio, like my own version of Body Pump, where I’ll use high reps and low weights to get my heart rate going but keeping things interesting. The other days will be focused on my legs & glutes, shoulders & arms and back & chest. Though I’m just seeing how it goes and what I fancy doing right now.

Basically I’m feeling more happy about things. I hope I haven’t droned on too much about not running… Onwards and upwards to a more positive place!

How was your weekend? Any Halloween events?

When you go to the gym, what do you focus on? Cardio or weights?

Do you watch Vlogs? Any recommendations?

New Rules of Lifting for Women – Stage 1

I thought I’d do a post covering how I’ve found the New Rules of Lifting for Women as I’ve just completed Stage 1.

Just rolling back before I started this, I was still doing lots of strength work in the gym. I’d found lots of good stuff on RunnersWorld, Kinetic Revolution and other random places. At the start of the year I was focused on getting my heart rate up while also strengthening my body. I was running three times a week low mileage and needed something else to give me that sweaty heart pumping boost. The workouts I did were a combination of HIIT and strength, but ultimately leaning more towards cardio.

That said, I did strengthen my body during this time. I came back from injury stronger and in a better mindset to get running again and training in earnest for the Liverpool marathon. I can, hand on heart, say my knees and hips (which I had problems with last year) haven’t bugged me once this year. My tight IT band grief is a distant memory as my glutes have come into action with my running and I feel strong. My only one bug bear this year is my shin/calf that occasionally likes to niggle (and haunt my dreams with thoughts of stress fractures…).

When my running increased I couldn’t maintain the same enthusiasm at the gym and found myself a bit confused as to what I should be doing. I then found out about the New Rules of Lifting for Women and it caught my interest. I bought the book, read it, agreed with so many of the concepts and points made and decided to start the training plan (not the nutritional plan though – I don’t follow diets/eating plans in books. Just not my thing).

I was surprised at how simple the plan seemed. There are several “Stages”, each lasting 4-8 weeks depending how often you train (I tend to do three sessions a week depending on what my running was doing), and each stage would have two different workouts.

The book doesn’t tell you how much to lift but it does tell you how many reps and sets and the rest in between. The number of reps was vastly different to what I was doing before. Whereas before I’d be squatting 30 times, this specified 15, decreasing as the weeks went on until eventually eight. The point being that the weight you choose should be tough for those limited reps.

Stage 1

I really enjoyed both the routines. Yes it got samey doing the same two workouts, but at 5.30am going into the gym with a no-nonsense plan I was familiar with was fabulous.

  • Workout A: Squats, press-ups, seated rows, step ups, prone jackknifes
  • Workout B: Deadlifts, dumbbell shoulder presses, wide-grip lateral pull-downs, lunges, Swiss ball crunches

I won’t go into all the weights I lifted but just to give you an idea…in January I was squatting 20kg (for around 30 reps). I can now squat 50kg for eight squats. And proper full, deep squats. That might not sound amazing to all those warrior lifters out there, but to me this is huge! And I know I can continue to increase.

The progress I was able to make and the confidence it gave me was fantastic. I stepped away from my ‘safe area’ in the gym and moved into the ‘male section’. There would have been no way I could have lifted a barbell to my shoulders to squat if I hadn’t have used the squat rack.

I’m also hugely pleased with the progress I’ve made to my deadlifts. Again, similar numbers to my squats.

What I also enjoyed was that it made me work on my upper body. In my family we seem to be blessed with naturally toned arms (check out the picture of my sister in previous posts – she hasn’t worked out in years *cough* so may say ever…and yet her arms are lovely and toned) so I would always neglect my upper body as I didn’t “need” to do it. But after Cheddar Gorge marathon and the next day my arms ached it further verified that your upper body is really important in running for maintaining good form and helping you push up hills.

I still included some of my ‘essential’ running-specific moves as well – but increased the weights and decreased the reps (things like single leg squats/deadlifts, Russian twists, box jumps, etc.). Since January my single-leg squat has gone from bodyweight to 20kg!

Not the most happy of faces so early in the gym!

Results: There’s a big fear of “omg bulking up” when women lift weights. I can safely say I haven’t bulked up at all. I have more defined muscles, yes, but I’m not the hulk (or at last, I don’t think I am!). I feel stronger when I run and have a better “kick” at the end. And the proof is in the pudding: I’ve been injury-free for the entire year (TOUCH WOOD, TOUCH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!).

Who says girls can’t lift?

What’s next? Stage 2! New workouts and moves to get to grips with (no pun intended). I’m keen to continue with increasing my strength on the squat and deadlift moves as well so will probably go back to them frequently. They’re perfect full body moves that compliment any type of fitness. Though looking at Stage 2 workouts the deadlift move is going to be ‘upgraded’ so that works nicely.

All in all, I’m hugely impressed with NRLW and hope to continue the stages until the end. Obviously my running is the priority so the workouts will always come second best, but the time it takes to get through the stages doesn’t bother me. It just gives me a good focus on how to further strengthen my body to be a good marathon runner.

Do you lift weights?

How do you remain injury-free for running?

Do you like to do the same thing at the gym or do you mix it up?