Pants In The Park

At last, I've signed myself up for Pants In The Park on the 12th June, the week before the Leeds 10k.

It's a 5k fun run, raising funds and awareness for Prostate Action, a charity dedicated to research and education to beat prostate cancer. As a lovely guy I used to go to networking meetings with once spent an entire presentation telling us, if you have a Dad, a brother, an uncle, a boyfriend, a husband or mate who is a bloke, it's something you should make sure he's aware of, but men rarely talk about "problems down there" and prostate cancer is rarely picked up until it's too late, but if the signs are picked up early it's treatable.

So I've got to get the foot working again, and find some time over this week to get out for a run. Seems I was a little over-eager on Friday. Walking's not been as easy as I thought it would be when I leapt out of bed and wrote that last note. My foot is still stiff and painful if it's moving anything other than in a perfectly flat straight line up and down. And this week I'm working 12 hour shifts that start early and finish late. Might be the perfect time for a rest.

I set myself the challenge of finding 5 running events arranged by various cancer charities, and so far I've only managed to commit to this and the Leeds 10k, thanks to changes in practically everything in my life (yes, really!), but I'm really glad to have clicked onto this one. The idea is to run in the events, raising money for them if people prefer to be specific with their charities, but collecting sponsorship for Macmillan for the general project, thereby spreading the support around.

My shout out on Facebook the other day about needing more sponsorship and motivation resulted in almost doubling the amount I'd raised so far - and my lovely sister-in-law Mim managed to give me a boost with a few words. It was the loss of her sister Sadie in February that kicked off this whole project, and I'm very proud to run to celebrate her memory.

If cancer has touched the ones you love, please click on my Just Giving page and sponsor me!

Disaster strikes!

With less than a month to go! Well, slight and temporary disaster, anyway....

I have sustained a drinking injury. I went out for a catch up with an old friend on Wednesday, and on the way home, weaving rather than walking, I went over on my ankle. Being in a rather relaxed frame of mind, I walked all the rest of the way home with the recognition that it hurt, but not really very bothered. I fell into bed around 1ish.

...And then woke up at 6am to go do some early overtime, wriggled out of bed and realised my foot wasn't working. It was all swollen and stiff and wouldn't move to either side. Putting weight on it was not a good idea. I've sprained it.

But it's not a very bad one. I strapped it up yesterday and fed it ibuprofen, didn't walk on it, spent all day at work with it nicely resting, and got a very healthy 9 hours sleep last night. This morning, the swelling's gone down and it's doing as it's told again, but I'm not going out for the run I was planning. I am about to walk to work though, it felt really wrong to be getting the bus yesterday, and I'm not missing another easy 8miles today.

Thanks so much to everyone who's given me an extra dose of motivation - I promise this won't slow me down for long!

Non-writers guilt.

Oh deary me. I've not written for more than 6 weeks.

This does not mean that I've not been running though. I've had some glorious long runs out through Horsforth woods and along the canal into town in spring sunshine. I'm up somewhere around the 5 mile mark, on about an hour of running. Or at least that is, I am when I've got time.

I have all sorts of excuses - not the least of which are the interruptions of consultations, weddings, and editing, cleaning the house and showing prospective housemates around, which have absorbed my morning and evening times around shifts at work which are on a rolling pattern which sometimes make a morning run impossible.

However, I've been getting out when I can, and I've got a new attitude. I've spoken to a few people in the know, a highly placed amateur very long distance athlete and a personal trainer who've reassured me that as long as I can say I've been for a run, then I'm doing ok, whether that was for an hour's slog or a 20min jog. I'm doing alternate days, keeping going for as long as I can manage, rather than going on just 2 long runs a week. And I'm sticking with that.

In the meantime, it's less than a month to go til the big long race. Im working on getting the distance up, and getting my weight down. 40 miles of walking a week is beginning to show, I can see muscles in my thighs and the scales are below 14stone for the first time in ages.

Now I need a big dose of motivation and a really good long run that I can relax into on Sunday morning.

More later!

Non-Runner's Guilt

My last post was a little too optimistic. The sudden increase in my activity, with 2x 4mile walks every week day, absolutely wiped me out. My chest was tight, I was shattered all the time, my legs felt stiff, and my feet raw (thanks work shoes!), so I decided not to push it, and took a few days off, deciding to just move the plan for last week into this week.

It did me no harm. When I got out of bed and back into the running stuff on Monday, I found myself having a far better run than the previous Monday's. And on Wednesday I so very nearly closed the gap on the hill that last night (Thu) when I walked home, I mentally broke down what I need to do when I next tackle it, and had already conquered it in my head ready for this morning.

So as a result, all night apparently, I've been running up the hill in my sleep. I'm knackered now, and can hardly move with really stiff knees and heels. So I decided not to run this morning. And I've reasoned with myself over this weekend's plans and promised that I'll go out tomorrow morning before I go to Manchester so that I don't have to take my running stuff with me for Sunday morning.

And I'm sitting here writing this feeling so guilty.....

But (more reasoning), I'll be walking to and back from work again today, and that'll mean I'll've walked 40 miles this week on top of the running. It's not like I'm being lazy.

There was some good news on the weight front at the beginning of this week, which seems to have given me a bit of a boost of motivation. Having somehow made it all the way up to 15stone (must be muscle.... I've put it on since starting the exercise), I'd lost half a stone after last week's walkfest. Hopefully the tide has turned and now that I'm running 15miles a week and more, AND walking 40 miles it's all going to fall off me. If it doesn't, I shall not be very pleased.

And, this week, I've received the 12 week training plan from the team at Run For All (The Leeds 10k). I'm smug cos they're suggesting people start the training from scratch now, and I'm already on 5k. Unfortunately, this smugness, doesn't quite counteract the guilt..... Oh I so should have gone out!

30mins, 35...

Well I didn't get round to blogging last week for one reason and another, but if I had, it would've been to mark the passing of the 30 minute mark.

So on Monday this week, I pounded out a 35minute run, and realised I've now got to work out how to solve a problem. This problem is aproximately 80 feet high, and measures just over 1/10th of a mile, but it's so far proving an absolute brick wall. I can't get past it.

There are 2 ways up to our house from Kirkstall Road, one a steeper incline that links to a slower rise up the same ridge. I don't quite understand the mechanics of it, but the seemingly more shallow of the routes has always been more difficult for me, although the steep one is far from easy. So far, the distances in the training plan have allowed me to walk up the last bit, but not for much longer.

Having realised this, on Wednesday morning, I set out to Kill the Hill. In my head, the plan was to run a short circuit 3 times. Down the hill from our house, down the steeper road, along the main road and then back onto the long hill. I ran it once and nearly expired when I got home. I walked back down the hill and tried to run back up and had to give up just a few steps into it. I ran back down the steep hill, this time really annoyed and gave it my last shot. I was breathing hard, hot and sweaty, as though I'd been out on my usual length run, and as I started on the rise again, I knew it was not going to happen. I walked home drenched, worn out and pissed off, arriving back at the door only 16minutes after leaving.

So on Friday, I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. I shortened the route by knocking the uphill curve off the first stage and heading onto the flatter part of the road that I used when I first started training again, thinking it was psychologically more important that I finished the run on the hill than that I clocked up another full length circuit. However, I couldn't get into it, my breathing was out, my legs felt tired and it felt like hard work. I managed only 20 minutes before switching to a walk for 5 minutes, and only another 5 minutes of running before getting onto the lower slope of the hill and having to give up again after only 2 0r 3 minutes of heavy plodding.

I was now fuming with myself. Why did I decide to live halfway up a hill? I obviously wasn't thinking about running when I moved in. I used to eat hills for breakfast when I was running round Morley, and Meanwood's valleys were fun for me back in the days before the 2007 10k. But back then, I wasn't lugging this extra weight, and I was 4 years younger.... How on Earth can I solve this problem?

Then I remembered that it hadn't always been easy in Morley, and remembered running up a half-mile long section of one of the longest hills in Leeds, Gelderd Road. In my memory, I spent weeks dejectedly running out of puff and having to walk for 2 or 3 minutes, feeling that I'd never make it, and knowing that I had to crack it in time to be running the complete 5k distance at my first Race for Life.

And I recalled the near legendary "Dunny Hill", the precipitous dip at the bottom of Stonegate Road. It acquired its status in my childhood when it was the challenge that would dog my Dad on his training runs for the eventual marathons he completed. When I first conquered it in training for the 2007 10k there was a very proud monent in our father-daughter phone call. My Dad understands. He's been vicariously running through me since I got serious about it. His little old legs still get the urge to get out there, but his knees, joints and beer belly are going nowhere these days. I remembered how I cracked the others.

This morning I set off on my full 5k route. I slowed my pace to something fairly easy, overcoming the doubt right at the beginning, concentrating on my breathing and allowing it to increase on the ups and relax on the downs. I made it to the bottom of the hill at 35minutes, and walked up the steeper of the 2 roads, not stressing about it, and knowing my heart was still working solidly. I set myself a visual target, a streetlight I think of as the point where the hill evens out, and when I got there, I started running again. And when I got back to the house, I felt like I'd made it. Bad run turned into good run.

Next time, tomorrow morning, I'll do the same again, but run a few steps further before stopping, so I'll be further up the hill, walking until I get my breath back, then starting running at the lamp before the one I started again at today. This week's challenge is to close the gap little by little until next Sunday, when I hope to run the whole 5k circuit for the first time.

From now on, I'll also be getting back to some serious walking, to and from town Monday-Friday, which should help with shifting some of this extra weight that's making it all so much harder.

In the meantime, I need some more support and encouragement. Time to be a bit more noisy on Facebook, I think!

Rest Day

It's Saturday, and I am NOT running today.

I'm shattered after a full day shoot for a wedding yesterday, and it's drizzling outside, so I'm very glad it's a rest day.

Before I went out yesterday morning, I went out for my scheduled training run, and nailed 25minutes of continuous running. At the time I was extremely pleased with myself but by the end of last night, when I'd been on my feet and carrying all my camera kit for so long, my calves were killing me and my feet were complaining. So today I'm doing not very much in terms of exercise at all (apart from occasional pottering about the house doing domestic things).

I'll be pretty much stuck behind the editing desk for a few days working on the shots, so my runs next week will be boredom breakers and motivators, and I'm actually quite excited that by this time next week I'll be running the whole 5k route, and halfway to my target distance.

Five weeks into the routine, I'm genuinely enjoying it. No weight off as yet, in fact, I seem to have put it on instead. However, my past experience has been that until I get up to about the 4 mile mark I won't shift a pound, but that it'll come off quite quickly when I get there. Only another couple of weeks then!

Sunday Run

For the first time today, I've covered a full 5k distance.

Here's my 5k route.

Today's session required me to alternate 2minutes of running with 1minute of walking, and that was pretty intense. But it seems pretty cool to think that in just 8 more sessions I'll be running it all.