39. The One Where I Had A Whole Day To Do Nothing

26 September 2015

Since I've got six days - eek - to go, I'm now fully into the taper!  I had 10km to do on the schedule today.  I was a bit tempted to do 20km because 10km just feels so ... short ...!  And lazy!  But I soon pulled myself together and realised I sounded like one of those, and put the 10km back on the schedule.  I went down to Richmond Park and figured I'd just do a lap which is 11km, close enough.

Once I'd sorted that out, I had the biggest decision to make ... get up early (again) and have the day free, or sleep in and spend the morning getting to Richmond and running?  Hmmmm ... in the end the day won out and I got down to Richmond for 08:00.


It was sooooooo beautiful this morning!  I've not been able to see Richmond in that sort of light before because every time I've been down there it's been a bit grey and miserable.  Not today!  There was this amazing mist that covered the park with a blazing blue sky above and all the autumn colors in between.  I don't really love Richmond Park but I'm probably the only person ever to say that.  The park itself is cool and all - and there are deer, and deer are good - but it's just not massively my place.  Today though, it was GORGEOUS and I got what people keep telling me - it's lovely!

By the way there is no filter on this - there was condensation on the lens!

I was just doing one lap round the perimeter 'cause it was close enough to 10km and it's easier than thinking about it too much and zigzagging round.  On top of that, it meant that I didn't have to worry about navigation and with the shorter distance, I could just run!  This was exciting - I really really wanted to run today and I absolutely loved 95% of this run (the 5% is the bit where you know, you have to run up a hill and it feels like your lungs could actually explode imminently and your legs are at serious risk of dropping off).

It was nice to be running clean (ie not carrying anything) for a change and it was nice to be able to run rather than try and conserve energy.  I'm not saying I was fast - please, don't think that for a second - and I did walk from time to time especially on the massive hill at the end.  The aim was still ultra-training, so keeping it slow and real, but it was just nice to do a proper lovely run again!

It was also lovely to have a WHOLE DAY without either running or work!  Don't get me wrong; I've had some fantastic days running but yeesh, it's been a lot of training on weekends.  I'm not actually doing anything, seeing as I'm meant to be in lockdown resting (honestly, you can take the girl out of triathlon but you can never take the triathlete out of the girl ... and no-one takes a taper as seriously as a triathlete.  We will taper aggressively and competitively!).  However ...  I've been able to check out my next nutritional adventure!  Check out these bad boys - these are peanut butter banana muffins!  When I said I was going to be doing muffins, my friend Rosh (who is an Ironman and so who I suppose, knows about this sort of thing) told me that I had to think about what sort of Glycaemic Index rating my home-made foods were going to have because otherwise I'd end up eating but not getting the right fuel.  I thought about that and decided to come up with the closest thing to a peanut butter and banana wrap as I could, but in form that is edible to me.  Enter ... peanut butter and banana muffins!  I have - ahem - quality-tested one and I can confirm that it is A.MAZE.  I just got the recipe from Tesco actually but it fits all the bills - it's got peanut butter for fats and long-term energy, oats and flour and bready things for medium energy and sugar and bananas for instant energy.  Perfect right?!

22. The One Where I Finally Went A Really Really Long Way

30 August 2015

A few years ago, my friend Claire and I went on a mini-roadtrip in her car to the Lake District.  We went to 13 places in 36 hours and it was so much fun.  I loved the freedom of being able to just drive to wherever we wanted ... so when I got back, on a whim, I bought a car.  Never mind that I live in Zone 1/2 in London and had lived here perfectly happily for years without one ... I just really really NEEDED a car right then.  I've managed to justify all the cash it's cost me since by using it for all the triathlons I used to do all over the country, plus visiting my one friend who lives out of town (but who works in town, and whom I only ever see in London.  But still.  I could visit her in St Albans now.).

Today I realised a new and excellent use for my car - he morphed into my own personal aid station!  As I keep moaning about, I'm finding nutrition really really hard to manage because I'm not hungry when I'm running or walking but I'm not that keen on bonking.  I know that the aid stations in the run have soup, and I also know that loads of blogs and forums suggest that soup is your best friend on an ultra, but I haven't been able to cart a thermos of soup around with me in my hydration vest.  However, I figured that if I drove to Richmond Park to do the 45km walk that was on the schedule for this week (after my failure to do it last week), I would be able to leave the soup in the car, together with any other food, and then I could stop by and fuel myself up every time I passed the parking lot.  I put together some soup in a flask, some soup bread and some peanut butter sandwiches.  With those and a ChiaCharge bar and some ChiaCharge trail mix I thought I was pretty sorted - and I even had a variety of food to choose from!

With the fact that I had to pass by the parking lot on several occasions throughout the session, I decided to do loops of the perimeter of Richmond Park.  I knew that it was just over eleven kilometres around which meant that four loops would be about 45km all up, and it would give me three aid station stops along the way (and loo stops!).  This is not the most interesting route!  However, it does have some varied terrain - there is a sort of sandy path, some woods, some off-road paths, hills and flats, so it was good training.

Originally, the plan had been to walk 45km in order to get used to the distance without completely screwing myself over for training for the rest of the week.  However, I learned last week that if I start off walking, running half way through is really really hard - my ankles feel like they're going to break.  Therefore, I decided it would be much more sensible to start off run/walking and see how I got on.  I had no idea how much to do, but I thought I'd try running the first 200 metres of every kilometre, no matter what the terrain at the time.  That way I'd be able to have lots of recovery, but I'd have to run uphill, downhill, and on the flat, plus I'd have to run on every type of terrain.

 The other thing that the different types of terrain was good for was testing out my trail shoes.  I have never worn them on a long distance and I wasn't sure how it'd go, so I made sure I brought my Skechers as well so that if the worst came to the worst I could change them over after one of the loops.  However - they were fine!  I did get a few hotspots towards the end, especially around my toes, but let's be fair, it was 45km and I think I would've had those in any shoes.  I didn't have any blisters at all, and my feet were as comfortable as feet can be over 45km.  The only thing was that they kept getting so much dirt in them!  I don't know if this was just the sandy path or the fact that they're a little bit open around the foot, but OMG I must've brushed about two tonnes of dirt out of my shoes and socks over the course of the run.  On any other terrain I think this would be avoided though - I hope!  They're brilliantly grippy and I don't turn my ankles in them as much as in my Skechers, so overall I was really pleased with how they stood up.  Phew!  That is a relief because I don't really feel like investing hundreds in new shoes at the moment!


Getting back to the run itself, the first loop was pretty good - the run/walking was working well, and I hadn't seen the perimeter path before so it was interesting.  I decided that in addition to running the first 200m of every kilometres, I'd do some bonus runs as well, so I ran every downhill as well.  This kept my times down as well so that it didn't feel like I was taking quite so long about the whole thing!  There were a lot of deer out today as well.  Despite the fact that they were looking placid, I was a bit nervous as it's getting very near rutting season.  However, they were beautifully well behaved and even posed for a picture for me when I asked nicely.

After the first loop, I stopped by my car to have some soup and bread.   I'd decided that cream of chicken was the answer to all my problems in life, because I felt like my soul needed as much help as my body on such a long session.  I don't even LIKE soup normally, but it worked perfectly - I started my second loop feeling extremely good about soup!

By the end of the second loop I was starting to get pretty tired though, so I had a nice long rest (about six minutes) sitting in the boot of my Mini, and I had more soup and bread.  I was still feeling very good about soup - the only thing is that it was incredibly salty.  I couldn't decide whether that was good - in order to replace the salts that I was losing, especially as I wasn't drinking any electrolyte drinks - or bad, because it was making me more dehydrated.  I still don't know the answer but it tasted good so I was happy.


The third loop was a little bit of a bust - I had to stop and have a long phone call (like 15 minutes!) in the middle of it, and I also had to stop and brush a bunch of dirt out of my shoes which meant it was my slowest loop overall.  I almost thought I'd stop after that loop as it would've been nice to salvage part of my day, but it seemed silly to fail to do the full distance again.  Therefore, after another long break and a peanut butter sandwich (which are my other new favorites!) I set off for the final loop.  This was not fun!!!  I was basically just in pain the whole way round this one.  My dodgy foot had started to hurt in loop 2, but I'd ignored it and carried on, and that was really not happy about that and let me know it!  In addition my left hip flexor was tightening the whole time and the irritating trapped nerve at the top of my left leg was reminding me that it's not a massive fan of running.  I was so so proud that I still managed to run the first 200m of every kilometre, and I even still managed to run all the down hills as well.  I feel good about that because it makes me think I will be able to do it in the challenge (on the first day at least haha).  I've never been so happy to see my car though!  I got back there at 44.93km, which was obviously a totally unacceptable number, so I walked around the car park until I got to 45km - hurrah!!  I scarfed the rest of my soup bread (I sacked off the final bit of soup because I knew I was going to have supper pretty soon after I got home), put the radio up and drove home SO HAPPY TO BE DONE!

As soon as I got home I hit the bath - it was AMAZING.  I got myself sorted with Live at the Apollo on iPlayer, a nice bottle of banana milk and a big bottle of water and just relaxed for 45 minutes.  I finally hauled myself out to scarf a spag bol (left over from the night before, which was ideal as I only had to shove the spaghetti in a pot and heat up the meat in the microwave, which was about all I could handle!).  My legs were extremely grumpy, so I massaged in some Antiflamme (aka Nature's Kiss) and got my compression socks on - so sexy, such a fashion statement.

They bloody well do the trick though - I woke up this morning seriously worried about how I was going to feel, but I feel fine!  The only thing that is stiff is my back - I can feel every single erector spinae muscle, which tells me I need to do some work on them (and also get the Antiflamme involved in my back as well as my legs).  Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying I want to do it all again today and tomorrow - but I am relieved to think that I could do it again today if I needed to.  That gives me a bit more confidence at least, especially as this was the second back to back run.  Over the last two days I've put 67km into my legs and they've survived, so that is definitely a good confidence booster!

Today is however a rest day, and it's raining, and it's bank holiday, so I intend to walk no further than from my sofa to my kitchen.  Perfect day!

17. The One Where I Didn't Go A Really Long Way

23 August 2015

Since today was a recovery day after the triathlon yesterday, and since I've never gone further than 30km (and that was last week haha) I wanted to get a feel for the full 50km distance this weekend.  Officially it's actually 42km per day for the actual challenge, but on all the blogs I've read (and on tracking the course on MapMyRun) it's definitely more like 50km.

I didn't want to stress my body massively unduly and put myself out of training for any length of time, so I decided to walk the distance.  I planned a route that took me from my house to Richmond Park, around Richmond Park a few times, and home again.

All my planning was going really well until I realised I had to be in Hampstead at 16:00, which meant leaving home at 15:00 ... which meant that at 5km per hour (and thus a total of ten hours for 50km) I'd have to leave home at 04:00 to get home by 14:00 to get showered, fed, and out the door again.  Ummmm ....!!!!!!!!!!  04:00 was not a viable option when I'd raced the day before and then driven back down to London, so I thought I'd leave at 07:00 and get as much in as I could by 13:00, still being six hours.  That would leave me time to have a little nap as well as having a shower and lunch and also left me slippage time since my sense of time is TERRIBLE and cutting it fine just meant I'd be twenty minutes late.

So that was the plan!  With last week's bonking vividly lodged in my mind, I got up at 05:30, made a HUMUNGOUS plate of oaty, proteiny, Bodyism pancakes for fuel and scarfed the lot with blueberries, Fage yoghurt and maple syrup.

I also baked more two-ingredient cookies but with berries (LOVE THEM) to take with me, and picked up some ChiaCharge fuel to take along as well.  I love ChiaCharge because it's all natural and has no preservatives or anything ghastly like that, just oats, butter, sugar, golden syrup, chia seeds and sea salt.  There are also cafe's in Richmond Park, so I figured that that would do, because I could always stop and pick up soup or something from the cafe.

I finally set off on time and headed over to Richmond Park, which is 7km from my house.  The walk there was soooo uncomfortable!  I had filled up my water reservoir to its full capacity of 2 litres, which meant that everything was sitting in my pack a bit weirdly, bouncing around on top of the water.  In addition, I'd also packed my warm sweater into a snaplock bag in case it rained, but that meant that it couldn't drape across my bag and sort of lurked there, pulling me down.  Everything felt tight and horrendous and uncomfortable and I'm sure I spent the whole 7km pulling at various tabs and straps to try and readjust.  Luckily I had a lovely view over the Thames for part of the way which kept me vaguely distracted.

It took me an hour and a quarter to get there, and my first stop was the loo.  I took my pack off (obviously!) to use the bathroom and fortunately, when I put it back on, something had shifted somewhere and it was soooooooo much better.  It was a real lesson to me to take it off next time and shake it about and put it back on, as it was such a simple fix and made me feel 100x better.  From the loo, I set off round the park.  Someone once pointed out to me that if you go clockwise round the park, you look at men's faces, and if you go counter-clock around it, you look at men's bums, because all the bike wankers cyclists tend to cycle round in a counter-clock direction.  Obviously, that was no contest, so I set off counter-clock round the perimeter.

Richmond Park is such a strange place - it's got forests, bush, flat plains, a deer sanctuary, lakes, and what look like wheat fields (but are actually fields of long grass) and - unless you stick to the perimeter road - you sort of get flung from one to the other without much warning.  You also run the risk of running face first into a pack of deer, as they roam around the entire park.



I got a bit bored of the perimeter quite quickly (hard to believe with all those bums flashing past) so I headed up through the bush (which turned out to be entirely made of ferns, which was a bit weird, I thought I was back in New Zealand for a moment!) and towards the forest.  Over the following three hours I basically just headed around the park in a squiggle shape to try and take in as much as I could of the terrain.  I'd been expecting it to be quite hilly but it wasn't really - a few gentle slopes and that was it.  I'm sure I remember cycling around it and thinking the hills were killer, perhaps I'm just more hench than I used to be after all my encounters with cliffs!



 

In the end, I had to leave Richmond Park with an hour and a quarter left on my time to make sure I got home in time to eat and rest a little bit before I went out.  The best thing about my trip home was that on my way over I'd noticed wild blackberries growing on Rocks Lane and I'd promised myself I'd get some on the way back.  Wild blackberries fresh off the bush are AMAZING - nothing like the tasteless garbage (even the organic ones) you get in the supermarket.  They're tiny little explosions of juice and sweetness and flavor - I was so so excited to grab a handful on the way back!

It was good that I had them to look forward to because what had been a bit of a drizzle when I left Richmond Park was a miserable downpour by the time I got home.  At least I could test my waterproofing of my sweater (yup, my Waitrose snaplock bag was totally up to the job) and as the walk finished at home, I could just throw myself under the shower.  I could also eat within about 15 minutes of getting home!  Best ever lunch!

I learned A LOT on this walk, even though it was only 34km in the end.  My new knowledge includes:

• Running is obviously harder on your body in some ways, but I was in a lot more pain walking!  My feet, hips, lower back and glutes were basically screaming at me after about 20km, they were not happy.  That doesn't seem to happen when I am run/walking and I think it's because a lot of running uses elasticity whereas walking is solid effort.  
• I don't get hungry when I'm going long distance.  I'd noticed this last week when I was reflecting on my bonking episode, so I was hyper-aware of watching for it and I didn't feel hungry at all throughout.  I did stop twice within the park for two-ingredient cookie breaks and I did feel far better after them.  Therefore, I just have to make sure I stop every hour or so and eat something without waiting to feel hungry.
• Speaking of two-ingredient cookies, apart from being a bit melty, they are PERFECT on-the-go fuel.  The banana is sugary enough to give me instant energy, and the oats give me more medium energy.  I might experiment with adding some coconut - I think with coconut they would be even better as that would give me some fats to add to the carbs.  
• It's really hard to start running half way through a walk - I tested a couple of mid-walk runs on downhills, and my ankles nearly staged a revolt.  They simply would not have it.  That doesn't happen when I start off with a run or a run/walk alternating, so I'm much better off run/walk alternating so that I have the choice to run if I want!
• If you don't like a song a LOT before you take it on a six-hour walk, you will really really really hate it by the end of it.  I just put my iPhone on shuffle for all my songs but it seemed to get stuck on repeating about twenty 80s and 90s rock (hello Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams and the Goo Goo Dolls ...).  I'm definitely making a better playlist for next week; if I never hear Bryan Adams' 18 Til I Die ever again it will be too soon.

Having said that, since I didn't make the full distance, I'm going to repeat it all again next week to try and understand the distance and get to grips with it.  I'd rather do some more hills running, but Richmond works out well for me because of the loos and the cafes (I also want to test out running after eating soup as part of my nutrition, because I know that soup is on offer at the feed stations on the challenge and it seems like something that I'd be able to wrap myself around even if I wasn't that hungry).  Luckily it's a bank holiday weekend so I have lots of lovely time to spend walking and/or running, although I've got to fit in a few social plans as well.  Hopefully I will get to improve my squiggly map!