What's better than going for a run?

Yesterday, after work, I'd planned to go for a quick 4 miler at marathon pace just to remind my legs what I want them to do at Sunday's marathon.  Instead, we ended up going to the Olympic Park, on what was the second day of the Paralympics.

No tickets for any venues unfortunately, just for entry to the Park, but still had a fantastic evening which included watching some of the sport on the Park Live screens, seeing the Gold Medal presentation for Hannah Cockroft (T34 100m) and getting to wave my flag while the national anthem played.

I've been absolutely blown away by the Paralympic athletes - I really was so ignorant about how amazing they are, putting on incredible performances regardless of their various disabilities. I don't want to be clichéd but it certainly is inspiring, especially when so many of the athletes seem to have been injured later in life. Some of the stories are harrowing and I can only begin to imagine how they have had their whole world turned upside down, but then adapted and become these incredible sportsmen/women..

I'm enjoying the Paralympics as much as the Olympics...all bar the terrible TV coverage from Channel 4, with adverts every 5 minutes instead of the excellent programming from the BBC!

Wish it didn't all have to end though...maybe next up we could have the Schools Olympics....

A different kind of carb loading

On Sunday, I'm running the Kent Coastal Marathon for the second time.  As my training's been pretty minimal recently I'm not anticipating a sub 4hr, but would like to beat last year's time of 4:09. I'm really looking forward to the race, especially as quite a few people I know are running it, but also because I loved the course last year - running by the sea is something I very rarely have the chance to do, but it's wonderful.

Usually, when a marathon is coming up, even if it's not a goal race and I'm not tapering, I still carb load like crazy, using it as an excuse to overeat junk food. Instead of just changing the proportions of my diet to include more healthy carbs, I eat twice as much as I should do, and revert to my favoured crisps, chocolate, cakes and biscuits, telling myself it's ok because I'm carb loading! The lies I tell myself, and am willing to believe, are incredible!  In fairness, this has generally stood me in good stead for races, but unfortunately I always find myself weighing more after the marathon than I did the week before.

In light of my new commitment to my nutrition, this time I'm approaching my carb loading a bit differently i.e more like an athlete, less like the cookie monster!

Hopefully this will still work for me, I'll still have a good race and I wont hit the dreaded wall - something that's never happened to me before, but if I don't carb load enough I might.  It'll be an interesting experiment either way.

I found the article below, online in the Running Times, which I've found pretty useful and I'm following the advice it contains. A link to the original web page is here.

Carbo–loading Rules to Run By

Learn when and how to effectively carbo-load

By Jackie Dikos, R.D.
As featured in the Web Only issue of Running Times Magazine 

“Am I eating enough or too much?” It can be nerve-wracking wondering if effective carbohydrate loading is being applied before a major race. Just because the belly is full doesn’t mean it’s full of beneficial carbohydrates that will support successful racing. Consider these basic rules in understanding where carbohydrates enter the diet, what the best carbohydrates are leading up to a race, and how to effectively carbohydrate load.

1) 90 Minutes or Longer
Carbohydrate loading is appropriate for races lasting 90 minutes or longer. Such events begin to exhaust glycogen stores. By carbohydrate loading, a runner may be able to sustain pace longer, supporting endurance performance.

2) Know Thy Carbs
Most runners know good sources of carbohydrates are bread, and, well, pasta. So that means you should eat more bread and more pasta to carb load, right?  It’s true that eating bread and pasta will support carbohydrate loading, but there are other great sources of carbohydrates to keep in mind when carbohydrate loading.

Only 252 days to go....

Just saw a video that Brathay Trust have posted of the 2012 10 marathons in 10 days event and the Windermere Marathon (which is held on the last day of the 10in10) and thought I'd share it.  I can't believe that in just 252 days...that's going to be me!! :D

Presents in the post

I never get anything in the mail.  Well, I do, but not very often, and even less often is it something I actually want! So the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a turn-up for me...I've had some presents through the post :)

The most recent is something I bought myself a while back and have been waiting in anticipation to arrive - a little Lego minifig as a memento of my ultra, from Savage Steel's Minifigs website

I've also been sent the awesome Scott Jurek's book "Eat and Run" to review, which I will be starting shortly, and plan to post about in some detail - other reviews I've seen have all said it's really interesting and Jurek is one of my inspirations, so I'm really looking forward to reading it and hopefully learning from it, especially in light of my new focus on my weight and nutrition!

Last, but not least, and in a way related, I've also been sent this amazing set of Hi-5 supplements from SportPursuit that will hopefully get me through my next ultra in even better shape!

I've never used anything like the High-5 products before - I've drunk lucozade or powerade (or just plain water) and as you'll know if you've read this blog for a while, I've also suffered quite badly from hyponatremia after races so am well aware that it's not always enough!  As much races get further and more frequent, it's high time I sorted out my running nutrition and replenishing my electrolytes properly, and so this delivery has come at just the right time.  As well as my haphazard approach to my drinks, I haven't used gels before during training (prefering mars bars) or during races, when up to marathon distance I've only ever had drinks.  In the two ultras, I did eat, and chose flapjack, salted peanuts and Rolos, but again, I need to start trying out some of the more advanced nutritional options that are out there - it might not work for me, but at least for the marathon distances, I need to make sure I'm not missing out on something that could make a real difference to my races, or to my recovery from them.

As I haven't really done any decent long runs recently, I've not tried out any of the gels yet, although when we went out on our 50 mile bike ride the other day Francis had a couple and he was really positive about their effect so, as I'm heading out for a 12 mile run tonight after work, this will be the start of my trials! 

A wake-up call

I went to the gym this morning.  I got the personal trainer to weigh me.  It wasn't good news.

I thought I had a rough idea of my weight and body fat percentage from my scales at home (although admittedly I've been putting off weighing myself for the last month or so).  However, the numbers on the scales at the gym were very much worse than what I'd expected.  I'm putting this down to 1) I ate breakfast before going to the gym 2) I was clothed and 3) I've put on some weight over the last few weeks!

But there we go. It doesn't matter about any of those things - the point is I have a starting point, and a benchmark with which to compare my progress over the coming weeks.

On the plus side, I had an incredibly hard but enjoyable session in the gym of 5 minute warm up on the bike, 45 minutes of grueling circuits (burpees, press ups, crunches, dips, boxing, step jumps, and a whole host of other things), and then 10 minutes of stretching.  I'm feeling absolutely "fatigued" (word of the day from my PT) but also very motivated to eat well this week, and get some lower numbers on the scale when I go back for my next session!