Back to work with a bump ...

After a fantastic couple of weeks off for Christmas and New Year it was always going to be a bit tough getting back into the school and work routine and so it was a bit of a shocker when the alarm went off at 5:45am on Monday morning and it was back to the morning routine of making packed lunches, walking the dog and attempting to get three children out of bed and ready for school.

My three are a funny lot!  Still not sure the big girl is a bona fide teenager – I mean what other teenager gets out of bed at 6:30 every morning to walk the dog with her old mum? Don’t get me wrong I am eternally grateful for these moments we spend together when no one else is up yet – and these are the moments I hold onto when we are having one more “stop answering back” conversation!!  The boy on the other hand has to be coaxed out of bed every morning to the smell of fresh pain au chocolat – you know the ones that come in a can right?!  Dreading him hitting his teenage years, I mean how am I going to coax him out of bed then?  The little girl gets up without a problem, scrapes her hair into the messiest ponytail possible, slathers Nutella over something to eat and calls herself ready!!  All this whilst the dog sits on the windowsill watching the world go by.  Every morning is the same, we have our routine and we stick to it!

And so it was on Monday as we all set off on our first day back.  I was lulled into a false sense of security on the way back to work as the traffic was surprisingly light – this has not lasted.  I heard on the radio that it takes 4 days to get back into the groove at work after the holidays so I have stuck with that mantra all week.

One of the things I have been stressing about a bit is fitting all my training into the already a little too busy family schedule.  Up till now I have just downloaded a marathon training plan from the internet and gone with that – and it has worked pretty well but training for ultras and multi-stage races is something I know nothing about so my running buddy and I decided to enlist a coach to help prepare us.  We started working with our coach at the beginning of December and I think when you are paying for coaching and accountable to someone else there is additional pressure to make the plan work and do what you are told to do.  I have
to say it has taken me some time to adjust to someone else having control over my workouts and to really trust the process.

Over Christmas I have had more time to be able to make the plan work without the time restrictions of work and school and after school activities so this week was going to test whether I could actually fit everything in.  The answer is a qualified yes to be honest – it has been a bit of a juggle and here are some things I have
learnt this week:

• After a hard tempo session on Monday night there is no point attempting to get up at 5am and run 5 comfortable miles.  I am struggling with early morning running whilst it is still so dark so waiting to run till the evening made more sense and stopped me beating myself up all day about snoozing the alarm and missing a session!

• A hard hill session on Friday made for a suffer fest of 14 miles in the wind on Saturday – ever grateful to share those miles with my running buddy, without her I may have given up a lot sooner.

• My life literally revolves around food and sleep and rolling – no joke I think I am obsessed!

• It is ok to shift the plan around a bit – when I first spoke with my coach I said there are no days I can’t run – and that is true but there are days when life gets in the way and so it should and it is ok to move workouts around to accommodate that.

So I am heading into week 2 with a bit more confidence that I am back in the work and school groove, that I can make it all fit and that I can move workouts round a little bit to make it all work.

Keep showing up, keep putting the work in and it is all about the juggle!!

Much love xx

Oh hello 2020 – so nice to meet you!!

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade!!!

As we all know it is customary at this time of year to set ourselves loads of goals that we want to achieve for the new year.  I am not sure where the tradition of setting new year’s resolutions originates but I do know there is a lot of research and evidence around what day we all give up on those resolutions/goals and I believe it is actually still in January right!

So I thought it was worth talking about goal setting and making those goals stick as well as share some of my specific goals for this year.  But first I would think it is important to say that I just found the scrap of paper I wrote last year’s goals on and guess what? FAIL!  Maybe I am just not that good at being kind to myself!

If you Google goal setting you will get a whole heap of hits about setting SMART goals – I think this is a really useful acronym both when setting goals and also explaining why we don’t achieve our goals.

In short SMART stands for; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based.  Effectively if the goals we set aren’t specific enough, we have no way of measuring whether we have achieved them or not or if they are so pie in the sky they are totally unachievable we are setting ourselves up to fail.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say my goal of being kinder to myself needed to be a bit more specific!!!

This year’s goals were also scribbled on a bit of paper – I think when I was suffering from the world’s worst cold in October/November and throwing myself a bit of a pity party – eventually my chiropractor worked a miracle and rid me of the stinking cold!!  The goals I wrote are really my running goals for 2020 and at least they are pretty specific and measurable!! They are (in case you can’t read my writing in the photo):

I commit to:

• Eating right – getting my nutrition right to support my goals

• Resting right – getting my sleep/recovery right to support my goals

• Putting in the work

March - spring marathon

July - 50k

September - Half Marathon des Sables

October - fall marathon (Chicago or Marine Corps)*

So no big mileage or PB goals as in previous years.  I have no idea how many miles I am going to run in pursuit of my first ultra and the HDMS so am resisting setting a goal – well I did mention a goal with the 9yo when we were walking the dog the other day but she pinky-promised she wouldn’t tell anyone!!!  As for PB’s – ultra-running is going to be a whole new ballgame and whilst I would love a marathon PB it is not the focus this year.

I am committed to doing the work to make my goals a reality and commit to sharing more of my training on the blog so you can see what I have been up to.  I would love to hear what goals you have set yourself for 2020.

Much love xx

P.s. And yes I will again attempt to be kinder to myself!

Prague Marathon Weekender

Seriously where the does the time go – I cannot believe that this time last week we had just landed in Prague.  Honestly last Friday didn’t get off to the best start – we spent an hour talking-down a very tearful and stressed 11 year old before he would go into school – and then the fur baby chewed through the chord on my hairdryer.  Technically she did me a favour because having invested in a new hairdryer I now know how old and ineffective my old hairdryer was but I am not telling her that!!

Finally we made it to the airport and bought all the food for the flight – I hate to be without food!!!  Saturday was spent on a quick trip to the super well organized expo to collect our numbers and t-shirts, eating a lot and discussing what to wear for the race – the weather was quite a bit cooler than we had expected which gave us something to stress about!

I had a very clear idea of how I was going to run the race – I wanted to go out at a conservative pace that I knew I could stick with and keep to my nutrition plan.  I was also very clear with myself that if my back started really hurting (not the “it aches everywhere” because I am running a marathon but an actual injury pain) then I would pull up.  So after final kit discussions and breakfast it was time to drop our bags and get in our pens to start.

I have done a lot of reading and listening to audiobooks and podcasts over the last year – all aimed at upping my mental game when it comes to running – and it seems that some of that work is finally paying off.  I spent a lot of the race talking to myself about how I may feel tired but that would be normal given the lack of training and checking in with how I was feeling.  And I have to say that the whole race went brilliantly – there was no hitting the wall, no feeling like I couldn’t go on and more importantly no pain!

I stuck to my plan the entire time and whilst marathon number 7 was most definitely not my fastest marathon it ranks right up there in terms of enjoyment.  So much went right and I am absolutely buzzing with the result – nothing better than turning onto the home straight with 500 metres to go and realising you have actually got this!

So here are my takeaways from a successful weekend:

• I know you will have heard this a million times but your mind REALLY is your own worst enemy and it will most definitely give up before your body – it has taken me a long time to really get this

• Don’t let your mind wander to the “dark place” – you know the place that says “I can’t do this and I need to stop” – it is a tough road back from there

• Counting in kilometres weirdly made it feel like I was getting done faster – I mean you would think that having 20 miles would sound better than 30 kilometres right but weirdly not!

• Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition – when you get it right, you get it right!!  It is so easy to misjudge race nutrition or to think you will wait to take a gel because you are feeling good and then before you know it the wheels fall off.  This time I stuck religiously to my plan – first gel an hour in and then a gel every half hour after that and it just worked – they didn’t hand out gels in Prague so I carried my own which was actually less stressful than being reliant on gel stations

• I think flexible race plans are the new me – it really made the whole thing a lot less nerve-wracking knowing that I had a backup plan if things started to go wrong or not the way I had planned

• You know they always say marathon courses are flat – they rarely are (in racing if the course is said to be undulating it will feel like you have climbed mountains by the end!) – Prague is an exception to prove the rule, it really is flat and a great course but the cobbles are brutal!!  I am yet to live down the fact that I vetoed Copenhagen and Hamburg because of the cobbles!!

So all in all a really positive race weekend – and a huge confidence boost for Berlin later this year.

Last but most definitely not least huge shout out to my amazing running buddy who ran a blistering 4:07 in only her second marathon – that BQ is within touching distance!!  So proud to be on this crazy running journey with you – may there be many more miles, crazy race weekends and memories made!!

Next stop NYC!

Much love xx

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho it’s off to Prague we go …

2 days to go to the Prague Marathon and the nerves and excitement are setting in, I have laid out piles of clothes, put them all away and laid out different piles instead.  I have packed and re-packed and I think it is safe to say I have kit to cover all weather eventualities!!

Travelling with hand luggage only comes with it’s own problems of trying to squeeze all the gels and toiletries into that tiny wee airport issued plastic bag – there have been many iterations of what I need to fit into that bag – suffice to say the absolute essentials of gels and Biofreeze have secured their place and I will need to buy deodorant, shampoo and conditioner after security at the airport.  Seems I am less worried about clean hair than having the right nutrition during the race!!!

I cannot wait to get to Prague and to pick up my number at the Expo tomorrow.  I am feeling strangely calm at the moment and am sure this is a side effect of missing so much training through injury.  I know that whilst I have missed so much training there is nothing I can do to change that, I cannot literally cram a month’s worth of training in now.  I know that the important thing is to arrive uninjured – a month ago I was convinced I would not make the start line but here I am ready to go so that is a positive.

I read an article in which Paula Radcliffe talked about having a flexible race plan – this really struck a chord with me as I am one for having a plan and then getting a bit hung up when it doesn’t all go exactly according to plan.  For example at the Liverpool Marathon last year the first gel station was not quite where we expected it to be AND it was at the bottom of a hill, by the time I got to the gel station I was so panicked about being late taking my gel that I forced it down as I ran uphill – think it took me about 5 miles to get over that physically but mentally I was still thinking about it even when I finished the race!

This year I have taken Paula’s advice to heart – having been injured this is already a very different race than I anticipated or hoped for and I am not out to get a PB on Sunday.  No, this race is very definitely not about a PB.  My plan is to take it as it comes - no getting hung up on gels and splits and pace and times I promise.  Plan B - just enjoy the race and the atmosphere and celebrate the fact that I am uninjured and I get to run – that sounds like a good plan right?

Must dash – got to go pack and repack some more and see if I can squeak a couple more things into that tiny liquids bag.

Much love xx

I am not very good at being injured ....

I am not very good at being injured – fact!!  Luckily for those around me I have been away on work trips for most of the time that I have been injured so no one has really had to put up with my sulking!!

So here’s the thing – for so long now I have been in a whirlwind of training cycles from one race to the next.   I have talked before about how having a race scheduled in is a huge motivator for me – I love a plan and I love to tick off all those hard sessions and know what I am working so hard for.  I like to know that I am getting up and out of the door for a session at the crack of sparrows or pounding away on the treadmill long after the kids have gone to bed for a reason but it wasn’t always like that.

I ran my first marathon in 2003 – I swore I would never run another and it did take me 9 years before I ran my second.  In the time between my first and second marathons running was just something I did as exercise, something to get me out of the door.  I went back to running pretty quickly after each of the kids came along as a way to lose my pregnancy weight and to get some headspace.  Running was more time effective than going to the gym – lace up and head out for 30 minutes and that was all there was to it.

Since 2012 (the year I did my second marathon in London) I have done a further 5 marathons, and who knows how many half marathons.  I have trained long and hard for each marathon and this year was set to be no different – although this is the first year that I will be doing two marathons.

And then I got injured!  And it may have taken a while but I have learnt a couple of things during this period of enforced rest:

• I really am not great at being injured – I know my buddy and I always say we are extremely lucky not to have gotten injured but I am not sure we realised how lucky we really were until we both got injured.  At first I was pretty adamant it was not a running related injury and determined to run through it which was the worst thing to do.  I finally saw the chiropractor and as soon as she said I could start running again I got straight back on plan and re-injured – cue another 5 days rest!!  So this week I have been very careful – stuck to the treadmill and kept it to easy runs – what can I say I am a slow learner!

• I have worked really hard to take the positives out of this period – and one of those is that I really need to listen to my body a bit better.  I have also now realised that I need to pay more attention to stretching and strengthening – so pilates here I come!

• But one of the biggest things to come out of being injured is remembering why I run – it isn’t all about the training plans and the medals.  Running has taken me on some amazing adventures and I have met some amazing friends on my running journey, running has been a constant for me whilst so much else has changed.  Running has been my headspace, my me time, my thinking time, my time when no one calls me Mum, time when I can work through so much – in short running makes me a better me.

So as my running buddy and I prepare to head off to Prague I know I have missed more training than for any other marathon and it has been a very different training cycle than we had envisaged.  The plan for the race is to enjoy it and have fun and remember that we are lucky that we get to run – and along the way remember why we run!!!

And then I promise to sign up to a pilates class when I am back!!

Jane xx