Not dealing well with my time off

I love having time off work. Who doesn't? I always have great plans for what I will do with it. In this case, my OH was meant to be off as well, and having just both updated our passports, we were going to look for a last minute deal somewhere and take off. Neither of us travel a lot, so it would have been a nice change of pace. Then his job changed, and his plans to take time off evaporated. Ah well. The best laid plans and all that.

But that didn't mean I couldn't still have my leave. I had the time booked, and I wanted to use it. My holiday year starts in January, so it's not as if I could hold it over to April. Anyway, my head was already in the holiday mode when OH's plans changed. I'd have been gutted to have to go to work this week. So I did what any sensible person would do. I took my week off. I like my own company, so I knew I'd still enjoy myself.

I planned to get up early on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings to do my run as usual. Then possibly do the Parkrun on Saturday morning as well. Monday went as planned. And boy did I feel smug! A day off and I still got up at 5.30am and ran my 5k. I intended to do a strength work out yesterday. Just the fifteen minute body weight workout that I found on the net, that I did last week. I wasn't going to get up at 5.30 to do that, just do it as soon as I woke, whenever that would be. But instead, I had an increadiblky lazy day yesterday. I did nothing but eat. And eat CRAP at that. So much for the three simple rules.

Today, Wednesday, the alarm was set for 5.30. I ignored it. And now I'm sitting in Cafe Nero, with a large black decaf, a scone and a mince pie. Yes, my plans for training and weight loss are progressing splendidly.

My latest fad?

I have a tendency to have hobbies that I go nuts about for a few months, then drop like a hot potato. I might knit like crazy for six months, quit for ages, then pick it up again two years later. My other half calls them my "Flavour of the Month." He's not far wrong. I worried about this when I signed up for the marathon. What if I started to train, then got fed up with the idea three or four months down the line? I suppose the worst that could happen would be that I drop out and lose my entry fee. Initially that was the worst that could happen. I was persuaded that I shouldn't go to all that trouble without getting sponsorship. A friend said that twenty-six miles was worth something, and what charity had I signed up to help?

I gave it some thought. My family has experience of autism, so I chose PEAT NI, Parents Education as Autism Therapist NI and set up a Just Giving page. That way people can sign up or not, without any direct pressure from me, and a charity does get a small benefit from my effort.

That now means that if the marathon thing was to become a victim of my fickle nature, the kind folks who've offered money to PEAT would be let down, so hopefully that will keep me motivated.

Another possible flavour of the month is the item I've ordered on line, only this morning. My mum got one of these months ago, and she swears by it. I've been thinking of getting one, and there it was, on the telly this morning. It was on special offer, and in theory, it should be delivered this week, while I'm on a week's leave. That would work out very conveniently. So it seemed that all the stars had aligned to tell me it was meant to be. I ordered a vibrating exercise thingamy! I'm quite excited about it. You set it in motion, stand or sit on it in a variety of positions, with or without use of resistance bands, and it helps you to get fit and gain muscle tone. Surely this can only aid in my running efforts? So long as it does no harm. A few minutes, every other day, is what is recommended. I've been running regularly again for over a month, so I think I will be able to manage more than a few minutes, even initially. But I will see what the DVD workouts are like. I don't want to go too crazy at first. I think the OH will look at me as if I'm nuts, but that won't be anything new :-)

As far as food has been concerned over the weekend, I haven't done well. Everything non paleo that I don't normally eat has been staple fare for me. Ice cream, cheese and bread were all consumed in vast quantities. So I shudder to think what the scales will say when I finally step on them. I'm not doing paleo or the marathon for weight loss, even though I need to lose weight. It's for health. But I don't want to gain weight even if I'm not actively trying to lose it! So I need to reign it in.

From now on, I'm going to try to put in to practice the three rules that I learnt from Ruth Field in her fabulously motivating book "Run, Fat Bitch, Run."

1. Run
2. Drink water
3. Eat less crap

Simple but not easy. I love the symmetrical nature of those three rules. Rule one has one word, rule two has two words and rule three.... You see where that's going. And they are so straight forward! I love the feeling I get when I tick off each one that I've followed. But, obviously, the one I have the most problems with at the moment is No 3. I'm working on it.

Parkrun this morning

Although I ran yesterday morning before work, and at the moment, as I start to think of building up my mileage, I don't tend to run two days consecutively, I ran my local Parkrun this morning. It is only five minutes walk away from home, so there is no excuse not to get involved. It's quite a new one, and it's been incredibly well attended from the get-go. A slow week has 150 runners. A good week gets closer to the 300 mark. 

I was tempted not to bother, but I need to tell myself to run when I can. Although my marathon training programme doesn't kick in till the New Year, I want to run often before then, both to increase my fitness and lose a little weight. (That said, I didn't help my cause by going out for breakfast afterwards. At least I didn't have a full fry up, just scrambled eggs, bacon and tomatoes. Probably not entirely paleo, as I can guess that it wasn't cooked in paleo approved oil. Vegetable oil and sunflower oil are not allowed. Still, if I follow it most of the time, I don't beat myself up for slipping up one day a week. Of course, the walk to and from the shops later {a further 5k} was not aided by a visit to Costa and the consumption of a very much non-paleo giant jaffa cake. So I reckon my food isn't really going to be up to scrath today. I have some gluten free sausages {not too bad on the paleo scale}, some Red Liecester cheese {totally verboten} and some Percy Pigs {extrememly verboten} A well, sod it. Tomorrow is another day.)

It was a good run this morning. I'm not fast, but already I see a small improvement in the few weeks I've been back at it. I ran it in just over thirty-eight minutes a couple of weeks ago. This morning, I was just under thirty-six. It's not my best time of 28:45, but it will do for a start.

I still can't wrap my brain round the idea of running twenty-six miles. This morning, after two I was knackered! When I think of the whole thing, I have a mini panic attack. I get a squirmy feeling in my tummy and I feel a bit sick. I can only hope that that will ease as the training miles increase :-/

Fat and Fit?

I can't believe I've done it. I entered a marathon. Me. The five foot, fat female from the title. The fit part of the title is followed by a question mark for a reason. Can I really be that fit if I'm overweight? Not just a little over weight. I could stand to lose five stone and not be considered skinny, so I know I'm obese. That said, I can run 5k, albeit in about thirty-six minutes. So, that's five kilometers down, thirty-seven to go!

I honestly couldn't tell you what made me do it. True, it's been on my to-do list since I took up running a couple of years ago. I got a bit thinner, ran a few Parkruns, got my 5k time to just below twenty-nine minutes (which was an immense achievement, I thought) and was able to do 10k without killing myself. But even at my fittest, I wondered if I'd ever care enough to try a marathon. Could I run for that length of time, never mind that distance? Seriously? I'm going to be at it for about five hours I reckon, if I'm lucky. I mean, I'd love to do it in four and a half, but I need to be realistic. So long as I finish, I'll be doing well. I didn't realize though, that to count, I have to finish in less than six hours. It's the time element that I worry about. If I run for five or so hours, how bored am I going to be? Will I really want to keep going? And the day of the race itself is only a small percentage of the time that I'll be running. There are many hours of training runs to go through before that.

I enjoy reading running magazines. I blame that for my entry. One minute I'm reading an article about Winter training regimes, the next I've signed up like a lunatic to run twenty-six miles, over a course where miles six to roughly twelve are all up hill. Massively uphill.

The next step was to go on to Runkeeper and scope out a newbie marathon runner training course. There was a sixteen week one. My marathon is on 4th May, nearly six months away. I need to start in the new year for the dates to tally. So what will I do till then? I'm working on my 5k time and I started doing a little strength training. The strength work is just a body weight circut. It only take about twenty minutes, but it's enough for now. I just wnt to get fitter in general, and hopefully lose a bit of weight. It can all only help in my endevour.

Another factor to think about is that about four months ago, I started on a paleo lifestyle, cutting out dairy, all grains, legumes and as much processed foods, especially sugar, as possible. This means eating none of the tratitional foods that long distance runners fuel up on and use for recovery. No pasta, rice, bread (even wholemeal) or beans, peas or sweetcorn. Also no milk. Is this wise? As a lifestyle choice, I really believ in the reasons for not eating thsese things. Even as a runner, a 5/10k runner, I get it. But will I need to adapt my ideas to sustain my planned next few months? I do eat some healthy fats, nuts and seeds (no peanuts. Peanuts aren't a nut, did you know that? They are a legume! Who knew?) And I eat lean protein, especially fish. That's all good hit, excellent fuel and recovery fodder. But is it enough. I will need to do some research and see what my own experience shows me.

(Photo was taken after the Colour Run a couple of months ago)