Friday, 14 November 2014

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)

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