My first over-distance swim

The other day I ended up swimming further than the ironman swim distance (3.8k or 2.4 miles).  I merrily swam 4k in 1 hour 24. Very happy with that.  I did the 3.8k distance in 1.19 which bodes well for the ironman.

I understand that swimming in a pool is easier than in open water because in the pool you can see, there’s no current, the water temperature is good and you get the advantage from pushing off at each end.  But in open water you’ll often have the benefits of a wetsuit to help so perhaps there isn’t too much difference.

A wetsuit helps your buoyancy and helps the water flow better over your body which reduces drag.  Richard Hammond’s programme last Monday on BBC1 showed in slow motion photography how water distorts a human body when it’s swimming.  You could see the skin and fat rippling and dimpling as the water passed over.  Contrasted with the firm skin of a dolphin, you could see why swimming is relatively hard.

Let’s hope my new wetsuit (an Orca Alpha) toughens up my skin in all the right ways and makes up for the lack of pushing off to be had in lakes, sea and canals!

Tags: Add new tag, open water, swimming, wet suits

Cycling vs running from a body’s viewpoint

Preparing for the ironman, my training week now involves not only a long run, but a long bike and a long swim instead.  Anyone who’s a distance runner either looks forward to or dreads the long run… but whichever way it’s an important session that has to be fitted in, come what may.  So, as you can imagine, fitting in three long sessions every week can be tricky.

The long bike is now my major weekly session.  Cycling is my weakest discipline - and certainly the one I have least experience in, so it’s going to be my focus for the entire ironman build up.  The rationale is that if you’re strong on the bike part of the race (112 miles) you’ll be in good shape for the run (a marathon).  It makes sense that being a super strong runner means nothing if the bike element leaves you in pieces before the run even starts.

Long bikes at the moment for me are anything over four hours - or about 50 miles; although I’m now feeling that if I did ‘only’ 50 miles for a long bike it’s now not really enough, except in a recovery week.  The longest I’ve done is six hours which is what it took to do a 76 mile cyclosportive on 7th March.  I’ve done a couple of five-hour rides, too, so it’s all going in the right direction.

What’s interesting is how different I feel after a long bike to a long run.  Yes I feel tired all over - but in a pleasant, sleepy way rather than a completely drained, shattered way.  And, however much my legs ache during the ride, going up the hills, they never feel as tired afterwards as they do after a long run.

It’s all obvious really, I know, but it’s brought it home to me quite how much we hammer our legs - joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons - when we’re running.  It’s given me new respect for anything we can do to look after our legs and bodies after running, in particular.  So the ice baths (or even just cold ones!), stretching, massage, sleep and good food are just vital!

Tags: Add new tag, cycling, ice, ice baths, ironman, long bike, long run, nutrition, recovery, running, sleep, stretch

Sport Relief - if they can do it, we all can!

Have been loving the Sport Relief coverage.  If all those relatively unfit celebs can achieve what they’ve achieved with hardly any training, think what we can achieve if we do train!

The cycling from John O’Groats to Lands End was of particular interest because cycling is all relatively new to me, as it was to the cyclists.  Davina McCall really trained hard in the short period they had to prepare… and, funnily enough, she coped really well.  Good girl!

And Eddie Izzard.  How fantastic was he last year?  Not sure how I’d have felt if he were my client - I’m sure he drove his advisers and sports therapist mad (eating ice cream and drinking on the way round, stocking up on chocolate, running when he was exhausted, sprinting when he was injured) but if I take my coach/massage therapist hat off, I have to say I think he was great.

It really shows how much our amazing bodies can do.  He just dug in and was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to the demons in his head.  We can all learn from Coach Eddie!

Tags: carbohydrate loading, discipline, injury, nutrition, pacing, recovery, running

Are foam rollers any good?

I’m doing so much training at the moment that, if were rich, I would have a massage every other day if I could. My shoulders and neck are suffering from getting used to my new bike position.  My arms and back are doing a lot of swimming - not really a problem but there are still things that could be smoothed out with a massage.  And my legs and glutes - well, you can imagine. They’re cycling and running and kicking and generally working very hard.

A friend and fellow massage therapist and I ’swap’ massages every month which is great.  And I do have extra massages between the monthly ’swaps’ regularly. But I still feel I could do with something more frequent.

I’ve researched The Stick and foam rollers which are advertised as self massage tools; and  I worry that the techniques that are supposed to be used with them are dodgy.  With legs and arms, massage strokes should always be towards the heart, so that blood and lymph are pushed in the direction that works with the non-return valves in the lymph and blood vessels.  Yet videos online show people sawing back and forth with The Stick as if they were rolling out pastry.  And with the foam roller we are told to roll our leg muscles  back and forth across the roller for best effect.

Hmm - not sure about that.

Anyway, I wanted to do what I can to self massage so I opted for the cheaper of the two products - the foam roller.

The jury’s still out, to be fair.  But I’m determined not to roll back and forth and ignore the ‘towards the heart’ rule which makes using it harder, probably, than it’s designed  to be.  Perhaps I haven’t worked out the best way of using it yet, but at the moment, I’m finding it hard work to take my bodyweight on my arms and shoulders so that I avoid the rolling back and forth business.  Because of this, I have to use - and therefore tense - some of the very muscles I’m  trying to work on.  That makes them harder to work on… and more painful.

So. We’ll see.  Lots of people swear by them, including physios so they can’t be all bad.

Tags: cycling, foam roller, frequency of massage, recovery, running, self-massage, swimming, the stick

It’s tough, cross country…

Did the  English National Cross Country Championships on Saturday and I have renewed respect for people who race cross country regularly.

You don’t need to qualify for these championships - just to be a member of a club.  I was making the trek to Leeds so that my son could run and, as a friend pointed out, it seemed a long way to go without having a run. But my thoughts of having a gentle run to heart rate were blown out of the water rather.

I’ve done the odd cross country race in the past - even bought some spikes a couple of years ago… (but they made my knee swell up almost instantly) - but it was a bit of a muddy step up going from a low key summer xc league race to the nationals.

If you’ve not raced across country and you are a club member and have access to xc races, give it a go.  They’re relatively short (the senior women’s race  on Saturday was only 8k) but they’re tough in lots of ways and will test you differently than road or trail races.

You can’t get into your rhythm because the terrain is always changing and you have to think about where your feet are going to land. Sharp gradients make you want to alter pace and stride rate - down can be as challenging as up. There can be MUD. Ankle deep, dark, slippy stuff which can put you off balance if you’re not relaxed and strong in the core. There always seems to be a camber. And 8k seems a lot longer than it does on the roads.

I came a glorious (ahem) 456th out of 543 starters so was kind of at the beginning of the stragglers. That’s another thing that’s challenging - I’m no Liz Yelling but in road races I’m usually in the middle of the pack. Competing against these well-hard racing ladies who race xc every weekend made me feel rather slow!

Anyway, it was a great experience and I’m very proud to be able to say I raced in the national championships with  Steph Twell (well, behind Steph Twell - she finished about 15 min ahead of me…)

Tags: cross country, heart rate, mud, national championships, race