… and more on getting old, but not getting frail

I had a busy racing weekend recently.  I marshalled at our club’s excellent cross country event on the Saturday then ran a half marathon the next day.

The cross country was a great event with races for juniors from under 13 right up to the vets where I don’t think there’s an age limit.  I was stationed up in the woods at the highest part of the course.  When they got to me the runners had been climbing for almost half a mile so I got to see many knackered people striving hard to stay strong hoping their legs would carry them round the rest of the course…. until they had to go round again and up the hill for the second, third or fourth time.

I was struck how amazing the older people were.  All these ladies in their 50s, 60s and possibly more were a) still running b) still racing and c) still racing cross country which is So Tough.  And in the men’s race there were even more older chaps.

What was even more gob-smacking was the number of people, including some of the older people, who then raced the half marathon the next day. Who says running’s bad for you?! I really hope I’m still racing when I’m in my seventies.

Oh, and the chap (one of the older ones) who brought up the rear in the mens race in the cross country was out spectating and cheering at the half marathon. He was the most energetic and noisy spectator out there!  His wife was out cheering, too.  Wonder if she was racing in the ladies’ team?  They were awesome and clearly not tired after the exploits of the day before.

Strictly pilates

I’m thrilled that Strictly Come Dancing has started again.  Over the years the sequins have gradually sucked me in to the point where I can’t miss an episode and will even try to watch It Takes Two on weekday evenings at 6.30.

One of the aspects of the programme that fascinates me is the athleticism involved.  In the first few weeks the celebs always say how exhausted they are from the training (although some of them are continuing full time jobs as well which must be an enormous challenge) and it’s obviously very demanding.  Then, as the weeks progress, they get fitter and stronger and increasingly able to deal with the training load.  They all lose loads of weight too (Rory Bremner lost two inches off his waist by week 2 this series).

The judges give feedback about the celebs’ posture and if you listen carefully they often make comments about how their core strength needs boosting.  I have to say, I could really go for some dancing lessons to boost core strength instead of pilates. I love my pilates sessions and am certain that it helps me stay much more niggle-free than I used to be, and am constantly recommending it to clients with a variety of postural or sporting problems.  But the idea of combining it with another form of movement really appeals. Ballet, for example.

I ought to try Zumba, too,  to see what all the fuss is about.  I understand that gives a good core work out - I’m sure all dance-based exercise classes do.  But there’s something about the control required for ballet and ballroom which appeals to me as a core-building thing.

If you’ve never tried pilates or any sort of core strength training I urge you to find a class double quick.  I think it should be compulsory!  Buy a DVD if you can’t easy get to a class.  Or splash out on a few one to one sessions to get to grips with what you need to do so that you could work safely and effectively on your own - or that DVD.  It’ll help improve (or remove) all sorts of musculo-skeletal problems, keep you upright and tall (which helps to make you look younger, slimmer and more confident) and keeps you supple and strong well into the later decades.

I saw a TV programme recently featuring a marvelous 100-and-something year old lady from New York City. She was terrific - sprightly, energetic and youthful. And they showed her morning routine - about 20 mins of exercises which looked very like many of the exercises and stretches we do in Pilates and yoga.  I must say, if it can help that lady move around as brilliantly as she did at her age… it has to be good.

Tags: ballet, core strength, dancing, endurance, pilates, strength, stretching

Ironman number 2 - done

I will do a proper post about this when I get back from holiday, but for the time being - on 7th August I completed Ironman Regensburg in 13 hours 41 minutes.

I just scraped a PB by 5 mins.  Not a lot, but a PB’s a PB. The swim was 5 mins slower, the bike was 15 mins faster and the run was 10 mins slower.  So a mixed bag.  But lots learned so number three - the Outlaw in Nottingham on 1st July 2012 - will be the best yet.

A glimpse at the life of a full time athlete

Earlier this month I did a week’s training camp in Lanzarote.  What an eye opener. And what a great week!

It was a triathlon/running camp organised by Martin Yelling, Liz Yelling and Ian Corless.  Liz obviously focussed on running (she’s in her pre-London phase so was training hard, herself), Martin and Ian focussed on the bike with the help of pro ironman triathlete Joel Jameson, and Loughborough Uni-based swim coach and Olympic team psychologist Dave Fletcher led the swimming, again helped by Joel.  The coaches were top notch - all so good at what they do, but also supportive,  inclusive and generous with their time. And they all had a sense of humour and made even the most gruelling sessions … less gruelling.

There were two runs, a swim and a bike each day which we could all dip in and out of as we wanted.  My focus was on the bike as it’s my weakest tri discipline, but with  such a good swim coach on hand  I’d have been mad not to swim every morning, too.

My routine went something along the lines of wake up, banana, swim, breakfast, bike, food/rest/food/sleep, wake up, banana, swim, breakfast etc etc. By the end of the week I’d trained for almost 30 hours - more than double my previous max week total. That might be a normalish week for an elite triathlete, but for us campers such big volumes were extraordinary and not sustainable for much more than a week.

Most people’s focus was on working hard to make the intelligent most of the camp’s offerings, then relaxing and eating properly to recover from one session and gather energy for the next. With no normal household or work responsibilities it seemed normal to do at least two sessions a day.  After a couple of hard days I had an ‘easy’ day - although I’d already swum for an hour and biked for two! The ‘easy’ bit was a whole afternoon and evening off with no session planned. I begun to wonder how on earth I ever thought one session was enough back at home.  But of course a training camp’s not normal and, unless you’re very lucky - or a professional full-time athlete - it’s hard to fit that level of training and recovery into a regular day.

In fact I was over-reached by the last day.  Over-reaching is the first stage of over-training.  Heart rate can be erratic, mood temperamental, sleep impaired.  I’d been unable to sleep well at all for the whole week which certainly didn’t help my recovery but on the last day I was experiencing a few tell-tale signs.  My heart rate was stratospheric during the easiest of warm up drills in the pool. Then I threw a strop on the bike when it was too fast for me (well… it was meant to be an easy recovery session and it was proving a tad faster than that).

To avoid over-training I thought I’d been very careful: picking my sessions, not doing the run sessions (because I know I take a long time to recover from them and I wanted to have energy to do the major bike sessions properly)… but I’d obviously done just a bit too much.  Alternatively, perhaps I got it right, but the lack of sleep meant I didn’t get the full recovery my poor body so desperately needed.

Luckily over-reaching is fully reversable with a few days off and it was obvious to us all that the week following the camp needed to be an easy one to help us recover and let the training bed in.  If the camp had been one day longer I would have exploded.  Martin was very nice and said it meant that I’d got it about right.

Now, having been back for just over two weeks, I’m starting to feel the benefits.  My energy levels are returning and I mashed through a long bike at the weekend in a much shorter time than it would have taken me this time last year - at the same sedate perceived exertion level and heart rate. And that was at the end of quite a big week.

So. I’ve  booked for next year. I’d recommend a training camp - but make sure you get one that has the right level of activity and ethos for you.  I’m so glad I went on this one rather than a cycling-specific one - I just don’t think I’d have coped. Club la Santa in Lanzarote is a mecca for this type of activity and I can see why. And the silly tan lines for 2011 are coming along nicely.

Tags: Add new tag, cycling, heart rate, Lanzarote, nutrition, over reaching, overtraining, recovery, sleep, swimming, training, training camp

Beware of the caffeine

Last week I’d been looking forward to rewarding my arrival at the end of my training week with a frothy coffee at Cafe Nero.  It was Friday morning, I’d done a good, long swim and had the luxury of a rest day on Saturday before a race on Sunday.

The coffee was nectar and, well, I had a second one.  (I really know how to live, don’t I?) Hmmmm. I didn’t quite finish the second one, but I must have been caffeined up good and proper because that night I couldn’t get to sleep. At all. I even decamped to the spare room for total silence, but really didn’t drop off until about 2.30am. And then I kept waking up.

So I probably ruined my rarer-than-hens’-teeth, longed-for, deep, post-training sleep and lie in combination by having a second coffee.

I’ve weaned myself off caffeine a bit over the last few months. I’ve found some good decaff (Lavazza blue label) which still gives that glorious coffee hit and feel but without the shakes and sleep probs.  Silly me for not ordering de-caff at Nero…

Tags: nutrition, recovery, sleep

Train, recover. Train, recover. Repeat.

Well, I’m well and truly back into ironman training.  This is week 6 of a 30-week programme. At this stage it’s all low intensity endurance work, building up the ability over 10 weeks or so, to swim and bike the full ironman distance (swim 2.4 miles and bike 112 miles).  Running, for me, takes a bit of a back seat.  In fact to do an ironman at my level, full marathon training just isn’t necessary.

This has been brought home to me this week.  I did a 10 mile running  race at the weekend because it’s a great club outing and a hilly, challenging course. I didn’t race it, but used it as a training run, running to a heart rate that kept me firmly aerobic. At no time was I working hard and I had a lovely time. But that evening the tell-tale hammered legs syndrome kicked in and today, two days later, they’re still feeling heavy.

And that’s why you don’t do too much insane run training for ironman! It takes so much out of you that it can impede the rest of your training.

So the focus is fully on getting in the miles at the moment, recovering and resting well between efforts, eating well, then doing it all over again.  It’s a long haul to get to the start line unscathed and fighting fit - so it’s best not to blow it early on.

Tags: heart rate, ironman, nutrition, recovery, rest days, running, training to heart rate, Winchester & District AC

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

Training to heart rate

Training for my ironman event this July I’m doing things slightly differently.  Rather than concentrating on distance and pace, as I would for marathon training, I’m training to time and heart rate.

This means that, in the current endurance base-building phase, rather than going out for a 9 or ten-mile run at x min/mile pace, I’ll run for 90 mins at within a certain heart rate zone.   In many ways it’s refreshing not to have to worry about pace. Blimey - no, it’s fanTAStic!  It almost feels lazy… but this being ironman training, it’s the frequency that’s been getting to me.

Anyway, that’s for another blog.  Heart rate.  I did my first race to heart rate a couple of weeks ago and it was very interesting.

My plan was to use the hilly Ryde 10 mile race on the Isle of Wight as a training run while on a bit of a Winchester & District AC jolly - it’s a club league race so quite a few of us were on the 9.20 ferry from Portsmouth to Ryde.  So - no racing, just a 90 min run at the top end of my endurance heart rate zone.  On my Garmin I only had heart rate and average pace showing.  The heart rate was the only thing I kept tabs on.

It required discipline, on the first hill inside the first mile, not to forge ahead with everyone else. I had to run slowly and so many people passed me which was horrid.  But I kept the heart rate down. Then when the terrain levelled out I kept to a heart rate just slightly lower than it had been on that hill because that felt good.

And that’s how the race progressed. I had no idea about elapsed time and just focused on heart rate.  I did go for it in the last mile a bit but it was a great result. I finished within a minute of my PB - and that was set earlier this year on a less hilly course.

I normally race trying to keep close to a certain pace.  That works most of the time, but on some days you’re just not up to it for whatever reason. On others you feel brilliant and can run harder than your target pace.  This experience has made me think that I should be braver and race according to heart rate just to get the best out of my body on that particular day.

In the excellent Lore of Running, author Tim Noakes talks about the differences between long distance runners internalising and externalising.  Some runners (often less experienced ones) externalise ie when the going gets tough they try to distract themselves from  how bad their body feels by listening to music, looking at the surroundings, thinking about anything other than how much their body hurts.

By contrast, experienced and elite runners tend to internalise. Ie they concentrate on how their bodies are feeling. They tune into their bodies, go into a mental state where they may not be consciously aware of their surroundings and run very intuitively.  They are able to let their body run the way it wants to on that day.

I’m sure it’s all more complicated than that because the complexities of racing come into it but I think that, at Ryde, I somehow ran the way my body wanted to and had a good experience. Running to heart rate might have had a lot to do with that because I had no other pressures of time, pace, race placing etc.

Tags: discipline, heart rate, Lore of Running, pacing, racing, running, Tim Noakes, training to heart rate, Winchester & District AC

It’s that marathon time of year again…

I’m starting to see a build up of new clients who are training for spring marathons.  Typically, a marathon training programme for a spring marathon will start around Christmas so, now that it’s mid-Feb, people have got a good six to eight weeks of training behind them… and the legs are starting to feel it.

It’s essential that we look after our bodies when you’re in heavy training, even if we’re coping with it all well at the moment.  So that means, good nutrition, lots of sleep (the most under-rated training tool), stretching after every run (yes, every run!), light training days between heavy days and, shock horror, days with no running at all.

Sports massage can help keep your muscles in good health and help nip potential over-use injuries in the bud.  And supple, healthy muscles tend not to get damaged as easily as tight, knotty, tired muscles.

Tags: nutrition, overtraining, recovery, rest days, sleep, stretching, training