I am walking down a road. It’s one I’ve walked down many times before. Every now and then, there are holes in the road. Sometimes I fall and it takes time to claw my way back out. Sometimes it’s a few minutes, sometimes it’s a few days. Over time, I learn to spot these pitfalls and work around them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but that’s OK; I take it one step at a time.

This may be a familiar analogy. It can be used as an analogy for mindfulness but for me it speaks of grief. I’ve been trying to bear it in mind this year as I learn to heal by preempting the events and or triggers and learning to move past them. It gets easier with time. Never easy. Just easier.

This week should have been my anniversary. I’d somehow forgotten but it struck me in a dream. Perhaps a nightmare. It’s hard not to spiral and suddenly I’m reliving the worst parts of my life.

I’ve done no training. I’m ashamed. I was weak.

Time for a holiday. See you next week.

Two weeks in and im finally starting to see some great results – for me anyway!

Before we get into that; I thought it’d be a good idea to take a look at the type of running I’ve built into “the plan” (feel free to comment if you have any advice and/or pointers). As I mentioned before; there are three sessions per week and they are broken down as follows:

The interval run

Interval training is no longer a new concept in the fast moving world of “popular fitness”. The basic principle is that working out at a continuous pace/effort/intensity for all your sessions is not always the best way to get results. The most common aspect of this is HIIT (high intensity interval training) and was also popularised through Tabata (a Japanese set of exercises that relies heavily on hiit). The most common way it makes it’s way into workout programs is a way to burn max calories with less time spent on cardio – that’s definitely the way I had utilised it in the past. Its more than just about weight loss/ fitness though and in the context of running; the idea is to run at a faster pace for a fixed period (e.g 10 minutes), followed by a rest period – repeating for a number of “sets”. The aim is not to run at maximum sprint (unlike hiit) but the theory is that by incorporating this type of training, you train your body to recover faster from running, strengthen your heart and cardiovascular function and also build speed.

The “tempo” run

This is the part which a lot of people may disagree over – I certainly have found some very different ideas on this on the internet. This was introduced to me by Dharmesh and the idea is kind of similar to the interval run in that you run at a higher pace than normal (but not as fast as the interval run) for a longer set period. Depending on your fitness level, the most common theory may be the maximum pace you can sustain for 20-40 minutes. The theory is focused on lactic acid and the idea that by running at the threshold of where your body produces and clears lactate, the body becomes better at the process and therefore you’re increasing your endurance and more specifically muscle endurance.

The long run

This is the easiest one to understand – essentially a long run at an easy pace to put some mileage in and also build fitness/endurance “the old fashioned way”. It’s all very well doing intervals and tempos but at some point you have to cover the distance right?

Results

So this was a much much better week, I still had a few days where I was too sore to stick with the plan but I managed to cover:

1 x interval run (pace 6.15m/km)

1 x tempo run (pace 7.15m/km, 32 minutes)

2 x resistance sessions

1 x core session (Pilates)

1 x cycling session

So not a bad result at all but aiming for 100% completion in my final week before rest/ test week!

Stats

Max distance run: 5km

Average pace: 7:15m/km

Fastest pace: 6.15m/km

Longest continuous running: 32minutes

Final note: I have never successfully run for more than 10 minutes at a time. Ever. In my whole life. I understood the idea around lowering your pace etc but it wasn’t until I really committed to a structured plan that I was able to achieve this so yay for me but also if I take one lesson away from this then it should be that a detailed training plan really can make a huge difference. Go figure.

Full disclosure: I’ve been trying to start training for a few weeks now. But between holidays, poor planning and general laziness, it has not gone well. Predictably, it wasn’t working so I sat down with my good friend Dharmesh (10+ years of running experience, Ironman triathlete and all round legend) who gave me a few pointers and suggestions including keeping this blog for accountability.

The result? The outline of a proper training plan and a commitment to give it my all. Here’s how week 1 went:

Prep work

Preparation is an important part of the process; you could just go out and run but that’s a short way away from frustration, fatigue and boredom. As part of my preparation, I went through a “health mot” at my local gym to give me a baseline (stats to follow)

The easiest and most enjoyable part of any training plan – gear and gadgets!

The shoes

Unsurprisingly, shoes are very important. I happen to have flat feet (like comically flat – my footprints don’t look right) which is often referred to as “over pronation”. It puts a lot of stress on my knees and ankles and so I needed the right gear.

After a lengthy consultation at “runners need” (a specialist running store with some really passionate and knowledgeable staff) and some gait analysis; they recommended the Brooks GTS 18. Honestly, you may find cheaper shoes elsewhere but the knowledge and service at the store more than makes up for that so I highly recommend you support them!

Other gear

Garmin vivoactive 3 smart watch. Honestly, this was an extravagance; I’d been eyeing it up for a long time but marathon training gave me an excuse to buy it. Tracking is important though so you can pick up a cheap GPS watch for about 50 pounds from most sports stores.

Technical t-shirts
Extemely cheap (3 pounds from decathlon), great for those sweaty training sessions – and if you’re doing it right then you should definitely be sweaty!

The plan

The training plan we came up with in the end involves the following weekly schedule:

3 x runs (varying levels)

2 x core training (Pilates, rowing etc)

2 x resistance training (weights)

1 x cross training (cycling)

(I’ll go into the specifics of each over the next few weeks)

Rinse and repeat for three weeks followed by a “rest week”. Rest weeks are important to ensure you don’t overtrain and injure yourself – but it doesn’t mean you just kick back! The number that gets thrown around a lot is about 60% of your usual effort/distance e.g if you usually run 5km then go for 3km during your rest week. The other key component during a rest week is a “test run” to check progress and recalibrate your next three weeks of training. For me, this means trying my hardest to run 5km to check pace, endurance etc.

Results

Not good. Firstly, I took what turned out to be an incredibly intense Pilates class (yes they exist) that crippled me for the rest of the week – turns out my hip flexors are incredibly weak and I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t even stand up straight. I squeezed in a run at the end of the week but certainly not the glorious start I’d envisioned. A bit disappointing and anticlimactic (sorry) for sure but roll on week 2…

Stats

Max distance run: 5km

Average pace: 7:39m/km

Longest continuous running: 10minutes

Weight: 97kg

Waist: 44in

BMI: 32.4

WHR: 0.96

TL,DR: After a low period in my life I needed something new to aim towards and settled on attempting to run a marathon (despite having 0 experience of running of any kind…)

It’s a bold statement to start a “running blog” with but I’ve always hated running. I really have. Not just because I wasn’t good at it but also because I genuinely couldn’t see the point; where am I running to? why am I running? why even bother?

Despite lifelong struggles with weight; cardio was always something that I actively tried to avoid unless it was incorporated into something else. When I was younger; martial arts gave me the conditioning/cardio that I needed. As I got older, I learnt to compensate by using HIIT to minimize the amount of time I had to spend doing it. Over the years, various friends have attempted to get me into running with common themes: “You’ll learn to love it”. “It’s great stress relief”. “It’s free so why wouldn’t you?”. But barring 1 or 2 races or attempts at jogging (a year…) I never really “converted”.

So why now?

2017 was an awful year for me – hopefully the lowest I’ll ever reach. Without delving into too much detail; it started with losing one of my best friends (read his story here) and ended with my divorce. As a result – I let myself go. I stopped exercising entirely. I stopped watching what I ate. “chubby” became “fat” became “obese”. My doctor started flagging concerns about my weight, blood pressure, cholesterol. Few people are completely “happy” with how they look but I started hating what I could see happening in the mirror and yet I couldn’t bring myself to care – to do something about it. I fell into a destructive downward spiral – almost a cliché – and work and strong bonds with my family and friends helped keep me from giving up altogether.

I resolved that 2018 needed to be different; a fresh start, a new beginning – but as anyone who has experienced loss can tell you, it’s not as easy as that. I found it difficult to let go and move on. Every step along the road to recovery was a struggle and the most minor or unexpected thing could trigger another backslide. I needed something to focus my attention, something that I could work towards and a new life goal to give myself purpose again.

That goal? Run a marathon.

I think a lot of people have “run a marathon” on their bucket list and despite my hatred of cardio/running, it’s definitely on mine. What better way to focus my attention and to undo some of the damage to my body/psyche than this new challenge?

So; I’ve signed up to the Manchester 2019 marathon and also entered the ballot for London 2019 – one way or another; I will be running 42km in April 2019. Having chosen my favourite part of every work out program (the cheat day) as my moniker; my hope is that this will become a record of my efforts as well as another way to hold me to account – I know at least one person who will be expecting my updates on a regular basis, ensuring I don’t waiver along the way. There will also undoubtedly be moments where I wander off topic and I can pretty much guarantee it will be something food related…

It may turn out that I am writing for an audience of one, but if not and you’re reading this then I hope you revel in my pain, forgive my writing style and above all – let me know if you have any comments/advice!

Also – please do pay Jam’s page a visit (here again) or my fundraising attempt over at justgiving. We were too late for him in so many ways but there are so many others we could try to save.