Tag: Running

Pre-race evenings in

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One thing I’m really looking forward to about race season starting again is pre-race evenings in (the first one being tonight, given that the Sunderland 10k is tomorrow!).  Because we have to run optimally the next day, we can’t do anything fun or weekend-y like drinking alcohol or staying up late or leaving the house, so instead we watch ‘running TV’ (i.e. road running, athletics and triathlon events I’ve recorded off the TV) and running films (Run Fatboy Run is Geth’s favourite, Chariots Of Fire is mine).  Then we get a nice early night.  Rock ‘n’ roll!

Then the following evening, after the race, we do it all again, except this time with booze and takeaway.  I think I’m looking forward to that more, to be honest.

Tonight’s viewing will be the Great Birmingham 10k that I recorded off the TV last Sunday, followed by Chariots of Fire (we’ve watched Run Fatboy Run the last few times, so it’s time for a change).  I should probably see about procuring some different running films, though, as we’ve got a lot of races coming up this year!

Suddenly summer

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I can’t be sure, because the days are sort of melting into each other at the moment (only three more twelve-hour shifts!  I can do this!), but it seems that we’ve had about two weeks in a row where the weather’s actually been quite nice – warm, sunny, blue skies.  There are also lots of flowers in our new garden, mostly weeds like dandelions, but still flowers.  The ice-cream van shows up every day around one o’clock in the afternoon with a creepy jingle straight out of a horror film.  And Geth’s actually been mowing the lawn.  It’s beginning to look a bit like it might not be winter anymore.  In fact, leaving aside the only-just-beginning-to-bud leaves on the trees, it’s beginning to look like summer.

I’m pretty happy about that.  The winter was so long and awful (still snowing in early April) that it was starting to feel like it would never end.  But because of that, it sort of feels like we’ve skipped spring and gone straight to summer, which I’m thrilled about (I don’t like typical British springs – wet, windy and not yet warm enough!).  This has meant that I’m actually starting to get excited about all the stuff I’m doing in the summer – I’m just a bit worried about having enough time to prepare for it!

Of course, sod’s law means that as soon as I’m done with work at the end of this week and can actually go outside, the nice weather will disappear.  At least that should mean that it won’t be too warm for running at the weekend!

Still busy with work

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I’m still taken up with my intense work project, so I’m never really sure what day of the week it is at the moment – but the good news is that this is the last week of it.  I’ve still got a lot to do, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel now.

I’m really looking forward to next weekend, as having time to myself on Saturday afternoon will be amazing (volunteering at parkrun on Saturday morning and then racing in Sunderland on Sunday), but I think it’s Monday 14th that will be the nicest, as I’ll be able to have a lie-in for the first time in about five weeks!

This morning’s parkrun

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Another good parkrun this morning (not as good as Geth’s, whose broken running watch was apparently the lucky charm that finally got him a sub-25, but still good).

I was 52 seconds slower than last week, but as it was very warm and there were vast amounts of people out on the Moor today, I can’t complain.  Still on track for a good result at Sunderland next week!

My practice 10k

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I went for a long slow 10k this morning.  I made sure to take it really easy, but I’m still running quite a bit quicker than I was when I was pushing myself this time last year, so I’m hopeful of a really good time for Sunderland now.

That’s the long run done, so after parkrun this weekend, it’ll just be a quick 4k next Tuesday to rest the legs for the race.  Really pleased with how things are going!

A parkrun PB!

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Well, it’s been a while (since 15th July 2017, when I absolutely killed myself bombing it round Newcastle Town Moor to run 32:29), but I’ve finally got a new parkrun PB!

I ran 31:46 this morning.  I did push myself, but I didn’t go completely flat out, so I know I could do even better in the future.  I probably won’t push for it next week, as I don’t want to run too hard the week before the Sunderland 10k, but hopefully over the summer I will be able to get down to sub-30 minutes.

Now for a few slow, steady runs leading up to Sunderland!

Pilates

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I’ve been doing Pilates for about eighteen months now.  My physio decided she was going to start running a class, and I’ve been going ever since.  I found it really helped with the chronic back and leg pain I used to have – that has all disappeared with my weight loss, but it used to be really crippling – and I do a few exercises last thing at night, every day.

I find it especially useful during busy transcription periods, because I use two computers for transcription and so I’m spending twelve hours a day hunched in various positions over a desk, which gives me a lot of neck and shoulder pain.  Knowing the right stretches to do in order to mitigate that at the end of the day is a real lifesaver at the moment.

I think it’s also why I’m not getting so many running injuries at the moment (touch wood!)  I hope that will continue.

Back to long runs

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I’m probably going to turn into a bit of a running bore on here in the build-up to the Sunderland 10k, largely because it’s pretty much the only thing I’m doing at the moment other than working!

I went for a 7.5k run this morning, which was the furthest I’ve run since October.  I felt great – for the first time in a long time, I was in a nice, comfortable, steady state where I felt like I could run forever.  My leftover niggles from last year seem to have disappeared (touch wood) and I was almost tempted to add another few kilometres.  That’s next Tuesday, though – gotta build up properly!

I really feel like I’m in a great place for Sunderland now, and considering that a few weeks ago I was worried that I hadn’t got back to training in time to run it properly, I’m thrilled with the way things are going.  Looking forward to see how I do on the practice 10k distance next week!

A parkrun update!

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I’ve been back at parkrun for a few weeks now, and excitingly, everything seems to be going in the right direction.  Today, my time was 32:59, which is only 30 seconds off my PB of 32:29, which I set last summer.  I didn’t feel I was hugely pushing myself today, either, so I bet I can get close to that PB again soon, and hopefully get it down further this year!

This is not bad at all, considering I had such a poor winter of training.  It’s amazing what weight loss can do for your speed – I’ve felt, in the last year, like I’ve been getting much better without even trying.  Hopefully those last few pounds that I still need to drop will speed me up even more!

Busy work periods…and how to cope with them

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I’m one week into an extremely busy work period at the moment, with one major project plus multiple smaller ones meaning I’m working twelve-hour days, seven days a week.  I have these every so often – it’s just the nature of freelancing – and thankfully it’s never more than a few weeks at a time.  Still, a period like this requires some fairly big coping strategies, and these are the ones I’ve developed:

1. Schedule every last minute

The first thing I always do with a major project is sit down and plot out a schedule for the work up to the deadline, so that I know exactly what will get done when – if I don’t have an idea of this, I find it very stressful.  Sometimes this means that if things take longer than expected, I have to work a bit longer on that particular day, but having plotted everything out means that this is kept to a minimum.

2. Book in some non-negotiable non-work time

By ‘non-negotiable’, I mean things that I can’t back out of.  For this particular project, the busy period happens to coincide with my ongoing mission on this blog to review one Now! compilation a day leading up to 20th July; each review takes me a couple of hours, due to the length of the compilations, so that’s time that I absolutely have to spend doing non-work stuff.  During my last busy work period, which was in October to November, I had NaNoWriMo going on during the latter part, so I had a commitment every day to spend a couple of hours writing fiction.  Writing is nice and relaxing for me, but a less ‘thinky’ non-negotiable thing might be meeting up with friends, such as for the birthday afternoon tea I’m going to in a couple of weeks’ time, or some ‘me time’, such as the vintage fair I’m going to on Sunday (my first vintage fair trip since the house move!  I can’t wait!), or a scheduled class that I pay for every week, such as Slimming World or my Pilates class.  I’m also having to make running a non-negotiable during this particular busy work period, otherwise I’ll struggle with the Sunderland 10k in a few weeks’ time!

3. Postpone all non-essentials

When I’m working twelve-hour work days, other than sleeping, eating and keeping myself clean and presentable, I only have time for work and the scheduled non-negotiables I described above.  Everything else gets shunted to ‘afterwards’.  This generally includes cleaning the house, catching up with TV and the music charts, and, for this particular period, the ongoing project of sorting out the new house.  It just means I will be doing all that stuff with a renewed appreciation when the work period is over!

4. Book in cooking and sleeping time

During a busy work period, looking after myself often takes a back seat.  It’s simply not possible to get as much sleep as I usually would, as I have to be up at the crack of dawn every day to start work, but I make sure I’m at least getting six hours a night.  Similarly, I need to schedule my food preparation time, otherwise I’ll end up just grabbing something unhealthy and feeling worse for it.

These periods are always a bit of a slog, but they are manageable.  Obviously it would be nice if they’d balance out a bit better with the weeks where I don’t have any work at all, but the benefits of being a freelancer are absolutely worth it for me!