Bleeding feet after 13 miles in the heat

With the bike knackered and most of the trains from Streatham into town down, I decided the only way to get to my personal training class was to run in.

It’s about 6.7 miles from here to there so I figured run in in the morning and run back in the afternoon. To do this, I used a new backpack I bought a couple of weeks ago that I have been using when I cycle into town. It’s a really nice piece of kit by Deuter called the Race EXP Air that also takes a hydration pack in it but can also fit a proper change of clothes in too.

So off I set, a little weighed down by books for the course, the water pack and my kit and a little hot thanks to it being another boiling day in this very un-English summer.

Getting to Bankside gym where my course takes place was not a problem but after a day spent demonstrating resistance machines in readiness for my next assessment, coming back was.

It had got much warmer, the return is almost exclusively uphill and I’ve decided I went half a size too small on my latest new pair of Brookes Adrenalines.

True Blood

After a mile or two, I was beginning to regret running back and several times came close to sticking my hand out for one of the many busses that come between Elephant and Castle, which is near the gym, back into Streatham.

Something told me to keep ploughing on though, despite niggling pains in my right shin and ever tightening glutes.

I eventually got home, doing 13.6 miles in a little over two hours for both legs. A good 20 minutes outside my personal best for a 13 miler but one that I’ll take given I was more weighed down.

When I took my shoes off, I had a bleeding toe and blister all over the shop… not a pretty site as you can see.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a route map and details of the run

Miles today: 13.6
Target: 885
Miles to date: 1,179.21

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

I could do without days like today

Well it’s too bloody hot for a start but aside from all that, things have been progressively nigglingly horrid for most of the day.

As part of my PT course, I’ve been learning about dose-response curves. Basically, this means there is a response every time you give a dose of something. So when you exercise (dose), the response is positive. Or at least it is for a while. The more you exercise and put demands on your body, the more likely you are to reach a peak of optimum fitness and then the curve starts to come down again. It’s basically overtraining.

Over the last week or so, I feel I’m coming down on the other side of that curve. It’s not that I have reached optimum fitness but without rest for my muscles to recover, I am starting to show some classic signs of overtraining. Lots of little niggles, tired and lethargic, performance dropping… I also feel mentally shot as well.

I’ve been so busy the last couple of weeks and combined with the course, it’s starting to prove tough.

This morning, I totally misread my clock when I got up, went for a six mile run into Croydon and back and then got home with ten minutes to get ready before I then had to go to a session for my PT course – and as I was so late, the only way to get there in time was to take the bike and cycle.

All was well and good until a half mile from the Bankside gym where we study when I got a flat. No worries, I can fix it at lunchtime I thought. And I did. When I went back to class, I’d plugged the puncture, blown the tire back up and still managed to grab a quick sarnie before our 45 minutes were up.

At the end of the day, I was going to pop in an see my step mum. She’s been pretty lonely since dad died four years ago and it is her birthday today. She loves to read so I got here the three Stig Larsson Millennium Books and a card , crammed them into my back pack, unlocked the bike and found the flat was back.

For the next 45 minutes I tried to puncture repair it but being impatient to get off, I don’t think I was giving the patch enough time to weld before trying to pump it back up. Four times I took the inner tube out, stuck the patch back on and four times it went flat. Every time, the hole got a little bigger.

In the end I gave up, pushed the bike a mile and a half to London Bridge and went to see Evans there. Evans are a large cycle shop chain in the south East and where most people buy bikes through their work’s Ride To Work scheme, where the government subsidise payment by not taxing the purchase. Normally, your work will pay for the bike and you pay them back over time.

It’s a nice scheme and where I got my bike from but I have to say, that in my experience they are an absolute rubbish company. I have never been into one of their shops and not felt as though I was treated somewhere one level up from Pond Life… and today was no different. The guy behind the counter took one look at the fact the puncture was on the rear tyre, saw that I had hub gears, which makes the wheel harder to remove, sucked his teeth in and said: ‘Sorry mate, too busy.’

Luckily, down the road at London Bridge called On Your Bike who are excellent and I can not recommend highly enough. The chap and a young Aussie lass who looked after me were excellent. The guy showed me how to take the back wheel off, she helped me change the inner tube and blow it up and off  I went…. as far as Oval.

Yes, I got three miles before another bloody puncture hit. And I gave up, calling Laura and moaning at her to come and pick me up, which she did, bless her.

I turned up at my step mums, nose burnt, covered in sweat and grease, aching all over and with my price also punctured.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a route map and details of the run

Miles today: 6
Target: 882
Miles to date: 1,165.61

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Too tired and flat tyres

Another day on the personal training course today and another early morning run… Running at just after six am on a Sunday morning is even worse than running at just after six am on a Saturday morning!

Anyway, I was pretty shattered when I woke up: a week of increasing my mileage to five miles a day plus three days of cycling too and from central London, along with a long shift on Friday, staying up and studying and the mental preparation of studying for the first time in nearly 20 years had all caught up.

And so, I did just three miles this morning – I like to call it a recovery run

The course is getting more interesting now. We’ve paired up and are working out gym programmes for each other that we have to demonstrate in our assessments in a couple of weeks and have to learn correct teaching methods for all the equipment in the gym, from cardio to the resistance machines.

The way back was an interesting one: when I got back to Streatham, there was a bit of backed up traffic, so I decided to jump a curb on the bike and ended up with a flat… With no puncture kit on me it meant a nice mile and a half walk back to the house.

Just round the corner from home, there was a young couple, Im thinking 15 or 16 having a massive row in the hot afternoon heat. And so heated were they that all their pals had got involved, so there was pushing, shoving, slapping and all sorts going on. thankfully the slapping was the boy punching himself rather than his girlfriend.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a route map and details of the run

Miles today: 3
Target: 864
Miles to date: 1,136.61

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

1,100 miles passed and “I can’t wait for some chips”

So I know it’s not much of another milestone, given I passed my 1095 mile target just yesterday but today’s run took me past 1,100 miles so far.

With the weather so warm, I’ve decided on gym days I’m going to split my run: run up to the gym, do some weights and run back…. Normally that would be about three miles but today I decided to take a long route and up things to a five miler… There could be a reason for this – well there is in my head – but I’m not sure whether I should go public with it yet – I’ll see how this week goes.

I got the Virgin Active in Streatham just after opening and so it was pretty quiet, apart from the chap I sometimes see working out who seems to know everyone in the gym and greets them all with a massive guffaw and has a little bit of chit chat. Today – and I’m not sure why – it was Bond films.

There was also another girl there who I sometimes see. A young black lady, lithe as you like – I mean there is not an ounce of extra body fat on her and although she exercises alone, she clearly “beasts” herself to the extreme.

Today I found out why. She was speaking to loud bloke and I only caught part of the conversation but she is about to compete in something (not sure what) abroad next week. The guy was asking her how it was going and she seemed quite confident.

She also said she couldn’t wait to finish so she could have a bag of chips. “Really?” replied loud bloke. “Not a banana or something?” “Nah,” she said. “A bag of chips. I’ve not had one for two years.”

That, friends, is dedication.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a route map and details of the run

Miles today: 5
Target: 843
Miles to date: 1,103.31

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

If the mind is weak, punish the body.

A year or so before I took up running, my other health obsession to go with the gym was cycling. I’d bought a bike on the government’s Ride To Work scheme were due to tax breaks you only end up paying about half price for it and I would cycle daily to and from work – about seven miles each way.

My Cannondale Bad Boy: dumb name, great commuting bike

Of course, then came the redundancy package and the irregular work and the 1095mile challenge and so the bike has pretty much been mothballed for the last nine months, save for one sojourn some of you may remember back in February where myself and some of the boys went to the Peak District for an activity weekend.

With me now achieving some regularity of doing two days a week shifting at The Daily Express with the odd shift here and there at The Sun and The Times, plus my own writing and projects at home, I decided this week that it was time to get the bike out of the garden shed and start riding into work. Great idea, especially now the weather is warmer.

You may also remember that earlier this week I said I was going to sort out my diet and cut out the booze… well I’ve started doing the latter but England’s World Cup game yesterday kind of put the kibosh on that. A PR agency called Gosh had a World Cup party in the city, where I met up with two old colleagues the former and current travel editors of The Daily Mirror, Iain Mayhew and Nigel Thompson.

Both are seasoned journalists and seasoned drinkers, several hours and seven pints later, I left them to it and headed, somewhat unsteadily, home.

It was hot in the night, our fan is too bloody noisy to sleep with it on and we can’t leave the windows open because Mini and Uma, the two cats, would be performing Houdini heroics in seconds. I know cats have nine lives but I don’t fancy them falling out of a first floor window.

The result was I woke up this morning, dehydrated with a fuzzy head. The last thing I wanted to do was run, never mind ride. But a promise is a promise so I did the three miles on a pretty easy flat route near home and then took the bike out of the shed, washed it down and went through the elaborate routine you need to do to cycle to work. This involves messing around ironing a shirt and trousers, putting them in a back pack where they just get crumpled again and then braving London traffic for 35 minutes.

It was actually better than expected and it was nice to see that in almost a year’s absence, people who shouldn’t cycle do so. One woman in a long flowery maxi dress and flip flops with no helmet in particular was taking her life into other people – namely white van men’s hands.

Coming back was a bigger problem as I decided to try another route to see which was better – and ended up cycling almost two miles more than I did in the morning.

Anyway, I’ll be doing it again tomorrow so here’s hoping it’s better. If you want to see either of the routes – both went over London Bridge, which I love as it reminds me I’m in the capital with Tower Bridge and St Pauls to one side and the London Eye and parliament on the other – here are two linkies. I wore the Garmin to measure the routes.

Way out

Way home

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a route map and details of the run

Miles today: 3
Target: 834
Miles to date: 1,090.04

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

90 days to go

So 90 days left but just 14 more miles to complete my first target: to complete more than 1095miles in the year. At this rate, it looks like I could complete the year with a total of around 1,400 miles, which would be a pretty good effort I reckon.

I’ve been going through one of those stages again where I’m a little bored of just running the three miles plus I want to go on a bit of a fitness kick before my Personal Trainer course really starts to kick in early next month, so I found myself awake at around 5.30am this morning, scouring the latest edition of Mens’ Health for some more tips and things to try.

I’ve found a couple of new workouts I’m going to have a bash at in the gym and I’m also going to try and cut back on the booze and eat better (not that I eat badly but just cut some of the snacks out and try some  food that can actively aid weight loss) but I’m also going to introduce some more interval training back into my runs.

By varying your running speeds at interval training, pushing hard for a while and then slowing to recover, one should, theoretically, burn more fat as it should, to use wanky health-journalese “torch your metabolism”.

So this morning I went out, ran for five minutes to warm up, then alternated between 30 second sprints and two minute recovery jogs for the rest of the run. It must have done the trick as when I got back I was covered in sweat and it took me ages to cool down properly.

Of course, the opposite side of the coin is that it has also made me feel as though I am starving all morning. What’s the point of burning more calories if it just makes you want to eat more?

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for full details of the run

Miles today: 3
Target: 825
Miles to date: 1,081.04

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Time for a slight career change

Despite the recession being officially over, things keep getting a little sadder for those of us who have worked on Fleet St – the Mirror Group announced it was shedding 200 staff as it consolidates traditional printed media with its digital operations.

One friend of mine, Roger Love, who left papers a couple of years ago, has re-trained as a personal trainer and I’m glad to say he’s going great guns. You can see his website here. A really nice bloke and, having done a session with him, a bloody good trainer to boot.

Roger has actually been a shining example to me in life post a newspaper staff job, he had his redundancy all planned out as it happened and I’m glad to see it bear fruit.

One thing it has done is spur me to also take a PT course. It doesn’t mean I’m giving up journalism, rather hoping to combine the two and adding another string to my bow. I spend much of my time advising friends on running and fitness now anyway, so I may as well start getting paid for it. I’m also hoping that it will open up new avenues of writing for the health and fitness industries too.

It’s a part-time course I can do at my own pace too, but as I learn some of the concepts, I’ll share them with you on here.

One of the first things I’ve been asked to look at on the course it the concept of total fitness – that being fit is not just the physical but also a person’s mental state and well being. It’s got me thinking who is actually the fittest: someone who stays in shape but has a miserable demeanour or someone who is less fit but happy. I guess things lie somewhere between – but it has been proven that exercise can help release happy endorphins that will brighton your mood.

When it comes to me, I guess, in the right now, things couldn’t be going better. I’m getting enough work shifting at various newspapers, writing articles, corporate writing, media training – heck I’m even on the Travel Channel’s Holiday Show this weekend and next week, my first forays into TV.

I’ve also got a lovely wife, home, the two kittens, twins on the way and am embarking on a new challenge later in life… totally fit. It certainly feels like it.

Click to link to Garmin Connect for a route map and full details of the day’s run

Miles today: 3
Target: 792
Miles to date: 1,037.32

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Now with added shin splints

So I feared the worst when I went to see Lillian, the sports masseuse at Virgin Active in Streatham yesterday and she confirmed it within seconds of touching my legs. ‘You’re starting to get shin splints.’

It’s the two words most runners dread and, having suffered before, I knew the telltale signs were there all week: a slight burning soreness  on the inside of my calves and aching shins, to the point where I’ve done most of the week’s runs at snail pace and, at times, even hobbled.

She went to work on them for 45 minutes, pummeling and rubbing away, stretching my legs one way and then the other… but I still went home slightly dejected. It’s a feeling that was compounded this morning when I woke up and could still feel the pain… Anyone who has read about Lillian before will know that she’s performed magic when I thought my streak might come to an end, but even her expert help had not done its job.

As I hobbled down London Road and back this morning, I made a decision on the Brighton Marathon. I have three weeks and four long runs to go according to my programme, but I am going to forsake tomorrow’s long run that was to be a 22 miler. I will then just do gentle three milers all week and monitor the progress. I’m hoping the ‘rest’ from the long run may help things calm down a little.

Miles today: 3
Target: 567
Miles to date: 744.07

Click here for a Google Map and full details of the day’s run

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Overwhelmed by peoples’ genorosity

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

I won’t harp on about this every post otherwise the blog will become more about fundraising than about the challenge… but I’m overwhelmed that, with Gift Aid, I’ve already raised more than £700. Thanks so much to all that have donated and to all those that haven’t… get your fingers out

Last night, I finally gave in and after three days of not taking any Ibuprofen, I slipped a couple before bedtime. This morning, the legs felt looser than in days, still a little bit of grief but not even a quarter as bad as yesterday. Was it the Ibuprofen that did it or time? I’m not sure but it made today’s run on the treadmill at Virgin Active much easier.

I’ve also taken my running quests a little further and signed up for this year’s Athens marathon on October 31 (six weeks after this challenge ends). This year is the 2,500th anniversary of Greek messenger Pheidippides running from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to declare victory over the Persians. He promptly said ‘Nikee’ (which means victory and is where the Nike brand comes from), keeled over and died… Lets hope I don’t have a similar fate.

Click here for details of the day’s run

Miles today: 3.13
Target: 561
Miles to date: 738.07

Day 150 and thank heaven for sports massage

For Natalie Onions – as mad as me

Crickey, day 150 and still feeling very tender after Sunday’s 15miler… this training for the Brighton marathon is taking its toll.

I felt even more tender when I visited my sports massage therapist Lillian this morning. When I told her where it hurt, she started sucking her teeth like a plumber who’s found a blocked u-bend… ‘Don’t say shin splints,’ I said as she went to work and continued to suck on her teeth.

She eventually, after half an hour, said my legs aren’t in too bad shape for someone who’s been running continually for six months and just told me to look after my legs over the coming weeks.

‘This is the time when you are more prone to injury in your training, luckily you’re seeing me early enough for me to help,’ she said.

And so I did a very very gentle run in the gym to celebrate and you know what, it didn’t feel too bad.

If you’re wondering who Natalie Onions is, she’s a woman who is also doing a year long challenge… but not with a run every day, but a thusfar entertaining blog. She even runs dressed like a pirate. Check it out at www.run1000miles.com

Click here for full details of the day’s run

Miles today: 3.11
Target: 450
Miles to date: 576.05

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