One of the smartest things I could do to run faster is to lose more weight – specifically lose more fat.  I have done quite well on that front, shedding 27 kg (over 4 stone) in less than a year, but I have got complacent about the whole thing since the summer holidays started.

Actually, what is closer to the truth was that I was training hard for the Lisbon Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon and I found it neigh on impossible to run those colossal distances on a measly 1200-1500 calories a day.  My body craved carbs and since I was training for a marathon I thought I would forget about counting calories for a while and just eat to hunger with mostly healthy foods.  I have not always been the best at listening to my body but this self-regulation seemed to work.  My weight stabilised at 64 kg (at the top end of my BMI) and didn’t really shift that much even on weeks when I went a little overboard on the indulgencies.  I always planned to get back to weight loss after the marathon but when the time came I found myself reluctant to embark on another 6 or 7 months of restrictions.

Anywho – currently my scales say I have a body fat percentage of 28% (when I started this was 51% so yey me) whilst most female endurance athletes will have a body fat percentage between 8-10%.  Now don’t get me wrong – I am not trying to be the new Paula Radcliffe (despite also growing up in Bedfordshire) but the point is there is room for improvement on my figures.  Basic physics backs this up, after all moving something lighter takes less effort than moving something heavier.

It actually makes sense biologically too – you get most of your energy from glycogen stored in your muscles and liver and only resort to fat once these have been depleted (about an hour in).  Additionally fat weighs you down, diverts blood flow, makes you overheat – fat is a hindrance for the long distance runner.  So if I am serious about making a 2 hour half marathon, then I need to get serious about shedding the final kilos of fat I have been carrying my entire adult life.

The trouble is I love food and find the mere mention of dieting sends me into a ravenous all-consuming mood where I’ll eat snacks whilst waiting for other snacks to cook. I hated calorie counting.  I hated feeling hungry all the time.  I hated the way dieting makes me feel more self-conscious about everything.  I hate the way a bite of this or that can send me into a dark guilty mood or if I resist the way I will continually think on how good that muffin/biscuit/crepe/burger/pizza may have been.  I am no longer overweight and because I run such large distances I have realised that so long as I don’t go entirely crazy I can basically eat what I want.  My weight is stable.  I can fit into a UK size 10 and so long as you don’t see me without a bra I look mostly woman shaped.  I don’t want to diet anymore.  To say I lack motivation is understating it.  It’s more like I lack energy to go through it all again.

So I am paying Slimming World to be motivated for me.  I am 2 weeks in and so far I like 2 things about Slimming World.

1. I get to eat an unlimited (yes unlimited) amount of pasta
2. No one is trying to stop me from drinking diet coke

I am only 2 weeks in so I’ll try to withhold judgment until I’ve given it a fair chance, but there are some terrible contradictions that are currently driving me insane on Slimming World – mostly that there is no way to balance activity with food.  I did lose 3 pounds the first week but I also ran a half marathon without carb loading the week before and didn’t really follow the plan and ate a lot of syns (for synergy, although it’s clearly a play on the word sin – which I disagree with because food shouldn’t be considered naughty!).

Mostly I think the benefit of Slimming World will be the group support and possibly pressure to not gain weight at each weekly weigh in.  Sadly the whole thing is making me terribly despondent – if I eat a food which is not on The List it makes me feel incredibly guilty and sometimes I eat a food not on The List just to be rebellious so I have been more or less continually in a cycle of rebellious guilt for the last fortnight.  Maybe Slimming World is not for me, but to be fair I haven’t really embraced it yet either.  Of course joining a weight loss club just before my birthday, Christmas and New Year is not exactly smart either but I figured I had to start sometime and it may as well be now.

So I (mostly) ran a marathon recently and for a complex series of reasons (read pride) I already want to run another.  As luck would have it Andreas, my boyfriend and main running companion during long training runs – without whom training would be really hard if not impossible – has already agreed to go along with my continued running insanity.  However, because he is not as fond of the idea as I am, it does come with a catch.  In order for him to participate he has stipulated that we must first be able to run a half marathon in 2 hours. His logic is simple, running for 6 hours, he says, is absolutely brutal and just unnecessary. He has a point, standing for that length of time is tough enough let alone running as well. On the other hand, running for 4 hours, is, he says, tolerable. Not exactly a rousing endorsement but I’ll take it.

A 2 hour half marathon is the new goal then.  So where do we stand?  Well, fortuitously, terrified I may never want to run again after the marathon, I already had a half marathon booked. The Bedford Harriers Half Marathon (06/12/15) formed part of my birthday celebrations and was meant to be a fun, easy kind of run just to keep me motivated and moving post-marathon.  Nonetheless, it’s as good a point as any to get an idea of our baseline time.  I had not trained enough to get an amazing time but I was hopeful that after the full marathon just a half would feel like a walk in the park – and thus maybe we could surprise ourselves.

So 10 am from Wootton High School we are off.  The course is basically an anti-clockwise hilly loop from Wootton out to the surrounding villages and back. The roads were not properly closed but country lanes on a winter Sunday morning are not that well-travelled anyway and there were plenty of race marshals warning you about the traffic. The weather looked cold but actually as soon as I start running I was cursing my long sleeved top as I warmed up quickly.  The wind was the worst of the weather – at some points it forcibly knocked the breath right out of you – but thankfully it only seemed to be that bad on one particularly barren incline!

Wootton is no Lisbon or Liverpool but even so, there is for me a childish charm in the rolling hills, pretty ponies and Christmas tree farms that we pass.  It’s nice that the runners seem to be kind of at our level too – we run in a group that becomes familiar by mile 3 and I am secretly competitive by mile 6.  I very much want to beat another running couple – he is really tall whilst she is wearing short shorts with a fluorescent yellow hem – we seem about evenly matched as we have been running together for much of the time.  Andreas and I overtake them only to be overtaken each time we stop to have a drink or energy gel.  We can beat these guys, I think, but I don’t accelerate like crazy, just relax and enjoy the moment – something I had been unable to do in Lisbon.  The run was turning out to be quite fun, the uphill, downhill, wind barrage was keeping it interesting and my body was coping well.  I didn’t have any aches or niggles, if anything I was just a little out of breath, and maybe a bit hungry.  Of course the breathlessness might also have been the small gales which popped up occasionally swooping at you just before the apex of a hill.  On the descent I feel like a rocket, letting gravity do most of the work and gliding along.  I even have energy to spare – chatting to a guy pushing another grown man in a wheelchair.  What a legend.

By mile 12 with the other running couple far behind and despite the gradual incline I could tell we might just get a new personal best.  The finish line comes into view and I can see the gun time is still on 2:26:-something so I decide to sprint like a lunatic for a big finish.  I immediately feel nauseous but like a trooper I carry on and get across the line at 2:27:03 which is great because that means we’ve definitely beaten the Clacton on Sea half time of 2:27:11; the question is by how much?  A few hours later we get our official chip time via text – 2:25:33!!! I am happy with this – more than a minute off without training is great.

Of course, it’s no Andreas Marathon Qualifying time, but it’s the starting point.  Now I just need to train up for it and somehow shave another 25.5 minutes off that time.