This weekend I ran the Sheffield Half Marathon (part of the PlusNet Yorkshire Marathon Series) with my bother Kyle and discovered three important things.

1) Sheffield is hilly.

2) You shouldn’t eat three breakfasts before running a half marathon.

3) Never underestimate the distracting power of a good view.

Okay – of course I had an idea Sheffield was hilly before.  I checked out the route elevation and quickly realised this was no short undulation.  It was 5.27 miles of hill.  Yes, you read correctly.  5.27 miles of hill.  Right at the start.  Just a 958 ft climb into the Peak District, some parts fundamentally steep!  Yikes.  Good job I have been hitting Oxford’s only hill each week in preparation.

Other preparation included a Slimming World friendly butternut squash and wholemeal pasta bake for dinner the day before (and maybe a slice of pizza – less Slimming World friendly but hey, if you can’t indulge before a race when can you?) and getting up early enough to eat breakfast.  Mum and I stayed in a hotel with a buffet breakfast which was nearly my undoing.

Faced with a spread of yummy pre-paid for food choices and I enter a kind of feeding frenzy which may even put piranhas to shame.  Damage limitation in this event was ensured by a restricted feeding window – I had to stop eating at 7:30 am to allow enough time for the food to digest before race start at 9:30 am.  Still even with only 15 minutes available I managed to eat, in no particular order, 2 slices of wholemeal toast (with jam), a sausage, some baked beans and scrambled egg, 3 mini pastries (the kind with custard and sultanas), a bowl of muesli with 0% fat Yeo Valley strawberry yoghurt and a banana, all chased down with a cappuccino and half a can of diet coke.  I am weirdly impressed at myself – but I regret these choices later!

Race start and perhaps unsurprisingly, 2 hours was not enough time to finish digesting the morning’s breakfasts.  I can run, but it is uncomfortable.  I can’t waste oxygen chatting to Kyle as I need it to break down sausage and bread.  I am feeling as if I am a step or two away from getting a stitch.  It lurks sinisterly under my ribcage, a tightness which cannot be alleviated by pressure or deep breaths.

We haven’t even gone 2 K and I think I may vomit.  On the plus side – my internal battle for blood flow (Stomach or legs? Legs or stomach? – Forget the fingers and toes altogether we have more important things going on!) – has made the start of the hill unnoticeable.  Of course, this gentle incline doesn’t last long and too soon Kyle is really in his element.  Between scrambled eggs and scrambling for breath I can’t keep up.

This.  Will.  Not.  Do.

Ego overrides basic physiological responses – by will power alone, I am not sick and I am not left behind.  Still it takes about 6 K for me to really get into the groove and have my circulation return to my extremities (why didn’t I wear gloves? I curse myself).  Which is just as well because between miles 4 and 5 is the steepest part of the course lovingly labelled as King (or Queen) of the Hill.  Kyle absolutely smashes it – his constant, steady determination leads us both up.  I tell myself I love this hill and weirdly enough it is working.  Now my stomach has finally digested everything I feel good.  Great even.  When the views emerge I am positively exuberant.

“Best run ever!” I tell Kyle, giddy with excitement.  All around us is green and hills and miles of extraordinary countryside in dazzling, splendiferous sunlight.  What makes the route all the more endearing is that literally every inch of this course is smothered with supporters and spectators.  We have our names yelled out constantly, hi fives offered on a steady stream and had I not already eaten so much I could easily have consumed my body weight in jelly babies.  I feel like a superhero – albeit one that cannot eat or drink anything for at least another few hours!

This race was so good.  Heading back into town, downhill and powered by a variety of foodstuffs I am invincible.  The little uphill sections thrown in which derail the other runners Kyle and I seem to glide effortlessly to the top.  Gotta love me some hills.  If anything Kyle is slower downhill, something which takes its toll by 18 K.  There is just 2 K to go but I can see Kyle is at his threshold.  Even so, he hasn’t realised it yet but he is going to destroy his previous record.  In fact it is even going to be close to my personal best.  The final push then, a suicidal sprint to the finish – and I am sadly disappointed it is over.  So soon?  I think.  Once I’d gotten over my indigestion this run was everything a great run should be.  Definitely one to repeat!  Massive thanks to the organisers and the city folk for making it such an incredible day.

Our official finishing times, 2:28:59 (Kyle) and 2:29:00 (Me) – which you have got to hand it to him.  As our finishers medals and t-shirts proclaim – Conquered the Hill!

You may or may not be aware dear reader but Oxfordshire is flat, flat, flat.  So much so that hills actually obtain their own names (The Wittenham Clumps, The Didcot Mounds, Headington Hill etc.).  So when I say I am not used to running up or down hill I genuinely mean it.

When I first started running I noticed every little incline around the Didcot Ladygrove Loop, the torturous lip by the chip shop, the bulge of girth by the school – all these slight deviations from flat I noticed them and they had the power to drain me, strain me, make me ache.  I am better than that now, I can’t say I even notice these little bumps anymore, but my point remains the same – my training has a distinct lack of vantage points acquired via hard graft up a gradient.

Lack of hills is generally not a problem, except, I have signed up to a few races which do include more generous amount of inclines.  Primary concern on this list of races is the Sheffield Half Marathon on the 10^th of April.  I am running this with my brother, Kyle, who lives in Sheffield (as previously mentioned) and whom generally considers anything with an incline of less than 10% not a hill.  Seriously – he asked how to adjust the incline on our Mum’s treadmill but it turned out that he had already MAXED it out (12%! And he wanted more).  To further disadvantage me in this race, Kyle runs the actual ROUTE 2-3 times a week.  My Mum told him it was cheating, but what else can you do?  In Kyle’s position I would do the exact same thing.  Of course it does leave me wondering if I will be able to keep up with him on the race day and whether my ego could handle the repercussions.

Egos aside, Kyle, loyal as he is, would not abandon me mid hill – so I mostly just don’t want to disappoint him, hold him back or have him wait for me. If that wasn’t enough of an incentive to find a hill to run on in Oxfordshire a visit to my brother in January certainly galvanised my plans.  Even a short visit to Sheffield – like overnight to see my favourite band InMe play – and you can see the streets go up and down with vigour.  Most of the preparation for this half was therefore not attempting to increase my speed or distance then, but rather to get used to hills – which in a place as notoriously flat as Oxfordshire is kind of a challenge in itself.

For example – Andreas and I had to run 7.5 K to get to the closest hill in Didcot.  The hill (in Little Wittenham – by the clumps) lasted only 500 m.  By the time we had gone up and down once we needed to head back or risk nightfall eclipsing us again.

Suffice to say there is one hill in Oxford and between early March and now we have been getting well acquainted.  Introducing Headington Hill.  It’s about 800 m long but quite steep.  Once a week I go out and run repeats on it.  Thankfully I can do a bit of variation, snaking up more slowly and gradually using the more scenic park route or just heading straight up to the apex via the footpath next to the road.  Up and down I go like a yoyo.  I count off the reps until I have done nearly 8-10 K then I head back.  I have no idea if this will prepare me for the relentless monster of a hill that I will face in Sheffield – but I don’t exactly have many other options.

Fortuitously for me, Runner’s World recently did a feature on Fears of Running and hills were included.  The advice was to convince yourself that you love them.  And distract yourself with music.  So if you can imagine I am running up and down Headington Hill with a new electronic album blaring, maintaining a positive monologue in my head such as; I love this hill, I am really enjoying this, oh look more lovely hill, third times the charm, once more with feeling, keep the hills coming…  Only time will tell if this is enough for me to be able to keep up with my brother Kyle – but as the weeks have gone by I find myself more excited than nervous to find out!

First race of the year!  The clue about this race is in the title – it is notoriously freezing!  My Raynaud’s Syndrome was in full force leaving my fingers and toes entirely numb for the first 3 K.  The temperature was actually not that low but the race circuit is wonderfully exposed so that at the same high point each lap you must face 29 mph head-winds.  Good thing I have been training in all weather conditions!

Andreas insisted we run this race, we ran it last year – my first official 10 K – and managed a respectable time of 1:04:33 despite me having to stop running altogether the 2 weeks beforehand because of a painful bout of heel pain (medical term plantar fasciitis).  That was a dark two weeks for me.  I blamed myself entirely, over trained and overweight but truthfully injury happens to about 1 in 5 people regardless of these factors.  It was an important moment getting around that 10 K.  It meant a lot to me.  I was ecstatic that my injury was behind me and I could focus on training for my first half marathon.  I was happy to be close to my extrapolated best 5 K time (then 31:22) and amazed at all the different types of people that ran and how supportive everyone was.

This year the stakes were a little different.  What is 10 K compared to a marathon after all?  I sometimes run 10 K on a weekday morning before breakfast, it is a nice mid-distance run that takes about 65-70 minutes and leaves you feeling refreshed rather than ravaged.  Of course running 10 K is different to racing a 10 K isn’t it?  And I have lost 7 kg and 5 % body fat since December which was all to make me a lighter, faster runner… and soon you start to get the idea that this little 10 K is actually a kind of test on your performance progress.  Was all the Slimming World, interval sessions, strength training, prehab physio appointments and long fat burning runs worth it?  Have I actually improved as a runner?

I can’t deny it.  I want a new personal best.  I ran my fastest 10 K in 58:49 towards the end of my marathon training.  It was around Sandy, Bedfordshire in the summer heat, just as a bit of fun with some running friends.  I am sure I can run it faster now and I am excited to find out!

Taking no chances we carb load the night before (a Slimming World friendly lasagne recipe) and I make sure to have a carb heavy breakfast (2 slices of wholemeal toast with Nutella (8 syns) and half a banana).  The race plan is to start off slow and then increase our pace each lap before an all-out sprint to the finish for the last 200 meters.  There are 3 laps in total, last year we were being lapped by 3 K in this year I am hoping that we can push this back!  Andreas says he is a little worried (he has only run 3 or 4 times this year) but I am confident in him.  He ran a marathon on minimal training, he can manage 10 K.

For me the race was a touch surreal.  I had good energy throughout and managed to keep pace or at least constant effort even through the headwind!  I kept waiting for the dip in my energy to indicate I was getting tired but it just didn’t come.  Andreas on the other hand was suffering.  Towards the end of lap 2 (7 K) he said he was getting tired and at 8 K he just couldn’t catch up after stopping for water.  And so, I had a decision to make – leave Andreas behind or stop and wait for him.  The runner in me was excited at the prospect of getting a new PB but the girlfriend in me didn’t want to leave Andreas behind.  Andreas, let’s recall, has stuck with me throughout numerous ParkRuns, two 10 Ks, three half marathons, countless training runs and an entire marathon.  Upon consideration, which maybe a better person wouldn’t need to do but there you go, abandoning Andreas just seemed a little cruel.

I pull to one side of the circuit so Andreas can catch up and try encouraging him, “Come on, you can do this” I shout enthusiastically to be heard over the wind.  He tells me he can’t breathe properly but I am not convinced, he’s just out of breath, surely?  And nonetheless onwards we must go!  I am rocking this moment, loving the pounding of the tarmac and still feeling fresh for the final straight – which I dash for frantically as it comes into sight – and honestly I am more than a little oblivious to Andreas’ struggles.

I only realise there may be something more wrong with Andreas than I thought when he doesn’t catch up for the finish line.  He is usually right at my heel in these moments but today he is a whole person behind.  Hmmm.  A google search later confirms that there is such a thing as exercise-induced asthma which sounded pretty close to what he was experiencing – tight chest and not enough air.  Exercise-induced asthma apparently cannot be overcome with well-meaning pep talks and is exasperated by cold weather (check), intense cardio (check) and long periods of exercise without a break (check).  Oops.

Still, even with exercise-induced asthma Andreas and I totally smash our personal best, taking more than a minute off – 57:09!  I feel vindicated that I am on the right track and that ultimately I will reach the Andreas Marathon Qualifying time (a 2 hour half marathon) – or close enough to haggle.  As for Andreas, he has recovered well and decided to take training a little more seriously from now on.

If, like me, you don’t own a treadmill and don’t have gym membership then you will at times be forced to run in some less than ideal conditions.  I am not talking about a slight wind or a bit of a drizzle – which can actually be quite pleasant when you have warmed up – no I am talking about the extremes of elements.  I have run in hail, torrential rain, hurricane winds, when it was -4°C, in the dark, across frosty paths… and that was just this fortnight!  I have also run through summer thunderstorms, in blistering heat, on ice, in thick mud, through suddenly descending fog like something out of a James Herbert novel and did I mention temperatures below freezing?

It is tempting to hibernate these cold months away and save outdoor running for spring when the weather is a bit kinder but I urge you not to, you see, because there is something primal and satisfying about facing the elements and running anyway.

A headwind might make you feel like you’re running in slow motion but it also connects you with nature in a way that you wouldn’t ordinarily do.  Getting drenched as you loop the park might not sound like fun but it does return you to a more childlike gleeful state back when jumping in puddles was fun and not something to be avoided.  The cold is harder for me to deal with, it occasionally makes my fingers and toes turn white and lose feeling… but I am also motivated to run faster to warm up and thus I have had some of my best times when wrapped top to bottom and trying to escape the chill.  (Additionally I like to see my breath as I exhale and may or may not pretend to be a steam train).  People forget that actually running in heat is the real worst of it.  Risk of dehydration, overheating, exhaustion are all more common in hot weather than in cold – so actually braving the crisp morning or getting wet are not the worst things to have ever happened.

Of course there is still the matter of getting that foot out the door motivation.  It is awfully hard to drag yourself away from a cosy bed to slog it around the block when there is frost on the ground or if it looks like it might rain.  Believe me.  But I also know whenever I am out (driving or cycling or running) regardless of the weather and/or time of day you still see runners out there, braving the elements – or rather, perhaps, embracing them.

Point of fact: last weekend when the whole of Southern England and Wales had moderate-to-severe weather warnings to indicate that there were extreme winds of up to 60 mph, on our 10 K run to Long Wittenham and back Andreas and I passed not one, not two but at least six other runners!  It is a strange and addictive bug, this ailment of running, but I wouldn’t change it!

That said, since the temperature is now above zero and the sun is out I’m off for a quick jog whilst it lasts!

So I finally put up the cash for a pre-emptive appointment with a physiotherapist for some tips on how to improve my running and how to prevent injuries before they happen.  In principle it sounds like a sensible idea.  I love running.  I want to participate in running for the rest of my life and I want to run long distances.  So a check up on my form, flexibility etc. now, before I have any major problems makes sense.  A good physio should be able to spot tightness and muscle weaknesses from a mile away and should be able to give advice on the best way to correct any of these imbalances…

But… I was surprisingly reluctant to organise it.  I didn’t have any problems, not really, who was I trying to be?

My major concern was not money (it was £45 for an hour if you were interested) but rather this imposter feeling I got about the whole thing.  I am not an elite runner trying for county best or world records.  I am a slow recreational runner just trying to be kind of average.  I felt silly.  Like I would be wasting the physios’ time.  To make matters worse to get to the physios office you have to first walk through a gym.

I haven’t been to a gym since one brief foray into the world of physical activity in 2010.  That gym was air conditioned and had a lot of TV screens whereas this gym was sort of squished into a long, dark corridor.  The first thing that hit me was the smell; stale body odour permeates the air and immediately makes me want to turn back.  And then the second thing was this – an almost overwhelming urge to cry because I so did not belong here.  Everyone was young, sleek and positively bouncy – moving effortlessly from squat to lunge to strange metal equipment whilst holding seamless conversations.  Whilst I, clad in cycle helmet and backpack and reflective gear, look like a giant fluorescent snail clumsily traversing a path.  I am so disorientated by their youthful exuberance and perfect bodies that I managed to get lost.  Yes, lost, in a corridor. Bah!

After further navigation I manage to arrive for the actual appointment without crying!  And so it begins.  To start with I have to answer a series of health and lifestyle questions and whilst I am still apprehensive the guy (Nick) is a runner too and soon my enthusiasm returns.  As we talk about marathons and planned races and targets I feel myself getting calmer.  Nick doesn’t treat me like someone who is dabbling in sport or dwell on the fact that I used to weigh 91 kg he just wants to know, genuinely it seems, what I want to do now and how he can help get me there.

I change into my running gear and then we have an hour of chatting, awkward posturing and nervous running back and forth on a track.  I am not exactly enjoying the moment but Nick tries to make it as comfortable as possible, explaining things in a warm professional tone, nodding encouragement and throwing out the names of muscles at random (I don’t have the heart at this point to tell him I am not that kind of Doctor).

In the end I get my verdict: I am an over-pronating, heel striking, tight hip flexor, weak right knee monster.  Not that Nick described me quite that way, I am paraphrasing a little.  But good news is shoes and balancing on one leg whilst I brush my teeth can help with my stability, stretches can loosen my hips and a variety of exercises with a resistance band can fix my out-of-track knee.  Not so bad after all.  This is prehab baby, not rehab! Plus I am honestly impressed that physio Nick managed to pick out my right knee (if you remember that is what was hurting after the Clacton on Sea Half Marathon!) – Weirdly I never noticed that it sort of grinds before.

As I exit through the gym, wearing Ugg boots with my running gear and looking more mismatched than ever, I honestly don’t care what these people make of me.  I am a runner.  Anyone can be a runner – isn’t that what I have been saying all along?!  It’s time I took my own advice and actually believed that about myself.

So after a few successful weeks on Slimming World – where my weight was falling in a predictably tame way – I hit my first set-back.  A week where I had run 26 K, bounced happily on a gym-ball, cycled furiously and eaten cleanly but yet I did not lose any weight.

Obviously common sense says this is no big deal.  Bodies are biological systems and just because a formula calculates one value it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for variability or outliers (data points which don’t fit with the rest).  Any sensible person would chalk it up to ‘one of those things’ and move on.  But I like to dally in the mind-set of ‘Catastrophic Thinking’.  That is – F%#k the Diet.

In a self-sabotaging, self-destructive pattern of what can only be known as a self-pity chicken fest – I went out to dinner on Saturday night at an American Themed BBQ Grill place and consumed no less than half a chicken.  Ironically, I actually picked off most of the skin – a Slimming World rule – and measured the amount of BBQ sauce I applied and stuck to baked beans as my side dish (rather than the more alluring paprika fries).  However I followed this up with 3 scoops of the world’s creamiest and lushest ice cream which would just about break any diet but on Slimming World this amounted to 48 syns just for dessert (you are supposed to have 5-15 per day).  I then went to a music gig and jumped around heartily for 2 hours before my body utterly revolted at its abuse.  Suffice to say the rest of the evening was not pleasant.  Wind in both directions, nausea, bloated feeling, sweating profusely… I am an idiot.

All of this suffering could have been prevented if I had just listened to my body.  I was full after eating a quarter of the chicken.  I was stuffed after finishing off my plate but I still picked at my brothers unfinished spicy pork sausage.  By the time dessert came around I was beyond caring.  Diets don’t work anyway I told myself – even though I had conducted my own thorough analysis and lost weight on all the previous weeks.  I have made this mistake before (many times) and will no doubt make it again.  I am sure I am not alone.  I am sure this is why diets generally fail.  You are too restricted and then you binge and then you guilt eat and repeat.

But here today, I am going to forgive myself.  I am only a mammal trying to put fat on for the winter, even if that winter never comes.  And in the search for silver linings – 18 months ago I am sure I would have been able to eat that meal with no stomach rebellion – which is a sign that perhaps physically I am adapting more than I thought.

Additionally I am never eating meat again.

…

…

With the exception of bacon.

Another way to run faster, cut your risk of injury, increase your stamina and generally improve your running form is strength training.  Earlier on I lumped this in with “cross-training” as to be honest I just did not fancy it.  Doing squats and push ups and lunges and hefting weights about – no thank you I thought.  However there is one undeniable thread that pops up in every volume of Runners’ World, all training plans, running guide books etc. and that is doing some form of resistance/weight/strength training 2-3 times a week.  Mostly I skipped over this thinking well, I swim and that is sort of resistance-y.  Of course real strength training/resistance exercises are not swimming *sad face* and since I am on a quest to run a half marathon in less than 2 hours I suppose I ought to address this fundamental gap in my training regime.

So if resistance training is not swimming then what is it? More importantly, is it expensive? Good news! Actually most strength training for runners does not involve much specialist equipment beyond a step – or park bench in a pinch.  You don’t need any dumbbells or kettle-bells or resistance bands or anything really – just your own body weight.  Additionally they don’t look that hard on paper.  I picked a regime to follow from Runner’s World which involved stepping up and down, lunges, calf-drops, abdominal-crunches, push-ups, sit-drops and thought I would give it a go…  And yet… that was months ago.  Until December of this year I still hadn’t even tried it.  Was it the simplicity of it?  Because I could do it in my living room, at any time, that it just never occurred to me?  Or was something else playing on my mind?

I have a long history of failed sporting endeavours.  From school PE lessons, sports days, army recruitment retreats, Girl Guide camps, survival weekends, personal trainer sessions… Of trailing miles behind everyone else, of being mocked for being unable to do a single push up, of aching for days after doing only a few squats, of needing an adult sized harness when I was just 11, of breaking our survival shelters’ improvised bed and of only being able to hold a plank position for 2 seconds.  And whilst it may seem counter-intuitive, after all I got over my aversion to running, perhaps I think it is fair to say I still have a reluctance to participate in some other sporting activities.  Give me a mountain to hike for pleasure and I will do it, or to kayak along a river, or hell even to run a marathon but ask me to do 50 star-jumps on the spot or hold myself in an uncomfortable pose for 30 seconds… Yes, I know it is ridiculous but I just don’t want to.  It could be as simple as stepping up and down 15 times on each leg but somehow I just never got around to including it into my schedule.

Until now! Yes, so as of now I am about 6 weeks into strength training.  I haven’t – probably to my detriment – been following a plan, just picking and trying different activities to see if there are any I like.  In the rush of January sales I also went a little OTT on small gym equipment, buying a foam roller (still unused), resistance bands (used once) and a 65 cm diameter gym-ball complete with work-out DVD (used twice properly but bounced and sat on and played with more regularly).

The verdict: My memory served me correctly.  The first time I attempted the Runner’s World Basic Strength training session I struggled to complete anything involving upper body or core strength and ached enormously in the following days.  The second time (a few weeks later) was still not great.  The third time… I can sort of manage to do 10 half push-ups and I don’t ache as much anymore so there is some improvement.  I don’t think I will be competing in World’s Strongest Woman anytime soon but hopefully with persistence I may get some payback and improvement in my running.  I can’t say I enjoy it (except bouncing on the gym-ball is fun – space-hopper flash backs anyone?) but truthfully it doesn’t take that much time and with it being winter and dark and freezing when I get home from work I don’t mind the excuse to stay indoors with an attractive woman demonstrating on my TV how to do sit ups on a giant inflatable ball.

I am now 5 weeks into the Slimming World plan and actually despite my initial unwillingness and flirtation with mutiny I am starting to respect the process a bit more.  This is in part due to me losing 8.5 lb (3.86 kg) and 2% body fat in this time and also because I conducted an experiment of sorts to put the Slimming World ethos to the test.  Briefly, I took the Slimming World rules seriously for a week and then counter-intuitively added up all the calories I consumed.  Counter-intuitive because I wanted to avoid having to calorie count since it is laborious and time consuming and a little bit soul destroying.  (HOW MANY CALORIES FOR THAT TINY THING?!).  But annoyingly maths and science and numbers is just how my mind works. I like to know why something is working.  Saying JUST BECAUSE has never been a valid reason to me.  And before I could trust Slimming World I needed my own proof that it would work.  After all there is ultimately only one way to lose weight and all the fancy-pants named diets, fat-fighter clubs, dietry supplements and exercise tricks in the world won’t change that fact.  In order to lose weight you must take in less calories than you use up.  So I decided to test whether the Slimming World plan would actually do that for me.

Results: It turns out – if you actually follow the plan and eat to appetite it is extremely difficult to consume a lot of calories.  On my worst day, when in a ravenous rage because how is anyone meant to feel full from eating low-fat cottage cheese (?) I stormed around the kitchen and ate an entire can of baked beans. Cold.  From the tin.  And then proceeded to eat an entire bag of mixed baby leaves salad, 3 apples, an entire tray of cherry tomatoes and a few dry bits of wholemeal penne pasta (because I wasn’t waiting for 10 minutes for it to cook).  These are free foods (ones you are allowed to eat an unlimited amount of) so ha! I thought.  Let’s see how this turns out.

Ahem, well, actually quite well – just 1400 kcal for the whole day (including omelette with toast for breakfast, baked sweet potato for lunch and a generous serving of chicken pasta with cheese for dinner).  Hmmm, I mused, maybe the Slimming World plan is on to something after all?  Most days during my experimental week I consumed between 1100-1400 kcal and since for a woman my size I might generally be expected to burn between 1500-1600 calories a day WITHOUT EXERCISE this is already creating an energy deficit of maybe 200-300 calories per day.  With my running, swimming and cycling on top this could potentially reach the magical number of 500 kcal per day and hence 3500 kcal per week and further hence about a pound of weight-loss per week (since 3500 kcal = 1 pound).  I am still not entirely sure what a pound is having never lived in the middle ages and preferring to use the international scientific standard unit measure of weight (the kilogram) BUT it seems like a reasonable amount of weight to be losing.

Of course there is still the whole syn business to contend with – and this part does grate on me – but in terms of free foods I think the Slimming World plan makes a lot of sense.  Additionally Slimming World is about the only health/diet plan I have read which doesn’t automatically rule out diet coke – which I drink far too much of and no I don’t have any plans for the foreseeable future to it give up thank you very much.  Additionally pasta is on the menu, as is rice, cous cous, potatoes and bananas – which means I can still carb load before a long run if I want to.

Bad news is energy gels, electrolyte drinks etc. must all be counted as syns.  Of course I generally don’t use these products for anything less than 2 hours running – heck for anything less than an hour I don’t even bother with water – so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it too much.  It may even be beneficial to train without the sports energy products as I guess you will have to use up internal energy stores (i.e. FAT!) rather than the readily accessible liquid glucose in the energy gels.  Additionally I suppose it is not a bad thing to train through fatigue as your muscles should hopefully get used to it and adapt.  My only reservation is being able to replace the electrolytes such as salt, potassium and calcium which you will lose through sweat – water alone will not replace those – and without them you run a real risk of muscle cramps at best and dizziness, irregular heartbeat, mental confusion, muscle paralysis, collapse and coma at worse – so maybe I won’t give up my Pocari Sweat on long runs just yet!

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.