Snow, dark evenings, and our first wedding anniversary

It has been an interesting January and start to February.  I've been getting my feet under the table in my new role as Head of Parks and Open Spaces at Camden.  This has included visiting all our green spaces, getting to know the Parks and Open Spaces team and initiating the business planning for 2012-13 and the longer term strategic thinking.  I've also been interviewed for Horticulture Weekly.

In my new role as Head of Parks and Open Spaces

I'm loving engaging in conversations from keeping our parks safe and secure for our residents with the Street Presence team to supporting healthy and happy lifestyles with BTCV and our green gyms to thinking about how we can do things differently and engage our residents more proactively in these times of austerity, for example the Fitzroy Orchard Project run by the Fitzroy Allotsments Association, a project that has been a steep learning curve for them, about how to balance the very diverse and passionate views of different stakeholders, understanding their perspectives and taking them all into account in revising plans and ideas.

All of this hasn't stopped me training.  We're continuing to follow our training plan towards the 44 miles from Lizard to Lands End.  We are now running about 50 miles a week slowing building up to the peak of 70. Our schedule is 5 running days a week.  This means during the week I get home about 6.30 and head straight out for a run in the dark.  Rock on March and the clocks changing, I can't wait to be able to run without a head torch and get off the streets.  I've had two challenging runs this week.  Tuesday night Mr G was working late so I ran with Archie, this meant doing laps of the playing fields, which isn't normally too bad, but we had a good few inches of frozen snow on the ground, which made it very uneven and slow going.  We managed it though!  Then on Thursday night as I got off the train in Stortford it started snowing again, so I ran with snow blowing in my face.  Once wrapped up in the right kit, including two pairs of gloves, three layers, skins and trousers, hat and snood, it isn't too bad, I'm warm and can plod on!

We were treated yesterday though to an 18 miler in bright sunshine and a snow coated landscape.  These are the runs that I live for, where it is a joy to be out in the English countryside, everything looks so fresh and inviting!  This was followed by Mr G and I heading in to Cambridge to treat ourselves to a night in a hotel and spa to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.  Can't quite believe it has actually been one year, it has flown!  After the 18 mile run we spoilt ourselves with a soak in the jacuzzi, and a warming sit in the steam room and sauna followed by a delicious 3 course meal at Jamie's Italian.  A perfect evening!

Weekends like this are just what I need to feel refreshed and ready for another week of work and running!  And ready to prepare myself for next weekends challenge the South Devon Coastal Marathon - it is going to be fun ;-)

Running and work

This week I started a new job as Head of Parks and Open Spaces at the London Borough of Camden.  A fantastic job that gets me to the heart of managing and promoting the use of Camden's outdoor spaces, while ensuring they continue to grow and be a fantastic resource for future generations.

Archie with Evi 

But it has meant I don't have the same amount of time for training as I had while I was at home.  No more mid morning runs or long dog walks in the winter sun mid week.  It's been up at 6am everyday, a 40 minute walk in the dark with Archie and then on the train into work.  The journey is great I can get there and back within an hour, so I'm getting back home about 6.30 and have managed to get straight out of the door for a run.  Our current training plan means our rest days are on Monday and Friday so Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was straight out the door for a 7, 5 and 7 mile run consecutively.

Interestingly I found myself flying out the door on Tuesday and really enjoying a fast paced run.  I think the adrenalin of starting a new job had got to me and I really needed to burn some of it off.  Wednesday wasn't quite the same I plodded round the 5 miles and went straight off to yoga afterwards with Mr G.  Who I have to say has been a saint, walking Archie in the evenings and cooking dinner when I've been running.  He manages to fit his runs in at lunchtime which gives us a little more time in the evenings.

Today's long run was a little tougher as my hamstring tendinitis feels as though it is flaring slightly, but an ice pack and some deep heat should do the trick.  At least I hope so as next weekend is our first marathon of the year Anglesey Coastal Marathon, with a finish up Holyhead mountain it should be good!

The romance of running

While Mr G and I were out plodding out our 21 mile long run the other Sunday we saw a great old school friend of mine Ally.  She was running towards us with her friend.  I love seeing friends out running, Ally and I played hockey together at school, but I don't ever remember either of us going for a run, that said she was very good at hockey so she may well have been off sprint training with out me knowing.

Anyway not only were Ally and I surprised to see each other, not that it is that much of a surprise considering she lives in the next village, but she had just been telling her running buddy about how Mr G proposed to me.  Here we were the subjects of her story.

Now Gary's proposal probably isn't up there in the top ten romantic proposals that most people would think of, it certainly wasn't a candle lit dinner.  It was running our first marathon together, the Portland Coastal Trail Marathon run by Endurance Life.  This was my third marathon but first trail marathon, while it was the first marathon Mr G had ever run.  Sadly Endurance Life didn't run the Portland CTS event this year, but for those of you who don't know it it is a grueling two lap course, with a decent stretch along the Chesil Beach shingle.  There was a great turn out to the event considering this was the week of last years snow storms, and I'll be honest Mr G and I didn't know if we'd actually make it to the start.  We did though and we set off in a really friendly crowd.

Our wedding day!

The first lap was great, the famous Portland Lighthouse looked beautiful, while the sea looked rough and raging.  It started to rain as we hit the first section of Chesil Beach, but still I was feeling good.  About a third of the way into the second lap I started to struggle.  My hamstrings went completed rigid and I felt as though every step was a pained effort.  Mr G was kindly bouncing along beside me trying to keep me going, but I just wanted to put my head down, swear gently under my breath and bare it.  I kept telling him to run on without me, but he wouldn't.  Eventually we hit the Chesil Beach Shingle for a second time and I couldn't take it any longer and started to walk.  Mr G kindly walked with me.  He was acting kind of strange and I in an irritated tone asked him what was wrong.  His reply 'well I was going to ask you to marry me.'  'Oh!' I replied completely shocked and taken a back.   Thinking my poor marathon run had actually put him off I asked 'well are you going to?'  And he said 'Well will you?'  Honestly the two of us are normally far better communicators!

The rest is history we continued walking along Chesil beach with grins on our faces.  My legs suddenly felt a whole lot better and I even managed to run the last mile.  We married in February at Exeter registry office with a small number of friends and family and celebrated afterwards at the Salty Monk Restaurant.  It was a perfect day!

A new year, new runs and a new job

Happy New Year everyone.  It's new years day and Mr G and I were meant to being doing a 22 miler today.  Thankfully at about 11pm last night after lots of red wine and guinness (not in the same glass) we decided perhaps it wasn't such a good idea, so now we're looking forward to a relaxing day and a walk down by the beach with our nephew and his new skateboard.

We currently staying down in Dorset at a little holiday cottage called Bridge Cottage in a small village called Buckland Ripers.  A great spot to get down to the Jurassic Coast and do some running.  Over the last couple of days we've done some lovely runs around Portland starting off at Portland Bill.   I've so far managed to persuade Mr G to avoid running along Chesil Beach, can't face the thought of running along all that shingle even if it would be great training.  But after watching the video of the Sahara run (a stocking present) and seeing all the sand I'm not so keen on the idea.

After recovery and recuperation today we'll be starting our year of running with a 22 miler in the Dorset countryside tomorrow and then it's back home for a final weekend of running before I start my new job as Head of Parks and Open Spaces at the London Borough of Camden, and I get used to working and training again.  Hopefully I'll be able to find lots of nice urban runs across Camden and throughout the parks - perhaps doing my job on the run!  Watch this space to see how I get on with doing what 99% of us runners do, work and run!

A little bit annoying!!

What is the worst thing that can happen when you're out running?  Well maybe this wasn't the worst, the worst would be dying or breaking a leg, or perhaps even just twisting an ankle.  This was just a little bit annoying.

Last Saturday Mr G and I went over to Maldon on the East Coast to go for a run along the coast path followed by a visit to my Auntie Jane's.  This was all going to plan, we set off with the dogs, a cold bright winters day and a beautiful stretch of coastline.  We'd left the car near Auntie Jane's house and I put the car key in my jacket pocket.  Off we went at a nice gentle warm up pace heading along the Maldon promenade.  We stopped to do the unpleasant thing that one has to do when you have a dog, picking up their poo.

You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this, well about 10 minutes later when we had just gone through a kissing gate I realised I no longer had the car key in my pocket.  Oh my God!   I only had my running jacket pockets to check but believe me I turned them inside out.  We then turned and started looking for it.  After a bit of discussion we decided the most likely place that I would have dropped it was where I picked up the dog poo.  So Mr G ran off to check before someone else found it and I started walking back diligently looking at the ground.

It certainly is chilly when you're walking and not running, but being freezing cold didn't stop us retracing our foot steps two or three times before we convinced ourselves that it wasn't there.  The nightmare hadn't yet started though we suddenly realised the house keys were in the car and the spare keys were in the house a 45 minute drive away.  Bugger bugger bugger.

We're AA members so we gave them a call and while they couldn't get us back to the house to get the spare key they could get the house keys out of the car.  Thankfully we were planning to visit Auntie Jane so had somewhere warm to go and have a cuppa while we waited for them to arrive.  Amazingly they were there within 10 minutes, and with a torch in one hand and a long thin piece of metal in the other the AA man managed to hook the keys out from the centre pocket.  Then it was Auntie Jane's turn to come to the rescue as she lent us her car to drive back to Stortford and get the spare key.  After driving back and forth we were finally home.

Sadly though we missed the Christmas Panto!  Oh well there is always next year to shout 'he's behind you'  or should I shout 'where's the car key.'  That all said I thank our lucky stars that nothing worse happened, after all it was only a car key and we could get it all sorted out.  Just a little bit annoying!

Yoga for runners - our third class

Our yoga classes are going really well.  We had our third class last night, and it was just the stretching I needed, focusing particularly on deep stretching of tendons and ligaments.  As I get really sore hamstring tendons this was perfect for me.  It was apparently a Yin style class.  You can find out more about this type of Yoga at Mandy's teachers website Simon Low.

After our warm up we did lots of work with bolsters following Mandy's explanation that if the muscle is tense when we are stretching it it will not lengthen, we need the muscle to relax to lengthen.  Obviously this makes a huge amount of sense, but in the past I have found myself stretching after a run and watching my legs shake, a sure sign that I'm over stretching.  With our bodies stretched over the bolsters sideways and backwards and us lying with our legs up the wall all the positions left me feeling elongated and relaxed!  Think I'm now ready for Christmas.

Getting to my ideal running weight

You've probably read about how losing a few pounds and getting to your ideal running weight can make you faster and make running easier, and added to that are the obvious vain benefits of looking and feeling better about one's self.  Reading such articles led me to read 'Racing Weight' by Matt Fitzgerald early in the year, a great inspiration to why it is good to lean down.  Following my enthused reading I spent about 3 weeks following his guidance, measuring my calories in and out, monitoring everything I ate, and I did lose weight but as soon as I slipped out of the programme I put it all straight back on again.  By the time this September came round and I'd completed my first ironman 70.3 and spent a month on honeymoon I was up to the heaviest I'd been in a long time 64 kilograms.  This is still actually well within a healthy weight for my height but I wanted to do something about it.

My previous weight

I was very lucky on our return from our honeymoon, while Gary went back to work, and a promotion, I've had some time at home seeking my next contract/job.  A great opportunity to train and get healthy.  We decided to try Carol Vorderman's detox diet.  There is nothing ultra marathon running related about the development of this detox but it does fit really well to the recommendations of ultra runners like Dean Karnazes keeping down the hydrogenated fats buying organic and eating lots of whole grain.

The detox is for a 28 day period which is all about changing one's eating habits which after the 28 days you try to stay with.  While you're detoxing you can't consume caffeine, alcohol, wheat, meat, or dairy.  Believe me when Mr G and I first realised this we thought we would starve.  What on earth were we going to eat.  The recipes in Carol's book are though great and with me being at home I was able to prepare dinner, buy fresh fruit and veg and make sure Mr G always had something to take to work for lunch.

The first week of the detox was the toughest.  I had a headache for about 3 days, which I presume was from caffeine withdrawals.  A scary thought as I never realised I drank so much tea and coffee.  I never though felt hungry and always made sure I had plenty of fruit and healthy snacks available just in case.  My training didn't seem to be effected, I made sure I ate a few hours before training.  I did though feel a little empty on the first couple of long runs we did but having stuck with it this no longer seems to be the case.

My new running weight

The great news is I've managed to lose 5 kilos (7 Ibs or about half a stone).  I feel great for it and confident even with Christmas ahead that I can keep it off and hopefully lose a few more.   I am feeling fitter but I'm not sure whether that is the training or weight loss, a good telling point will be the Anglesey marathon in January, if I beat my 5.25 trail marathon PB.

Interestingly though Mr G hasn't lost any weight, he didn't actually need too and only wanted to do the detox to be healthy.  I find this great that actually by eating the right foods you will find your perfect weight.