November 2016

[Sweder]

The Big Chill Starts Here

My word, the temperature dropped faster than the stricken Pound overnight. Frost all over the shop. I pulled on a sub-layer and topped it with my original RC vest. Shorts and short socks, though, as my legs rarely complain of the cold. On with the boots and out the door before my senses had chance to complain.

After reading MLCMMan's missive on fat-burn, low HR running yesterday I decided to give it a go. I ordered all the books; McDougall, Mittleman, Maffetone, anyone with a surname starting with 'M', basically. This idea appeals, and not just because you have to run more slowly. I'd really like to burn some bloody fat.

On Tuesday I knocked out an ugly 4.5 kilometres around the Chalk Pit circuit. All huff and puff, great effort on the climbs, buckets of sweat, niggling knee and hamstring singing away, lungs like shredded paper bags. Runkeeper recorded a time of 31.28. Today I took off with my trusty Adidas micoach watch strapped to my wrist. It has a clear HR indicator, so useful for this exercise. As the Antipodean adventurer advised, sticking to your set HR is no easy feat. I went with 130 as an arbitrary target, shamelessly copying my good friend in lieu of any actual research or data. 

Man, it was tough. Easy enough at the outset, I loped along at around 125 BPM or so. As soon as I hit an incline though, Ooh, Aye, and up she rises. I had to slow down to an extended walk for a lot of the outward section. The flat and downhill paths were simple enough, just relax into it and keep an eye on the watch. 

I stopped to snap a photo or two, the landscape resplendent in brittle white, red sun skulking under high cloud There were stops to harness the hounds in livestock areas and a few gates to open. As I chugged along I started to tick off added benefits to this slower approach. More time to take in the vistas was an obvious one. Easier running style allowing gait analysis was a real bonus; I could focus on each foot-fall, feel the impact of flint or mud, monitor the the right leg niggles (they were, for the most part, silent). My breathing was easy and shallow, my brow coated in the lightest sheen. This was actually quite pleasant.

Home in 34.07 at a average pace of 8 minutes 45 per kilometre. 
I felt refreshed but not knackered, warmed through but not melted. 

I could get used to this.
Now the no-carbs part ... that's going to be a killer.

   

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

After reading MLCMMan's missive on fat-burn, low HR running yesterday I decided to give it a go. ..

Now the no-carbs part ... that's going to be a killer.

Man alive, you don't muck about when you set your mind to something! I think, as tough as the no/low-carb diet is, you will find it particularly interesting (albeit challenging) given your ties to the world of diabetes. It's fascinating stuff, and to turn yourself into a little science project and actually learn something fascinating and more importantly, useful, is a great thing to do.

Bets of luck!

And great photo, by the way. Gee it looks cold, though.

[Sweder]

Yeah, the intake thing is going to be a challenge.
Bread, pasta and rice are off the agenda, but I'm loathed to ditch beer just yet.
Poor excuses include a brewery tour (last night), Girlschool reunion (Saturday) and a week in Rotterdam (starts 11th).
But after that, well, anything's possible. 

My good friends at Amazon did the business yesterday, as you can see below.
The challenge now is to find the time to read the buggers ...

Edit: Huh, Forum won't let me attach a picture. Weird.
The books are
The Maffetone Method, Dr Philip Maffetone
Natural Born Heroes, Christopher McDougall
Slow Burn, Stu Mittleman

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

The books are
The Maffetone Method, Dr Philip Maffetone
Natural Born Heroes, Christopher McDougall
Slow Burn, Stu Mittleman

I ordered this one:



It will be interesting then to compare notes.

[Sweder]

A few more outings and a day or two without carbs. So far, so good.

Spread-sheet lovers long since abandoned any hope of finding anything scientific in these pages. So it will be with the latest fad.
This morning I even went out without my HRM. It remained, for all I knew, dangling from a charging socket, back at the office where I'd left it.
I'm not recording my weight, either. Weight is less important to me than fitness. I know I'm not fit, anything like it. I'll know if that changes. Good enough.

Dr Phil and the Maffetones caught my interest. I grabbed The Maffetone Method: The Holistic, Low-Stress, No-pain Way to Exceptional Fitness, and skipped straight to chapter 20: Diet and Nutrition. I'm intrigued by what's considered 'good' and 'bad' in this world of fats and oils. I was worried, too, that I'd have to surrender to a bland succession of meals. Not a bit of it. Dr Phil assures me I can feast on any number of tasty morsels, not least avocado, eggs, mozzarella, nuts, meat (though be careful to avoid cured meat, as a lot is cured in sugar). Sugar is the enemy, forming an axis of evil with white flour. Wine is in, beer is out. I'll cope.

Something Phil talks about is stress, and stress around food in particular. I'm the world's worst for knocking up a quick lunch and scoffing it whilst working, or browsing the websphere. No, no, no, says Dr Phil. Relax first; if you need time to prep your meal, so much the better. Phones off, screen off. Go for a walk if you can. Relax, be ready to enjoy your food. Stress kills digestion. Also, don't drink water with meals, or even that close to meals. You're diluting the enzymes needed to extract the goodness from your meals, it says here.

It all feels a bit like learning to walk again, which brings us to the running part.
This 130 bpm* lark is tough. Hit an incline for any amount of time and you're walking. Descents are OK, I can chug pretty much at my usual pace and not set off any alarms. The constant check of the watch is tedious; I'm sure I can set it up to beep at my selected capped HR. I need to find the manual for that though ...

This morning - gasp - no watch! What to do? Well, I'd figured out on Saturday that I could tell when I was 'pushing it' from my breathing. So today, I ran until I felt my breathing change, then slowed down. Breath regulation is something Charliecat's been learning in Yoga for Runners, so it all ties up, really. My biggest challenge is sticking to the plan. On Saturday, as we reached the long haul up Blackcap, Sunshine muttered something under his breath and pounded up the hill. Where we come from, hills are made for attacking. I bumbled my way up, having to walk most of it, feeling a bit of a lemon. I do hope this is all leading somewhere.

One immediate benefit to all this is how much more I can do. I ran on Saturday, Monday and today - 6.7 genteel kilometres before my carb-free breakfast of chorizo, eggs and watermelon. The outing was notable for a thick frost on the hills and a bunch of adolescent bullocks waiting in the field beneath Blackcap. They watched the three of us approach, hounds on the leash. As we entered their domain one, considerably larger than the others, bellowed as he/ she (I didn't look too closely) ran towards us. I made soothing noises and slowed to a walk. A few turned their shaggy, ox-blood heads towards us. We walked, slowly, carefully, between the beasts, their warm breath forming a misty guard of honour. I was quite happy to leave that field unscathed, realising as I did so that I was wearing my Lewes FC home top, complete with bright red stripes. Ah.

   

I'll run tomorrow, Thursday and Friday, too, probably an average of 5 klicks a day. My legs feel fine and I recover in no time (because I never get out of breath). As I said to the Youngster on Saturday, I feel I could run all day. I guess that's what I did in Connemara, albeit eventually, after 7 hours pounding the tarmac, I was properly bolloxed (sorry, Antonio - jolly tired). 

I'm off to Rotterdam on Friday for a week working in the cold halls of the Ahoy. Usually I fail to get out at all on these journeys, but I feel confident I'll do it this time, once, twice, maybe even three times in seven days. I'll drink a beer or two, for sure, but otherwise I'm staying on this slightly twisted path.

*130 BPM. I have no clue if this is accurate, or even right for me. I need to find out how to calculate my own, for this particular exercise.
I suspect following my breathing is more accurate, given biorhythms tend to fluctuate with the tides. More to the point, stress levels go up and down like an uncertain umpire's finger in the current batch of excellent test matches. Stress, it seems, joins sugar and starch on Dr Phil's Most Hated list.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I fear impatience is going to be the killer of us both with this one. Still, I'll persist for a while yet. Luckily I have three weeks leave starting in a few days and I can really devote myself to The Method, proper-like.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

And happy birthday, OM!