How Writing Is Like Running

Whoops, looks like October came and went.  This year feels like a ride on a dodgy fairground waltzer, where the man in the flammable trackie bottoms and a fag sticking out of his mouth flings you madly in circles, making you too cock eyed to see anything passing at normal speed.  Stop 2016, I want to get off!  I've just been sick on my shoes!

I can't blame 2016 for everything, though.  Main reason I've missed an entire month's worth of blogging opportunities (how was your Halloween by the way?  Well done for surviving the creepy clown epidemic if you're still around to read this), is that I got into a familiar cycle of thinking "must write more...must write more...", which, I should know by now only serves to make me freeze up and view my keyboard as a tray of tiny mines that might explode at my touch, and I need my fingers for scrolling through Facebook 999,991,003 times a day.

It's not been a totally unproductive month, though.  I've learned lately that working out is my favourite hour of the day.  It's time that's 100% mine and no matter how useless, lazy or incompetent I'm feeling before I go into it, I always come out thinking "I CAN LIFT A FUCKING BUS!! COME AT ME BRO!!"...despite being logically aware that there might be slight discrepancy between the biggish kettle bell and an actual bus.  

I never used to feel like this when I started - especially when I took up running.  I went into most activities involving getting my trainers on with trepidation and it was anyone's bet whether I'd finish up feeling invincible or berating myself for a whole weekend for being overtaken that one time by that pensioner rollin' along the seafront in their pimped out mobility scooter. Now, I'm a lot more forgiving.  I (mostly) see exercise as a cumulative thing to be enjoyed for its challenges, and feel grateful to be allowed a whole hour or so just for my lycra-legged self to get stuck into just moving for fun.  Is marvellous!

I feel the same way about writing now as I used to about running.  I love the activity, but I beat myself over the head with self criticism before I even put pen to paper.  So, in order to get me writing something other than "why have I stopped writing?  What can I do to make myself write more? Why isn't what I write better? Blah blah narcissistic whining, first world problems etc etc" in my trusty notebook (*cough* diary *cough*), I thought I'd compile a list of ways that writing is essentially the same thing as running. *Flexes fingers*

HOW WRITING IS LIKE RUNNING

1.  GUILT
1.a For not doing it.  When I started running, I was super self conscious about the label.  I wanted to be a runner.  And in order to be a runner, I needed to run lots, constantly and fast.  And if what I was doing didn't meet up to any of those things, I was a wannabe runner.  A shambler at best.  As a writer, I must churn out a bazillion quality words a day.  On top of the blogging, I must start and actually finish a fully drafted novel in order to be able to bestow the title upon myself...even though after getting 2 chapters in on my projects, I inevitably realise that I don't have the inclination to do it really..Or I secretly do, but think that what I've made so far isn't good enough to carry on with.  Then I kick myself in the pants for not having enough of a concentration span to achieve something printable.
 1.b For doing it
"OMG, how dare you be running/writing right now?  That hour could be used for cleaning (which often makes you want to eat a tea towel out of boredom), entertaining others (because they're not capable of doing it themselves, or...?) or organising the next 12 months of your life in meticulous list-y detail.  Oh, you want a break from the lists and the over thinking in order to keep yourself a sane member of society?  Well that's just selfish!"

2. "REWARDS"
Okay, so this is something I'm still guilty of.  I may overcompensate after a 3 mile bimble by "refuelling" with an entire battenburg and several slices of cheese, despite the fact that I've grown to learn that getting to move in an otherwise sedentary, office-based lifestyle is a reward in itself (endorphins are REAL, people, I've FELT them, I swear!), but, to be fair, I probably would have stuffed the marzipanny goodness down my cake hole even if I'd sat around all day long, sooo...it's okay?  

I may reward myself for stringing more than a few sentences together by binge watching Netflix and telling myself that it's actually creative research.  Ooh!  Ooh! Speaking of, has anyone seen Black Mirror?  I'm on series 2 and I've never been so depressed/inspired/amused/terrified by a TV show in my life.  Hoo blimey!  

What were we talking about again?

3.  PROCRASTINATION
 When I started running, my house was actually clean.  I mean, not super clean or anything because, well...it's me doing it, but my organised chaos was lots more organised than normal.  I could locate a matching pair of socks in under two minutes and only lost my keys once a day as opposed to every time I put them "somewhere safe."  How do I know I'm having a little tailspin about how much I write in my spare time?  The other day, I polished my hoover.  We're at crisis point, people.

4.  COMPARISON
I'll never be totally free from the desire to compare my performance in most areas of life with the people who do it better, but I'm learning to compare myself to the only person worth doing it with - myself.  Sounds cheesy, but it's pretty euphoric when you huff your way through a little 3 miler and then it dawns on you that you just referred to 3 miles as "little" when 3 minutes used to be an achievement in itself.  I haven't quite got there with writing yet, but I feel optimistic that I will learn sometime soon that I can't be Margaret Atwood because she's already been taken.  

5.  SMUGNESS
Pretty sure I only ever do anything in life for this reason.  My life is a constant pursuit of smugness.   I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth.

"Look how much I've been sweating!  TOUCH MY SWEATY, SWEATY FOREHEAD! TOUCH IT! THIS IS WHAT AWESOMENESS FEELS LIKE!!"

"I ran a distance that most people would only go in a CAR!"

"I wrote a WHOLE blog post and put it on the Internet for EVERYONE to see!  Am so brave and creative.   Oh, God, what if there is a typo?  What if I used "to" or "two" instead of "too"? What if someone sees it and then tries to talk to me about it in real life?  Should I take it down?  But if I take it down, then it will look like I haven't posted for ages and it's already been a month. Ohgodohgodohgod!"

Hmm.  Maybe need to work on my post writing smugness.  In the meantime, am off for a run.

TOUCH MY FOREHEAD!!!

Zombies, Run!

I love a bank holiday! This is my first year in a few where I've not attended Reading Festival, so I've been busily distracting myself to avoid coming down with a case of the sads.  

Le sigh.

Oh, well.  Busy month ahead of me!  Foo Fighters and Royal Blood in Milton Keynes next week (uh huh, much smug), Wheatus towards the end of the month (much love) and a 22 mile walking marathon mid September along the Gower Coast with Outcast Swansea (much...snacks? It's for Macmillan, so if you'd be so awesome as to sponsor us...?).  This weekend's come with plenty of ups and downs to keep me distracted while I've not been paying a billion pounds a pint and getting sufficiently mucky in my welly boots.  

It wouldn't be a British bank holiday without an ill advised night on the tiles.  Saturday night/the wee hours of Sunday morning were spent at Swansea Beer and Cider Festival and in my favourite sticky local Irish bar, Jack Murphy's.  All the best bars have sticky floors.  The more time I invest in my trainers, the lower my tolerance for booze plummets, so let's just say that just being within sniffing range of locally brewed (strong!) cider ensured that I ended the night as cock eyed as I began it. Believe it or not, this is the "before" shot:

 Much classy. So lady.

Sunday was meant to follow on in pretty much the same fashion at a friend's wedding do, but a stomach tantrum (seem to be getting a lot of these of late, but so far am choosing to ignore them as I suspect they stem from something delicious like cheese or bread.  No one's ever intolerant to muesli or liver are they?) meant that I had to miss out.  Plus side - no hang over today... Which meeeeans....running!

During a nine miler I attempted earlier on in the week, I decided that I hate running.  Hate. It.  It's uncomfortable.  I'm slow.  I'm bored and my butt hurts!  Whine whine blah blah.  I spent more time sulking and walking than actually running. After all the mileage I put in to get round Liverpool without my legs falling off, I've fallen fully head over heels back in love with CrossFit's short, sharp and shitty (in the best possible way!) approach, meaning that my brain's ability to endure runs upwards of an hour is now pants, and I have the Cardiff Half Marathon to get around in October.  Bollocks.

I know I'm fit enough to do half the distance I did back in June, so the problem was/is clearly all in my fragile little mind.  I needed to remind myself that I run for the enjoyment of it, not as a form of torture or simply a method of burning off some of the cake I eat.  So, I decided to turn it into a game.  Not like in Saw.  The sort of game where you still have limbs at the end.

I remembered an app that I tried on my phone when I first got it into my head that I wanted to learn how to run more than two miles in one go.  It was called Zombies, Run! and it cost me about £6 in the Apple Store (also available in Google Play). It plays out a story in which you're immersed in a post apocalyptic, zombie infested world and your job as Runner 5 is...pretty self explanatory.  You run around, automatically collecting things for your camp as you go and if you have them enabled, you occasionally enter into a zombie chase, where you have to put on a burst of speed lest you become a human jerky.  Actually, you just drop a few items and don't actually get eaten because it's  all pretend, but it bloody well got me going!  You hear the moans of the undead in your earphones, making it sound like they're close enough to give you a shoulder massage.  I don't think they want to give you a shoulder massage.

The reason I've waited so long to pick it up again is that the first time I tried it, I didn't bother to look up the instructions (which are pretty idiot proof, really).  I got so immersed in freaking myself out that I blindly ran out into traffic, terrified I that was about to be eaten.  Turns out I didn't even have chase mode enabled, so I would have succeeded my "mission" alive, even if I'd been lying down on the floor the entire time, face down in a bowl of Doritos.

I'm only a few episodes into the game, and I'm quite enjoying being the mysterious Runner 5, who has just appeared in the township and whose purpose is so mysterious that even I don't know what my own deal is yet.  I've had a crack at an interval run (one of the few different modes available outside of the story), which is made up of shorter bursts of speed, jogging and walking, and I've been using the items I've picked up on my travels to help build my little vitural town in the app when I'm not actually running.  My town has two playgrounds so far, because that's how I roll.  Now that I've figured out that you can choose roughly how often the zombies chase you (I've set it at about 5 times an hour) and how fast or slow you want the story to progress, I feel much less like I'm going to soil my pants and more like I'm actually having fun because I'm in control of the game.

...Though I still get nervous when I'm approaching an incline.  Hills may slow me down, but they apparently have no effect on the imaginary zombies' athletic ability.  Jammy buggers.

I ran seven miles today without the urge to walk.  Not even once.  It may be that I'm rediscovering the joys of running for fun thanks to this genius game.  It may be that I'm less concerned with my overall speed because I don't want to have a cardiac arrest when the next zombie chase could happen at any moment. I think I'm going to use that in future, actually.  I'm not slow.  I'm saving my energy so I can get away from the zombies when I need to.  

Happy weekend, and if you choose to have a bash at being a zombie evading badass like me, please read and listen to the instructions and stay the hell away from cars!

 

So, I Ran a Marathon...

Ran a marathon on Sunday.

No biggie.

I RAN A BLOODY MARATHON!!!! HOLY SHIT, IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!  

After nearly a year of boring my friends and family about injuries, mileage, food, trainers, posture, gels and that all encompassing fear of not finishing, I only went and bloody finished!  Proof? They wouldn't have given us shiny, shiny medals, a free pint and bright yellow T-shirts if we hadn't!

....I'm the one who looks like I'm on my knees on the left.  I am, in fact, stood up and, no, the marathon didn't shave a few inches off my legs.  If it had, you would be seeing only my forehead.

The last time I had that level of sick-maky fear before I did something was when I was seventeen and about to take my driving test.  I giggled, babbled, nearly wept through bouts of swearing and had to pee every two seconds.  Sunday was no different.

"HahahahaHAHAHA, what are we doing? Where is my gel belt? What if I don't finish?! HAHAHA this is so stupid! Fuckfuckshit hold my things, I have to go pee!"  

Didn't help that with each wave of nerve induced nausea I felt, my knees went a bit wobbly.  Like in a cartoon.  I kept having flash forwards of myself getting to the start line and my knees just giving out under me.  

"3, 2, 1... Nope!"  

Mercifully, that never happened, and myself and Amy (my long legged compadre from above picture) made it over both the start and finish line without incident.  I say without incident.  At one point, I jabbed myself in the eye with my own finger whilst trying to remove a fly from my face, and a small child sprayed me right in the gob with a water gun.  Oh, and I went to gleefully high five another small child on the side of the road and in the process knocked a big bag of marshmallows out of its hand... Sorry, tiny human.  I hope most of your squashy treats stayed in the bag!

The most surreal thing about the whole experience (bar the fact that we actually managed to travel 26.2 ACTUAL MILES on our own, human feet) was how it didn't suck.  At all.  I spent the whole thing waiting to hit the wall, but it never happened.  I took my time and walked when I needed to...Which was often, and I was more than fine with that.  

I firmly and comfortably (and proudly - I've learned that it takes a fair bit of grit to keep moving for that much longer than the speedsters already enjoying their pints at the finish line while you're still sweating in places you didn't know could sweat. finished at the back of the pack with the last few hundred marathoners (eek, I'm a marathoner!!).  Perhaps the trick to never hitting the wall is running behind it.  Maybe the wall has little wheels on it like a trolley, and it's pushed along by all the faster people?  Thank you, faster people for keeping the wall a safe distance away from me!

The route was lovely - dipping in and out of park lands so I got my greenery fix, and threading around ginormous, significant looking buildings that screamed "I am historically important, even though you have no idea why, uncultured swine!"  And those hills I feared for the first 8 miles?  Come on!  They were mostly gentle inclines in the end. When you grow up in Wales, your expectation of what a hill is is a little squiffy compared with others'.  Liverpool has merciful, friendly hills that don't want to see your legs shredded into a thousand tiny, hurty fibres, and for that, I am grateful to whatever deity is responsible for hills.  It's nice to have the odd incline to keep your brain from flat lining, but not so much when you feel like they're breaking the laws of physics and never actually coming back downhill.  I'm looking at you, Tenby Half Marathon!

*glare*

The finish line was awesome.  After three miles of the longest flat I have ever traversed, I somehow managed to find the energy to sprint through the resilient crowd who should have been given medals for clapping for over five hours straight, and into the Echo Arena, where I fell face first into my goody bag and pint.  

I still don't quite believe it's happened, because I'm not hurting as much as a tough CrossFit session would be hurting me, and I suspect that the two days of pizza and napping that followed the event had more to do with the Jager Bombs and wine that I happily chugged right after it.  Amy and I somehow had plenty of energy left for some Sunday night merriment (still wearing our medals, of course). I think that the slight soreness in my backside is more due to my showing off that I could still slut-drop after that kind of distance than as a result of the race.  Weird.  Adrenaline and the  musical stylings of Kesha have a curious numbing effect when combined.

The fact that I managed to do this insane thing has more to do with other people than myself.  If it weren't for the Run Like a Ninja course at Outcast Crossfit Swansea I was able to sign up to, and regular trips to Rosie the Magical Osteopath at Swansea Body Kinetics, I would never have made it to Liverpool, let alone the finish line.  Same goes for my nearest and dearest who put up with my months of blathering without once telling me to take my moaning elsewhere and take up a hobby that required less effort (despite my already having watching TV box sets, sleeping and eating in my list of passions).   If I could break off bits of my medal and chuck them at you like that bit with the tiara on Mean Girls ("A piece for Gretchen Wiener..."), I would.  But I can't.  So I'll just have to keep it for myself!

Wanna see the medal?  It's got glitter on it!

 You go, Glen Coco!

So... What the hell do I do now?!

Marathon Training Week 15/ Taper (or tapir) Time!

Morning!  

Iiiit's taper tiiiiime! Taper.  Not tapir, as I just misspelled it.  Tapirs are weird elephant-pig creatures that zoos keep in order to baffle the public.  There's something simultaneously cute and disturbing about those strange, melty faced beasts.  Kicking myself for not owning a picture of a tapir to put on here now.  Never occurred to me that I might need one.  You'll have to use a search engine of your choosing. 


Tapering, on the other hand, is reducing your mileage a couple of weeks before a big race.  I've read countless books on running marathons since I took up recreational bimbling as a hobby, hoping that I would gain the ability to run one via osmosis. In my reading, I've learned that people usually have a hard time cutting down the miles.  Probably because they've grown used to doing "what-the-fuck?!" length jaunts around their hometowns over several weeks and suddenly have to go back to sensible distances like what sane people do.

Well, I've had no problems in reducing mileage.  In fact, I think I might be a bit too good at it.  This week has been a big ole nightmare from start to finish.  On Monday, I was missing CrossFit profoundly and feeling a bit cocky (always a winning combination), so I had the not-the-idea-of-a-dumb-frick-at-all notion that I would be able to attend a WOD (work out of the day in sensible speak) that was incredibly squat-heavy, and still be okay to run for the rest of the week, despite my near total lack of prowess when it comes to weighted squats.

WRONG!!

Cue three days of the worst case of delayed muscle soreness I have ever experienced.  In normal cases where this happens to me, I am a bit of a wobbly mess when faced with a simple staircase and may have to lower myself onto the loo by placing my palms flat on the seat and wincing until I'm sat down, but this was a whole other level.  

Because of the weakness in my poor, battered pins, I teetered like a Weeble (Google it, millenials. They wobble...but they don't fall down! This is how we entertained ourselves before the internet) whenever it was required of me to just be stood up, and the basic act of walking made me look like a drunkard on a pair of the world's shortest stilts, sporting an aggressive facial twitch.  Not pretty. 

Also, I had/have a pretty nasty cold, which would have floored me even with all of my limbs functioning.  Colds are another thing that I have learned is common to experience towards the end of a marathon training plan, when your immune system finally gets a look in as your body starts to wind down. Luckily, my legs are now working, and I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel where I can run again without coughing my lungs out and jogging over them.  It's a sexy light, too.  Check this beauty out from one of my runs:

 

Phwoar.  Jealous much?

This morning, I had a revelation that makes me think I'm going to need a lot more underwear than normal this week.  It's dawned on me that at the time of writing this (midday-ish), at this time next week, I will be two whole hours into the Liverpool Rock 'n' Roll Marathon.  That's not even halfway for this stubborn tortoise.  I know I'm excited, but I'm having difficulty in accessing that emotion under the sudden onset mist of panic that has clouded my brain.  I feel like I'm in that part of Silent Hill where all the sirens go off and everything's going dark, and the baddie with the big cheese grater for a head is coming to get me.

I am terrified.  Terrified of two things:

1.  Not finishing

2.  Hating every second of it

Logically, I know that I won't hate every second of it.  There will be moments where I want to cry, tantrum and pray for unconsciousness, but without those moments, the elation, joy and sheer awe at just what the hell I'm doing will seem even more enhanced in comparison.  Those emotional peaks are pretty much exactly why I run, so I know I'll just have to take the bad bits with it.

It's the idea of not finishing that's sending me into a tailspin.  I can think of a billion reasons why I might not:

• Hating the experience so much that my body just sits down without my permission and refuses to get back up.
• Getting so hungry that I eat another runner and end up being arrested before I can finish.
• Taking a wrong turn and getting lost.
• Actually drowning as I forget I can't multitask and try to drink water and run at the same time.
• Suddenly morphing back into my pre-running self where running more than a few metres makes me want to keel over and immediately find consolatory ice cream.
• Falling down a man hole/tripping up/piano dropped on me from building/any other ridiculous scenario that results in me being horribly injured.
• Going so slowly that I can't finish inside the cut off time.
• Spontaneous human combustion.
• Remembering I suck at running up hills.
• Stampede of wildebeest like what happens to Mustafa in the Lion King.
• My feet fall off.
• My head falls off.
• My clothes fall off.

 I could go on for hours.  Deep, deep (DEEEEP) down, I know I have it in me to finish, because the thought of having wanged on about it for so long and then turning around and going "oh, no, I didn't do it in the end..." is about the worst thing I can imagine.  Also, after reading so much about it, I really want to have this transformative experience for myself.  I actually believe it will change how I feel about my abilities as a human in general.  I've never thought of myself as someone who could run marathons, which makes me want it a bazillion times more.  It's a club that I want to belong to!  

Still fucking nervous, though.  S'pose I could go for a run to calm myself down... Novel idea.

 
 

Marathon Training Week...14(?)/Effed Up Dreams

Well, it's not every day that you're told that your face is in a regional newspaper.That information can make you jump to all kinds of conclusions!  Luckily, my super secret double life as a criminal mastermind/evil super villain remains a closely guarded one, and I'm in there for nice reasons.  A couple of weeks ago, I drafted an article about the running routes I was discovering on my on-foot travels around Swansea and sent it to the news website Wales Online. Because sharing is caring and all that. They kindly accepted my runwaffle and published it on their website, much to my excitement.  

Click below if you fancy a nose.  The top of the article features a very pretty and not-sweaty-at-all runner who I secretly hope readers who don't know me assume is me.  Not-me "me" is rocking the fuck out of that crop top and ponytail.

Wales Online - A Runner's Guide to the Best Runs in Swansea

There was no mention of it leaping out of the interweb and into print in my communications with Wales online, so was quite a shock to find that the article has been renamed "Run Rebecca Run" and is now a two page feature in today's Western Mail.  Chuffed is not the word.  Seeing my name in print makes me crazy happy.  Lookit!! 

  Say whaaat?!

Of course, now that I'm a leading authority on running (and getting selfies into local newspapers), I reckon I'm going to suck it up and do the full marathon in Liverpool fo sho.  I'm feeling good about it now.  It'll hurt, but it's meant to.  I have no doubt that the experience is going to blow my fragile little mind.  I'm getting into taper territory as of next week, so I'll be reducing the mileage, which will allow for lots more time for numbing my fears with cheese and losing control of my bladder as I completely freak out about the task ahead of me.  Should be a relaxing time for myself and the poor bastards that see me every day.

Good luck, friends and family!  You can get through this.  I believe in you!

Running longer distances in training has been a lot of fun.  I've learned loads about myself.  For example, if I am tired and frustrated enough by the fact that "I've still got bloody FOUR miles to go and I'm HUNGRY NOW!!", I am not above loudly huffing "AGH, FUCK IT!!" at nothing and no one whilst out in public.  Oddly enough, it does make you feel better. I've also learned that it's at around the fifteen mile mark that I start to get insatiably snacky.  Still clinging to the fruitless hope that there will be a magical cake station at around that point in Liverpool.  That would be the dream.

If you live in Liverpool and intend to spectate on the day - Battenburg, please and thankyou.

Running aforementioned distances has also screwed with my sleeping patterns, because staving off naps for me is like trying to stop an oncoming train with a broom handle.  It's just not possible.  As a result of this, I've been having some really vivid and slightly screwy dreams.  Want to hear a few?

1.  A capella Cats

A and I return home (probably from one of our never ending "pops to the shop".  We never seem to have food in.  No idea why...)  to see all the neighbours outside their doors watching all of the neighborhood cats singing classic hit "Stand By Me" together in perfect harmony.  When they are done, there is much applause and elation.  So much so that someone sets a pre programmed fireworks display off.  As you do.

Oh, God, the blood.  There was so. Much. Blood.  The one tabby that was stuck to the Catherine Wheel will haunt me forever.  

Cheers, brain.

2.  The Roof, the Roof, the Roof is on Fire

Am at home enjoying daytime TV.  In this particular show, an interior designer surprises families by giving their homes a fancy, fancy make over.  The families are survivors of house fires, which is a really lovely idea.  Except in this one, the houses are mid collapse and a little bit still-on-fire.  The part that I was watching in the dream was where they were in the middle of "the big reveal".  The mother didn't like the olive green kitchen cupboards they were given, which is an odd thing to be focusing on when you're missing one entire outside wall, and your staircase is ablaze.  Some people seriously need to reframe their situations.  Sort it out, lady.


3.  Sugar, We're Going Down

A and I in an aeroplane, off on our hollibobs.  Hurrah!  

Lightening strikes one of the wings, causing it to snap off and sending us hurtling towards to ground at hundreds of miles an hour.  A is frozen in fear and refusing to hold my hand, which I find mildly irksome.  To placate myself, I eat some peanuts and hum "if you're happy and you know it" to myself in my head.  Turns out dream-me handles the whole plummeting towards an untimely demise thing in quite a chipper way.  Who'd have thought? 

Maybe we could learn something from that?  No matter how bad it gets, there's always snacks and a cheery sing-along to be had. Unless there are no snacks.  In which case, everything is fucked and the world is ending.  *shrug*
There have been WAY more dreams than that, but those three are the ones I recall the most clearly.  I certainly have a vivid imagination when I'm unconscious.  Small wonder I'm always so bloody knackered!  I'll be off, then.  I need a coffee and something to chew on.  T'raa!

Marathon Training Week 12/Magic shoes!

I ran an obscene amount of miles today.  Titillating, I know.  Definitely not as sexy as it sounds though.  Twenty (mother fridge-ing TWENTY!! 2-0!!) sweaty, sweary miles were covered by my very own feet today.  I grew them myself.

It was a surprising feat (haw haw feet/feat...no?  Okay), given recent roadblocks, i.e my disobedient, injury-addled body.  Naughty body.  As a result of today's little adventure, I am SO much more confident that I might actually be able to do the whole marathon distance come June.  Which is great news for you, patient readers, because I can then move onto topics other than injuries, mileage and the kinds of food I've been stuffing into my face.

Last night, you ask?  Maoams, victoria sponge, sandwiches, crisps.  Foodstuff of the elite.  Also snacks at a housewarming gathering I attended.  Would have been rude not to.  Heaven forbid I frighten some of my closest friends by appearing to eat in moderation like a sane person.  They might have grown concerned.  It wouldn't have been the Becky they know and love. 

By love, I mean feed.   

Today, the first ten miles was a breeze (albeit a mild one...like an elderly lady simultaneously blowing out candles and trying to keep her falsies in her mouth).  Can't say the same for the second ten (Ten two times! Ooh.  Possible cool/questionable nickname there), which was a muddle of sporadic walking and desperately clinging to a Spotify playlist heavy on the musical stylings of Wheatus and Alkaline Trio in a bid to retain just a scrap of my sanity.

 "Is my arse supposed to feel like it's on fire and about to fall off my body?!"

Also, look!  Another conveniently placed bench right on my last mile!  Thanks, bench gnomes!

Although I definitely wouldn't have called the experience "easy", it was a lot less painful than I anticipated.  The only hurtiness I endured was the usual "ow, my hamstrings. Ow my arse!" kind of aching that I've grown to expect from longer distances.  No injury-esque stabby feelings whatsoever.  It's a chuffing MIRACLE!  

I don't want to speak too soon, because for all I know,  I might wake up with the leg equivalent of lockjaw (lockleg?) tomorrow, but I believe this sudden U turn in stamina has come from a pair of trainers I got off of eBay this week.  After being taught to run on my forefoot and increase my cadence, my up-until-now beloved and battered Asics were starting to feel like a pair of squishy bricks - dragging my heels down and making my smack my feet on the floor with each step.  They're stability shoes, and heavy on the padding.  I was told they'd be the best match for me by a dude with a treadmill and a camera (running shop expert-type, not jogger specific perv.  I hope).  After today, I suspect that Mr Expert might've been just a little bit wrong.

I wouldn't encourage people to do the same thing as me, because I don't want them to hurt themselves based on my example (because I'm such a shining beacon of good habits and wellbeing the rest of the time), but I did my longest run ever today in a pair of more or less brand new shoes.  It was their fourth outing, because they only arrived on Tuesday, but hurting myself in new shoes felt like a better alternative to my usual trainers, which have started trying to kill me after just five minutes in them.  They've come close to succeeding many times.  It was a stupid idea, but I was very lucky that it went well!

 "Stellar work, feet/ghostly legs/magical shoes!"

The trainers I bought were Nike Free 5.0s, which were recommended to me during my stint in learning to run like what a Ninja does at Outcast.  Nike Frees are super bendy with minimal padding, following the barefoot running trend that's about at the moment.  And damn, them hippies is onto something!  No pain whatsoever when I run in them, because you can't slam your feet against the floor without properly hurting yourself.  Because of that, they force you to run with what feels like a more natural gait, and the biggest thing that surprised me was that it felt harder for me to get out of breath.  Probably because I wasn't wading along against a shit ton of padding with each step.  And it's weirdly pleasurable to actually know what the floor you're running on feels like.  I think I'm developing feelings for gravel.   And tarmac.  Mmm tarmac.

I need help.

Aaand that's it for this week!  I'm off to ride these endorphins all the way to the kettle for another cuppa...provided I can get back up out of this chair.  See you soon, unless I get a bad case of the aforementioned lockleg.  In which case, bring some WD40 to me, please.  And a sandwich.

 

Marathon Training Week 4/ I Love Swansea, I Do

Wow, this Sunday came around quickly!  Knackered today, so hoping this post comes out making sense. Just got out of a half hour shower during which I stared into space, drank coffee and ate cheesy oatcakes.  Name a classier bird, I dare you!  

Don't think I helped my alertness levels by getting merrily pissed on a visit to see my family this Friday evening.  I forgot how cheap a night out I am when my running mileage creeps up.  I had half a bottle of wine and one can of cider and I was plastered.  I don't recall what happened in Friday's Gogglebox, but I can tell you that based on my viewing experience through wine goggles, it was conclusively the best episode EVER!  Also, if my relationship with A evolves into anything like that of the posh couple from Sandwich, I will know that I have won at life.  

Have a peek at this week's shuffly shenanigans:

Mon   - Rest
Tues  - 4 miles + CrossFit
Weds - CrossFit (meant to be a rest day, but this one involved hitting the crap out of a big tyre with a sledgehammer.  No ruddy way I was going to miss that one. Je ne regrette rein).
Thurs - 3 miles
Fri      - 1 mile (yeah, I don't know either.  Maybe I copied the training plan down wrong)
Sat     - Rest
Sun  - Run Like a Ninja + 10 miles.

Today's 10 was bloody lovely!  If spring was a furry animal, I'd be squeezing it.  I love that there's a hint of warmth in the air, but that it's not too hot to do anything in it. Everything's better when the sun's out.  All the greenery goes HD, and people are transformed from miserable wastrels to chirpy beer garden dwellers.  Look how pretty today is!

Not the best of photographs, but you get the picture.  Pun intended.

...At least you can't see the shopping trolley on the bank.  Why are there always trollies in rivers?

I took my time today.  Focused on relaxing and just enjoying myself.  When it got a bit tough, I walked for a while, adjusted my form and carried on my merry way.  It was nice.  Only thing that drove me mad was that my good mood kick-started the jukebox in my brain, making Everything is Awesome by Tegan and Sara (that one off of the Lego Movie) play on a loop in my head.  Enjoyable at first, but by mile 8, I wanted to stick twigs in my ears and wiggle them about in hopes of finding the "off" button.  Here's a short taster of what I endured:

Everything is Awesome - Tegan & Sara feat Lonely Island

Fortunately, my good mood gave me warm, fuzzy feelings to concentrate on too.  The first five miles were spent ambling along Swansea's seafront with a dippy smile on my face as I ruminated about how much I love my city.  I proper loves it, I do.  I had plenty of time as I weaved through other joggers and smiling families to compile a list of why living here makes me silly-face happy.  Here is a shortened version of said list:

1. Is it a city?  Is it the countryside? Oooh...

Swansea is one of those rare cities that strikes a nice balance between urban and rural.  If I want to plonk one foot after the other on concrete, I can mosey on over to SA1 and marvel at the shininess of its buildings.  If I want to feel like I'm in the wilderness, all I have to do is pick a nearby mountain to scramble up.  And have you SEEN the seafront?  We've got beaches, bitches!

2.  DOGS!!

I'm not allowed a dog in my rented house/glorified shoebox.  I'm not allowed a cat either, but we'll keep that one between us, faceless Internet.  Shh.  Fortunately, everyone else around here seems to have at least one dog, so there's always a loveable looking mutt within petting distance.  I'd like to think I'm getting alright at this adult-ing business, but in the presence of a dog, my brain short circuits and turns me back into 4 year old "OHMYGODISTHATADOGGYCANITOUCHIT?!" Becky.  I'm getting better at controlling it, though.  I can usually tone it down to an intensely goo-eyed grin at a passing canine. Until I remember the canine is highly likely to have a human owner attached to it, who is judging me for looking at their dog like I want to steal it.  That's because I do want to steal it.  People can be very perceptive sometimes.

3.  Nothing is far away

Swansea's nightlife is the best example of this.  99.9% of its bars are one one street, making it easy to ping-pong your way down a single stretch of road, where there is inevitably a weary taxi driver with his door open, ready to catch you and return you to your house - the place where your bed lives. 

4.  It's byootiful!

Dylan Thomas put it best, calling Swansea an "ugly, lovely city".  As it modernises, Swansea's quickly becoming much, much less of an uggo.  It's the ugly duckling of cities.  Which, now that I'm typing it, I'm realising is kind of a perfect analogy. Doesn't the ugly duckling turn into a swan?  Swan?  Swansea?

Holy crap, I just blew my own mind.

5.  Students!

I don't care what people say about students.  Students make a city awesome.  If my liver and bank balance could still handle 4 consecutive nights' drinking a week, whilst holding down a part time job (granted, much of my time working in Debenhams' restaurant involved me "going to the fridge to get something" to ease my pounding headaches and nausea) and attending lectures (but only the ones that start after midday), I would do it all over again.  Students make a city busier, more creative and more vibrant.  Plus, I'm pretty sure that without them, there wouldn't be half as many coffee shops,and that would be a goddamn travesty.

Hope you're enjoying the sunshine too today.  I have to go now, as I have been promised a lasagne/mexican food hybrid.  Mmm.  Everything truly is awesome.

...Aww, fuck, it's back in my head! Gettitout, gettitout!!!!

Marathon Training, Week....3!

Lots to talk about this week, and ALL about running, so if any of you lovely readers only like my sillier posts, then just warning you now!  Am ver' excited about repeatedly putting one foot in front of the other today.  Ver' excited indeed.

So!  Fellow running bores (or Running Boars - we could start a band with that name!) Where shall I start?  

Here's a quick little overview of the week I've had running-wise:

Mon - 4 miles (inc track session with Run 4 All)
Tues - CrossFit (hurrah!)
Wed - Rest
Thur - 3 miles
Fri    - 3 miles
Sat   - Rest
Sun  - Run Like A Ninja (explanation to follow) + 9 miles walk/running

Busy, busy week!  Despite the fact that my ankle/calf issue flared up with a vengeance on Monday before track, and  that my knee decided to join the pain party on Thursday because I dared to run down a hill, it's been a pretty successful week.  Today was the icing on top of it.

By Run Like A Ninja, I didn't mean I've started donning a balaclava and jumping out of bushes to surprise people. I don't fancy being arrested. It's the name of a 6 week course that's being run by Outcast Swansea's biggest running enthusiast (and fastest man with a beard I've ever met - to hell with wind resistance!), Owen Pillai. 

I jumped at the chance to attend.  It hadn't occurred to me until very recently that, as with all other sports, there has to be a right and a wrong way to run, even though humans are built for the activity.   In retrospect, it's bizarre how most, if not all runners will happily plod right into it without first being taught basic form.  Like what I did.  From just one hour-long session, I learned there are several things that I've been doing wrong:

• I smack my heels repeatedly on the floor as I go.  I'm surprised my ankles made it this far before crying out for help.  Poor, sad ankles!
• I slouch.  In a bid to make running easier on myself, I try to "relax".  Turns out my "relaxing" translates into hunching my shoulders and gritting my teeth until it's over.  So relaxing!
• I swing my arms here, there and everywhere, like a crap Spiderman, flinging away webs of energy with my arms and torso; energy that could be used elsewhere.  Like, I don't know...in helping my legs to run?

Quite an enlightening hour! Fortunately, I also learned a billion and one things that I could do to improve my running.  Which is good, because otherwise it'd just have been an hour of  

"Wow, that's not running! Hahaha, look how silly you are!" 

Also, our coach isn't a Disney Villain whose joy in life is making recreational athletes cry - so the main focus was on what we could do to help us on our way to becoming superstar ninjas instead.

Here's how much learnin' I got done in one hour.  ONE puny hour!
 
1.  Posture is the most important thing to remember.  Shoulders should be back and down.  Shoulders.  Not knuckles.

2.  Engage your core, otherwise running becomes a weird, energy-losing, floppitty motion.
 
3.  Lean forwards slightly from the ankles.  Running should feel like a controlled fall.  Think Michael Jackson move, not choreography off of Stomp.

4.  To stop losing energy by swinging your arms around like Phoebe off of Friends, keep them in a relaxed 90 degree angle, and keep your wrists loose by holding them skywards like you're being camp and offering someone two packs of Monster Munch (or other delicious crisp of choice. Mmm.  Monster Munch).

The most important and mind-blowing bit of advice I absorbed like a sponge cake (Mmm. Sponge cake.  I really need a snack) was...Tiny fanfare, please!

There is no such thing as jogging.

Whaaaaat?!  What have I been doing this whole time??  It makes sense, though! There is only walking, or running.  If you're being overtaken by pensioners taking their pooch for walkies (what? This doesn't happen to me all the time.  Shut up! You're slow!), then you really need to rethink what you're doing.  

By running that slowly, all you are doing is making walking really ruddy hard for yourself.  As a passionate "jogger" (because I thought it sounded more recreational and less scary than "runner"), this information meant that, if true, I'd have to rethink entire way I train.  I bimble along slowly so that I can get further, but what's been bugging me lately is that it still feels like a colossal effort when I do even that.  I thought lack of fitness was to blame.

I was struggling with this concept, so I decided that the 9 miler I had scheduled after the course was a good time to test it out.  I ran at the speed that my shiny new running posture comfortably allowed, walking whenever it got a bit too gritty, or when my posture started to collapse.  There was a lot of walking.  A metric fuck-ton of walking.  

I covered that 9 miles at a slightly quicker pace than I'd have done if I jogged the whole damn thing.  What the actual eff?!  I'm not saying it was easy - I did struggle a lot.  At one point, I had to bribe myself with the prospect of buying Fruit Pastilles at mile 7 to keep myself going.  They were delicious, thanks.

Difference was, I was struggling from fatigue, as opposed to actual pain.  It's a nice feeling when your muscles are tired in a totally painless kind of way, which is something I rarely get to experience. Especially recently.  My heels, ankles and calves are crying today, but for once, it's with relief that they didn't get yet another nasty battering.

Starting to think that maybe walking sections of this marathon might not be a shabby idea....

See you next week!

Marathon Training Week 2/Galentines Day!

Happy Galentines Day!  Or the closest actual official day to it.... International Women's Day!  Hurrah!  Before I regale you with further tales of my adventures in marathon training, I will share with you some quotes from famous laydees I admire/love/creep on:

"You do it becase the doing of it is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing."

- Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.” 

 - Tina Fey, Bossypants

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

“I’m neither ‘pro-women’ nor ‘anti-men’. I’m just ‘Thumbs up for the six billion”  

- Caitlin Moran (How To Be a Woman)

"One time, I accidentally drank an entire bottle of vinegar.   I thought it was terrible wine."

- Leslie Knope (Parks and Recreation)  

Such wisdom.

...And now to neatly slide down the staircase (on my bottom, of course) from  inspirational women to running - if you have any interest in both, you should read superhero blogger (whose life and running tights I covet) Bangs and a Bun's post about celebrating International Women's Day through movement:

Bangs and a Bun - International Women's Day

Brill read, and it'll make you want to tear your day a new one.  Guaranteed.

Anyhoo, running!  This is what my week looked like:

• Mon   4 miles   
• Tues  Rest 
• Wed   3 miles 
• Thur  3 miles 
• Fri      Rest 
• Sat     7 miles followed by surreal night out in a teeny, uv-lit karaoke booth (I didn't sing.  However, I did attempt to rap a fraction of Eminem's Guess Who's Back before remembering that my accent is far too posh for me to sound like the credible bad ass gangsta rapper I secretly know I am inside.  Biatch.  etc) 
• Sun   Pizza.  Lots of pizza

I know. I'm practically Paula Radcliffe already, aren't I?  Last night was the last booze-fueled one (in theory) I'll have on a Saturday in a good, long while now.  The thought of doing double digit Sunday runs on a hang over makes my guts do a backflip.  Would be the stuff of nightmares.  Serious times from next week onwards! 

Didn't attempt to add any CrossFit into the mix this week because I was just too bloody thrilled to be able to run again now that my ankle is back in action, and I'm enjoying the freedom to be able to shuffle around my neighborhood again, regardless of pace.  Been having fun, but, blimey - I forgot how chuffing uncomfortable running is!

Sounds stupid because I've been doing it for a while now, so the notion of my forgetting how it feels just seems daft, but it really did slip my mind how much mental grit you need at your disposal in order to keep on moving.  

After six weeks of wistfully staring at other people bouncing around in their lycra pants, I was only concentrating on the freeing feelings that come with getting a bit out of puff in the great outdoors.  By "great outdoors", I mean that bit of land with some trees and a pond on it near my house.  I forgot that the biggest thing I get out of exercise is the amazing "fuck yeah!!" feeling of getting through the tougher bits.  The horrible, gritty bits that that add a little to your character every time you knuckle down and get the hell through them.

Yesterday, all was fine and dandy until about mile six when my legs took it upon themselves to turn into actual lead.  The dominating thought I was having was 

"God, I'm going so slow, I must be rubbish at running if I'm struggling at this speed." 

Stupid brain.  After a bit of rest and recalibration (and cider.  More than a bit of cider.  Mmm, cider), I recalled that the struggle in any kind of exercise (or life in general, if you want me to get all deep on you) is kind of the point.  Every time you get through a tough patch, just getting through it is its own reward.  It's your opportunity to remind your body who is in charge, and to find strength in knowing that it's simply not in you to give up at the first sign of discomfort.

I can't wait for my mileage to start creeping up in the coming weeks.  Bring on the aches, bring on the tantrums, and bring on the feelings of accomplishment. 

And the medal.  Obviously.

Also, I very nearly drew a kangaroo with my run tracker yesterday.  So close:

Disclaimer:  An Australian relative I know through Facebook informs me that this looks more like a wallaby.  Whether she is just screwing with me remains to be seen.

Hope you're having a cracking weekend, whatever you're doing!  Word to the wise: Discomfort in exercise is a good thing.  Discomfort in eating pizza is not.  Grit and determination in that case leads only to burps and sadness.  I am living proof of this today.  Oof.