Since we currently have no race coming up soon (well apart from one 15k trail run that is) there is no real need to work out for 8-10 hours a week as would of been the case had I been training for the Ironman (well and the rest tbh).

So this week I only did 6 hours training which weirdly feels on the light side now. You definitely notice the difference; I don’t feel tired enough today. Still I should savour these moments really, since I normally reach Sunday afternoon completely wiped out and stuffing my face with flapjacks.

The 6 hours of training were all super fun hours, however. I spent just over an hour on the turbo which was great as I hadn’t been on it for a while so it felt like a novelty again. I managed an hour of physio/strength work (generally core) which I enjoyed as my shoulder is now recovering from the rotator cuff injury and I’m allowed to do press ups again woohoo. Having said that I do mean baby/girly press ups and I can only do 10 but you have to start somewhere so I was still thrilled 😆.

I went swimming for the first time in half a year! It was also the first outdoor swim in over a year. I felt quite nervous and excited about it. I used to, and still do love outdoor swimming but there is something slightly uneasy about swimming out into a lake when there is hardly anyone in it and you cant see the next buoy. My prescription goggles have broken so I had to wear normal ones and even though the buoys are huge orange things I genuinely cant see them that well when I’m initially setting off from the last one. Unbelievable I know!

I started off drafting off my husband as it gave me a chance to be pulled along and take it easy at first (its a bit like drafting on a bike); it also made me feel safe as I only had to follow his legs so if there was some kind of evil creature in the murky water it was going to get him first 😆.

After the second buoy I pulled away and felt confident enough to carry on alone but promptly then stopped at the third buoy as I couldn’t see where to go next. Chris caught up with me and his friend also came zooming past and Chris shouted follow him! Well his mate was a bit too fast for me but he was usefully towing one of those orange float things behind him (I think people put there possessions in them). So I followed the moving orange blob in the water until I had to then return to the jetty whilst both his mate (and Chris) carried on to do further loops.

Unfortunately my physio had said only do 100metres at first and build up. Naturally I did 600 metres and will do more next time (well the loop is 600m so what was I supposed to do?). Anyway my shoulder is fine 👏 and Im very excited about doing more next time and rebuilding my swimming.

I find swimming, particularly outdoor swimming so very relaxing. I need to work on my sighting though. When you swim in open water you have to lift your head slightly out of the water (crocodile eyes they call it) in order to see where you are going (well this is for people who can see 😆) and then you turn your head to the side to breathe and continue with your front crawl. This looking up and taking a breath to the side is ideally done in one smooth flowing movement. I haven’t done this for a year so I guess I was lifting my head too high as the muscles in my neck were really tight and sore afterwards.

I have got my weekly running mileage up to 31k now. It’s not much for most runners but I’m building it up slowly to avoid injury and I should now be able to add 10% to this amount every 3 weeks out of 4 (in week 4 I’ll drop it back a little to recover).

18.5k of this was done today on a beautiful trail run. Unfortunately my husband is poorly so couldn’t come after all which was not only a shame but also he had planned the route. Following advice from him I set off to do 50% of the planned route and then diverted off half way through to do my own route on the return leg. I passed through an area called the Roman Lakes. I’ve never run there before and it’s really lovely and he was in fact right when he said it was easy to follow the signs and you cant get lost. Initially when he said this I was thinking but yeah I can get lost in Marks and Spencers so…….you know I’m pretty useless with directions 😆. Honestly, though, even I couldn’t get lost on this route. I included some canal running on the way out and back and then finished off by running up Werneth Low and down again. It was very muddy and a lot of fun.

I’m a training plan whore – I love writing training plans! No seriously I really love it! Once I know I’ve signed up to an event, my palms get sweaty at the mere thought that I will soon be able to start designing my training plan. Why o why would you love that I hear you say? I’m not sure, maybe I’m a planning nerd, maybe its motivating for me, if I set it out I know I’m going to do it or maybe it just makes whatever madcap dream I now have feel realisable. Whatever it is, it feels like the starting point of a new adventure to me.

I’ve written quite a few plans now and would consider myself reasonably good at it 😆. I will generally start by looking online or in books for ready made plans and then change it to suit me, my strengths and weaknesses, my available time and finally build in lots of buffer weeks* to allow for injury/getting ill/holidays. It’s also essential to be mindful it has to be as flexible as a Yogi in a Ashtanga class, as you will never be able to stick to it religiously all of the time and it would be like watching paint dry to do so. Mind you being a spreadsheet nerd, flexing it about is half the fun for me 😆.

*Buffer Weeks: If the set training plan is 20 weeks I’ll make mine 24 weeks. I generally add 4 weeks but might add more if the training plan is longer. I insert buffer weeks at intervals or keep them spare on the side (as you wish). If you don’t need to use them then just do week 5 (for example) twice. If you are poorly and cant do anything for a week but weep under your duvet about missing your training then hey presto use a buffer week or two, do some easy training in the second week and then go back to your training plan thereafter. In this way you are not going back to something that has moved on too much from before and thus you don’t risk making yourself ill again by getting back into it too soon. So thats my buffer theory, adopt it or not as you will, but its a useful tool option in the planners box.

So this last year I was working my way through Lorna’s Ironman plan which was loosely based on the Fink competitive plan as a starting point but I switched it up to include more strength work, more cycling and less swimming as this meant I would spend more time working on my weakest areas. There is simply no need for me to swim for 3 hours a week. The marginal gain of 10 minutes on the swim isn’t worth it. When it comes to the bike, however, additional TITS and I’ll cut my Ironman bike ride by 30-45 minutes, possibly more.

I’ve also learnt that I can make a big step up in my swimming/cycling mileage without running the risk of ending up on someone’s physio table whining about aches and pains. Running, however, is SO different for me. If I miss a run or increase my running by more than 5-10% volume per week my Achilles, hip, back or some other new part of me with a long name I never heard of before will say hey ‘what the hell are you doing?’ and stop me in my tracks.

I realise not everyone is like this (my husband can run 10 miles in one week, 20 in the next with nothing more than tired legs – not an injury in sight) and I envy that but for me I stick to this rule like a fruit fly in honey. Experience has taught me if I ignore this and go oh I’ll be fine I’ll just do this extra 5 miles; I’ll end up bathing my feet in ice, booking in for a massage and moaning yet again that I didn’t listen to my own advice 😝.

The odd thing is missing running and going back to it suddenly can be just as detrimental to me as doing too much. It’s as if my feet/ankles say “hey I thought you’d stopped this prancing uphills lark? You are not in fact the hoppity skippity mountain goat you’d like to think you are, chill your boots please.”

I’m hoping in the future to increase my running days to 4/5 days week as not only will this be the minimal requirement for Ultra training (we can’t all just slide in on a shrimp sandwich – Swedish saying for having things given to you without working for them) but I believe it may also help reduce injury for me. Ironically I believe that more constant motion will make my body adapt and be less ‘shocked’ or seen another way spread the heavy weekly mileage over more days. This is the theory I’ll let you know how it pans out 🤔. Ice buckets at the ready…

Since I’ve now decided that next year will be the year of Ultras but I still want to do the Olympic triathlon I signed up to; I will need to come up with a new plan that focuses on trail running and building up my running miles. However, I will need to balance this with the need to don my wetsuit and go Buoy dodging occasionally as well as keep up my cycling without the risk of burnout. This may be a tricky balance but I look forward to the challenge of planning it. I am giddy with excitement already, bring me my spreadsheet, a mug of tea and some chocolate digestives; I’m ready…. 😁👏.

A positive week. My shoulder having taken a few steps back last week has been playing ball again and allowing me to do the physio once again. I still feel a long way off lifting more than 1kg but I guess rotator cuffs take a while to recover (who knew).

I got out for 3 decent runs this week culminating in a long and hilly trail on Saturday with hubby. This was great fun despite my puffing and blowing going uphill (more to do with the humidity than anything else). Having also bought myself a new running backpack I was able to go out and test this. It’s great. It doesn’t move up and down, it’s easy to sip water whilst running and I had absolutely no chafing. Oh and the bonus is thats another bucket list item ticked off 😁.

I got the Salomon backpack on recommendation after asking a number of other runners. This one is the Adv Skin 12l (12l). I didn’t get a bladder with it but tbh I’m not overly keen on them. I prefer to drink out of bottles and top up where possible. You can get one to put in though. There are plenty of pockets and I had snacks and my phone in front pockets which were easy to get out. The bottles are soft squeeze bottles and you can pull it towards your mouth and squeeze it to take a drink without craning your neck. This is a completely different experience to the one I had a few years ago for the Lakeland Ultra, where I had to practically dislocate my shoulder to reach for a drink tucked into the side of the pack 😆.

Cycling wise other than the turbo earlier in the week I only got one ride outside and that was today. A lovely 65k around Cheshire which included zooming up the Brickworks and down Blaze Hill. Strava tells me I’m trending faster which is great to know. Getting faster on the bike is a long slow process (I’m talking years) so its a real point of mental celebration for me when I see I’m getting better.

In other news I’ve listened to two more albums on the Rolling Stones top 100 albums list. Dusty Springfield ‘Dusty in Memphis’ and Johnny Cash ‘The Wall – Live at Folsom State Prison’. Both are ace and I’ve saved a number of these songs onto my Spotify now.

I’m reading a new book which I’m loving. It’s called Downhill from here and its about a guy that ran from John O Groats to Lands End. It’s very well written and very honest. He initially wanted to run the full length off road in just a month and prebooked all his accommodation on this assumption. He quickly had to rethink this and realised it would take longer so cancelled all his bookings and just made them as he went along instead. Not sure how long he took at this point as I’ve not finished yet. Worth a read though.

So last week I did my first Fitness based interview and added this to my weekly blog. I’ve now got a number of interviews lined up and have decided to do a week of these so should be releasing these daily starting Monday, so look out for those if you are interested. I’ve got people who are into running, dancing, walking, Ultras, fitness classes and everything in between.

The problem with writing a blog is it changes you from someone who is allergic to cameras and runs away at the slightest sound of a ‘click’ nearby into someone who is constantly asking other people to take photos of you. “Oh this would be great for my blog, would you take my photo pweaseeee”.

So this week I thought I’d give everyone a break from ‘me’ and draw all my activities instead.

Tuesday was a day off work for me so hubby and I went on a long bike ride. My first 100k for quite a while. It was a lovely ride in the sunshine and I felt so good I went off quite fast at the start.

In the afternoon our PT came over and we had gym workout fun in the garden. At the moment I cant do much in the way of arm workouts as I’m recovering from a rotator cuff injury (which is hopefully minor). So our lovely PT works around this and gives us different things to do. Below we were working, together, however, doing a hard core workout and squats.

Later on Tuesday In the evening I had a lovely time with my friends in our garden. I’ve decided to have a no alcohol month which started on Monday so I was on coffee and tea as were some of my mates. One friend brought orange flavoured tonic water which was surprisingly nice.

On Thursday I ran the hilly 4 mile trail route with my son, up Werneth Low and down again. My achilles felt fine and seems to be recovered woohoo.

On Friday and again today I cycled on some local hills. Today’s ride was a repeat of an up and over loop I like to do and I got a PB reducing my time to below 55 minutes whoop 😀

Saturday was my long run and I did a slow 8 miler which I really enjoyed.

Today following my hilly ride and before another shorter run I went for a lovely walk with hubby around the local park and then into our local village for a coffee stop.

Since there is only so much stick men drawing a person can do, I maybe back next week asking my husband to take my photo… pweaseeee

As always Monday was my rest day. This was also my first day back in the office in a long time. I was really quite excited and it felt good to go in. Our offices/Company are involved in key equipment in relation to the Covid crisis so the reception has already been set up with gloves/masks, temperature control etc for some time. Although I was not only 2 metres away but more like 12 metres away from another living person for most of the day it was still a nice change from home working.

Tuesday

I went for my usual run on Tuesday. After having some Achilles issues recently I decided to do a relatively flat 4 mile run (equates to undulating around here). It was one of those lovely I feel great days where you go faster and feel amazing. I LOVE those days 😄. On my return I made my usual smoothie but this time I made one that resembled something from ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’.

Wednesday

I decided to go out for my bike ride rather than turbo, since the weather was so lovely. I did my usual ‘up and over’ as I call it as its a very pretty hilly but not too steep hilly route which essentially goes up and then down and can be done in under an hour.

Thursday

Run day again and I decided to do my four miles at a slower rate and keep within Z2 heart rate zone. It is deemed beneficial to do the majority of your training (80%) in Z2 when you are training for long distance events and a its also believed that even for shorter events its better to do a really slow run and then a really fast run or intervals rather than doing everything at an intermediate pace (a one pace pony stays a one pace pony). There are 4 heart rate zones and each one represents a certain % of your maximum heart rate. Theoretically your maximum heart rate is approx. 220 less your age. This would put mine around 169. In reality mine is closer to 190 so the theory doesn’t take into account fitness and genetics. So Z2 for me means keeping my heart rate under 140. Sounds easy but I nearly always go over this when running. Finally on Thursday I found that golden pace and got my heart rate down (woohoo!). This is exciting for me as its also then the pace I should aim for in an Ironman marathon (assuming I had any legs left).

Friday

I repeated my up and over route on the bike but this time I tightened my cleats before setting off. What a difference! If it hadn’t been for the loud clicking noises on my bike and unbelievable bad luck with every traffic light, parked lorries, people stepping out etc. I would of got a PB on my route (next time). On getting home I asked my husband about the clicking noise, convinced it had something to do with my left pedal/cleat. After much riding up and down the road with my foot in and out of the pedal, my husband points out that the pedal is simply banging on my bicycle pump with every turn. Aghghgh. Needless to say I felt really silly 😝.

Later on Friday we had our personal training session in the back garden.

Saturday

For the first time in weeks I decided I would do my long run (8 miles) as flat as possible. The only way to do that around here is to run down by the canal so I was up early to avoid having to run near too many people.

First order of the day was roll out those calves to avoid further Achilles issues.

On the way around I decided to practice taking running selfies using the timer on my phone. My initial photos were pretty bad….

Later on I got a bit better at it

Sunday

Today we went on a 50 mile bike ride. It’s the furthest I’ve been in quite a while but it was also out on the flat plains on Cheshire. It occurred to me its been a while since I’ve done a flat ride and it felt so easy and speedy compared to doing the hilly rides around here. I got a lot of personal bests en route so clearly tighter cleats and practicing on hilly routes makes you faster. Also (and I take no credit for this amusing anecdote) but apparently TITS make you faster too (a fellow blogger was debating this issue in a very witty blog she wrote). Yes indeed the greater the TITS the more you can improve speed. I had to ask what this stood for, apparently it’s Time In The Saddle (ahhhhhh).

This week was better and a few conversations with lovely people and I found mojo again. I also started rereading some inspiring running books. This week I reread ‘The Clock Keeps Ticking’ by Sharon Gayter. She is an amazing Ultra runner and the book is well worth a read.

Monday

This is my rest day so I didn’t do any sport but I did try on the new cycling socks that hubby bought me. They should look better on when I’m wearing cycling shorts rather than jeans 🤔

Tuesday

Went for a 4 mile hilly trail run with hubby. The weather was lovely and it was a fairly fast pace of 6.17/km (for me).

Wednesday

Turboed for just 35 minutes as at this point the pedal came off (again). It was stuck to my shoe. We have since bought a new pedal and fixed this problem.

Thursday

Ran with my son to the pharmacy. Just a 2 mile slow paced run as my legs were very tired.

Just realised I got Tuesday and Thursday the wrong way round…..

Friday

Did another cycling turbo workout at home for 45 minutes and then had a really tough workout session with our PT. I still find HIIT hard as most of what I do is endurance or strength work at lower HR. My legs have been tired all weekend after this but in a good way.

Saturday

We were supposed to go out on a long bike ride but I woke up feeling shattered. Not sure if it was hay fever or the booze from the previous evening, maybe both. So decided to go on the turbo yet again. Managed an hour this time and felt great. Amazing what a difference a new pedal makes.

Sunday

Went for a lovely (hard) 7 mile trail run with my son. There was one spot of walking as he got a stitch but otherwise he did really well and definitely has the running bug now. My stepson has started running with the couch to 5k. Once he is running a few miles perhaps we can all go on a trail run as a family, something nice to do post lockdown perhaps.

Monday

We did our weekly workout with our fabulous personal trainer Emma from Peak Trails Physical Training. Even though training is currently done via Zoom she is so full of energy you still get that encouragement you need from a PT.

Tuesday

Hubby took me for a run on the trails/in the hills. It was a five miler and beautiful all the way. I did start to notice an old Achilles injury biting a little on the uphills (damn that long run on Sunday).

Wednesday

Felt shattered on Wednesday and got off the turbo after just 20 minutes. Sometimes you just need to rest. So I did some yoga as it helps to stretch out and it was beautiful outside which helps.

Thursday and Friday

I took two full rest days. My left shoulder and my legs have been a bit sore and tired all week so seemed the best thing to do.

Saturday

Having signed up to the VR6 (virtual Olympic distance tri or rather version there of which is 3k run, 40k bike and 10k run over a weekend) I set off for my 3k run in the morning. Went pretty well and was pleased with my 15.53 time given that nothing here locally is flat. After that I had intended to sprint out fully on the 40k (done inside on the turbo) but a) it was too hot, b) my legs were gone and c) I didn’t pick the flattest route on Zwift. It was sadly one of those workouts where you just try to get to the end rather than go fast. I did it in 1 hr 16 which I was quite disappointed with, ah well another day and all that.

Sunday

Hubby set off on his 3k run to do the VR6 and came home and got on the turbo around the time I set off to do my 10k run. It went better than expected and although way off a PB I actually thought I might be even slower so was happy with my 57 minutes.

Overall currently 34th out of 186 in age/gender category but the results wont finish coming in until midnight. Hubby is currently 120th out of 716, totally awesome.

In other news:

I sent off an article to Ultrarunning World online magazine. I was very excited to be asked to do this a few weeks ago and I cant wait to see it in the finished magazine.

I used an ironing board for the first time in …..oh wait, I cant actually remember. In fact until a few months ago we didn’t own one. Those that know me well will know what an unprecedented moment this is!