Wednesday Weigh-In - 29 January

After a two week hiatus, the weigh-in is back. Technical difficulties with the bathroom scales have been fixed so it is back to business as usual. It turns out the battery was fine, though I did buy some spares just in case. My best guess is some moisture got into the scales causing them to have a paddy. Now they're working again and so on with the show.

Two weeks ago the scales put me at 14st 3lbs. Today we're a little bit lighter.

On the money

Two weeks of Christmas took me up to 14st 11lbs. Four weeks of relative sensibility got me back down to where I was immediately prior to the festive season. 14st dead is the lightest I've been in my adult life and I vowed when I was here before not to actively diet to achieve further weightloss. I stand by that and now 2014 is all about maintenance.

Had the scales been functioning properly last week I think it would have been a very different reading. I'd been under the weather, not exercising and eating noticeably more. While this week I've not been a saint on the food front, I've had easily the most productive week of exercise in months. I've notched up more than 27km in training for the half marathon (17 miles in old change) which more than takes care of the take out last Thursday night and typical weekend snacking. Judging by the scales this morning, it did more than just that too.

As I ramp up my training to the next level, there is pretty realistic expectation of dipping under 14st. That won't be unwelcome, and will be the first time I've hit that territory since I was a child, but I won't get carried away with it. 14st is a healthy weight for my height. My physique is already starting to look a little silly, with skinny bits surrounded by excess skin from my 24st era. I'm never going to have a well chiselled bod, so no point putting myself through the wringer to try to achieve one. Running may help firm up some areas, but in my case it can't revert nature.

So with my Christmas gut dealt with before January is out, now is time to focus more narrowly on the half marathon. Keep on running and my weight will tick along with minimal intervention. That is the theory, let's see if I can put that into practice.

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I am Karl Pilkington

Tonight I learned a valuable lesson to take forwards with my half marathon training. Essentially I know nothing about running and I am an idiot.

Yes I am

Why do I think this? Well, to date I've been making things up as I go along. A bit of running here, a bit of running there. I've not followed any particular plan or schedule, and have just been getting by on my own instincts. When I wasn't feeling 100 per cent a couple of weeks back, I listened to my body and held off on the training front. So far so good.

On Sunday I ran 10 kilometres. I've never run further, and so by default that was my long run for the week. If you look through simple training plans, such as this one following a long run should come a rest day and then an easy/recovery run. Yesterday I rested. Today I should have been a recovery run. Only I knew better and had greater ambitions. I wanted to raise the bar a bit higher and get up to the 8 mile mark tonight.

I felt pretty fresh and had no ill effects from Sunday's exertions. But it soon became apparent that my body wasn't up to anything challenging this evening. Unfortunately having set out for a long run, this epiphany occurred only after I had run 4 and a half kilometres away from the house. Clearly a ploddy run around the block would have served me better tonight, rather than find myself a long way from home. The journey back was a patchy mix of walking and running. My apps tells me in total I ran just over 7.5km which is still a good workout, but well below what I was aiming for.

So today I've learned that I don't know best. I'm going to formalise my training schedule and listen to the advice of people who know a lot more about this running lark than I do. I've still got 7 and a half weeks to get this right, and I will.

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Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

My blogs on a Sunday night tend to be quite negative affairs. I've usually eaten too much and am feeling a little sorry for myself when I come to write them, and could quite easily have penned an article that maintained form had I got around to writing this earlier. However, unlike previous Sundays, today had a happier ending to report.

Yes I've consumed a hell of a lot more than I would during the week. There has been cheese. There have been bags of crisps. Toast came back into my life and then there was the smaller matter of the roast dinner I cooked for the family this afternoon. I should have felt bloated. I should have beached of the couch tonight. Instead I checked on the weather, felt that my evening meal was far enough down the digestive tract for exercising without nausea, and then pulled on the running gear.

The net result? Well, whereas yesterday I really struggled with the 5k, tonight I ran 10k in 52 and a half minutes. http://www.mapmyrun.com/workout/471158571

This will either set me up well for a couple of well disciplined days ahead of the weigh in on Wednesday, or make me feel like hell. The jury is out on which way it will go but I'm expecting to be a little sore in the morning.

Despite my relative struggle on Saturday morning, it has been good to get running again after the self-imposed break for illness. Since Thursday I've clocked up just under 21km, effectively a half marathon. Sometime between now and 22 March, I've got to pull the three workouts into one and not spread it across different days.

A good way to end the week. Hopefully the next one will be more productive still.

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Saturday Struggle

Following my tongue biting exploits of a couple of days ago, today represented a chance to get things back to normal. Saturday morning means parkrun, and having missed out last week I was raring to go this morning. The overnight rainfall meant the ground was always going to be soft under foot, but it wasn't particularly chilly so I was anticipating a good run.

What I had was a struggle. It became self evident early on that my lungs may have been up for plodding around the estate on Thursday night, but they were not going to play ball at parkrun pace. I could hear me gasping before I reached the 1k marker. Before reaching the 2k, my parkrun acquaintance caught me up, wished me a good morning and I could barely muster words back to him. On reaching 3k I did something I've not done for some time and took a breather slowing to walking pace. 

I absolutely thought I was done. Like a broken steam train I was coughing and spluttering. A fellow runner asked me if I was ok and I assured him I was, but didn't really feel that was the case. I was staring at my first DNF and concerned about the psychological repercussions that may have for the challenges ahead. So I got myself moving again, and decided to make the best of the situation. If I wasn't feeling physically strong, why not turn this into a training session to replicate the latter stages of the half marathon, when I know I will find the going gets tough.

At the 4k post I found myself taking a breather again. The incline at this point on the Black Park course is nothing like as severe as Bradford's teeny tiny hill, but when I've already mentally given in earlier in the race, it stands to reason that I will also slow down for the most difficult part of the circuit. Into the last stretch and I found it difficult to keep pace with a junior female runner. I know when I'm running that I'm not in competition with anybody else, but it isn't great for confidence when overtaken by a little girl.

Yes, I run like a girl

At the finish line came a sense of relief. Things will get easier as my chest and lungs clear up, and I get back into the running groove. I wasn't particularly interested in my finish time but when the text came through I was rather surprised at it's respectability. 24.29 is by no means a poor effort (my PB is 23.46) so with two breathers and some lingering germs factored in, this was a good run. It just really didn't feel like it at the time!

If the chance permits, I'll get out again on Sunday for a more leisurely if longer run to build up stamina and put distance back into my legs. I felt no ill effect from my Thursday night plod around the estate so something at a similar pace should do no harm. 

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Only Smarties Have The Answer

I sometimes think how good it must be to be in advertising. I don't necessarily mean chain smoking, adulterous head cases like Don Draper, but more the fruit of labours of advertising types. Whoever came up with the concept of being a Secret Lemonade Drinker must chortle that R Whites continue to use that line when promoting their goods all these years later.

Smarties British Candy (Photo credit: fritish)

As a child I was always taken by the Smarties slogan, 'Only Smarties Have The Answer.' It was never a product that needed clever advertising, after all, how many children aren't going to love brightly coloured chocolate? Looking back now as an adult, I do wonder about the tagline and what it actually means. If Smarties have the answer, what on earth is the question?

Well, I think I may have discovered this yesterday evening. Rather shamefully I grabbed a handful from my son's Christmas stash, and proceeded to eat them. Except karma redressed the balance of me pinching chocolate by causing me to not just chew through the crisp outer coating, but also to thrust my teeth into my tongue, leaving me a bloodied mess. The great Smarties question apparently then goes something along the line of What is the most ridiculous way to demonstrate to diet blog readers that eating chocolate is bad for you?

The single most attractive selfie ever?

Speaking of teeth, it has been an interesting week for my youngest. Over the last 7 days he has acquired three teeth to offer company to his solitary incisor that pushed through in late October. All mums and dads reading this will know about the side effects of teething, and I hope will be sympathetic to how the past week has been for my household. It has been great fun scrubbing vomit from his clothes night after night. Yesterday I got a face-full of petit filous for my trouble after a pre-bedtime coughing fit. Fortunately we've got through today minus any sickness so hopefully that is the end of the teething for now.

Having felt like a tool for my Smarties exploits, and smelling delightfully of baby puke, I decided I needed to do something positive and so after a 10 day break from running dusted off my trainers. Conscious that my lungs were still not clear of gunk I didn't stray too far from the house. I managed five and a half kilometres in a very respectable 27 minutes and suffered no ill effect. Back to parkrun for me then on Saturday morning and maybe a longer run on Sunday.

After learning my lesson about chocolate, the reward for running was delivered pizza, which from a diet perspective didn't make much sense. However, if I am going to indulge in a takeout once in a while, it may as well be on a day when I've worked for it.

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Wednesday Weigh-In 22 January

It has been just over a week since I last ran. Whatever germs took over my body at the weekend seem to have drained away, though I've been left with a residual cough that has hampered my ambitions for evening exercise. With any luck I'll be able to pound the mean streets of Slough in the next day or two, but my inactivity over the past week has been incredibly frustrating.

Diet wise, I'm at a bit of a loss to know how things have progressed over the past 7 days. Whilst feeling rough I ate more than I normally would. Regaining familiarity with toast is a dangerous development, as I could quite easily polish off half a loaf is so inclined. Good job there is no marmite in the house otherwise it would be a full loaf!

I feel bad for making Bart write my lines for me

So my weight this Wednesday morning is......... a bit of a Scooby Doo mystery. The scales weren't playing ball this morning, refusing to reset to zero. I couldn't find a spare battery, although I know I have one lying around somewhere. I'm sure it wasn't that long ago I put a new one into the scales so I'm a little baffled why they weren't working today. My instinct tell me I may have gained a pound or two, but equally having been off form and fighting off whatever lurgies were bothering me, I could have gone the other way.

Wednesday Weigh-In - Brought to you by Subtitles

So no running. No recorded weight. Lots of coughing and the small matter of 2 months to go until my half-marathon. I'm not sure I can have to many more weeks like this if I want to achieve my goals.

Twiddling my thumbs isn't much fun

It has been a frustrating few days. Having felt rough most of Thursday I thought I was on the mend on Friday and hopeful of getting a long run in over the weekend. Instead, I woke Saturday morning barely able to get out of bed. I'd already agreed not to do parkrun because of my wife's work commitment, but even if I had been able to go there was no chance I'd have made it. Thankfully the boys obliged in letting me have a quiet day.

By Sunday I was feeling a touch more human and looked through the window at the winter sunshine longingly. Despite not being at my best I weighed up the choice to run or not. When I reached a decision to give it a go, I quickly realised my limitations. Walking up the stairs to grab my running gear resulted in a coughing fit so violent that I would not have been surprised to find a piece of lung in my hand afterwards. Wisely, I stayed put.

Today I've been to work and felt ten times better than at any point over the weekend. I wanted to run, and probably could have managed a short distance, but in doing so the likelihood is I would have set myself back further. With 2 months to go until the half marathon, as much as I want to get out there building up stamina, I can't afford a week in bed through forcing my body into oblivion.

A restful night this evening and all being well I'll resume training tomorrow. Twiddling my thumbs isn't much fun, but the bigger picture requires me fighting fit.

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Step Away From The Rabbit Food

Today I took my youngest to see his neurosurgeon. 11 months into his life and many, many medical appointments later, this shouldn't have felt particularly out of the ordinary. But this morning as we fought through commuter traffic to get into London, something was different. I felt rotten and the last place I wanted to be was crawling through the roadworks on Hammersmith Flyover.

Needs must though. As a parent you have to do what is right for your children, and while this always promised to be a routine appointment, there was a never a thought about cancelling. True to form, the appointment barely lasted 10 minutes, which after an hour and a half journey into town, hour of waiting and more than an hour of journey home seems like an awful lot of effort for very little reward. Fact is, a short session with a neuro is a positive outcome, and so we continue to get on with our lives until the next time.

By the time I got to work, I was feeling worse. My body felt fatigued, perhaps a delayed reaction to my run on Tuesday night. A chesty cough troubled me from time to time and I found it difficult to concentrate at my desk. It rapidly became clear that this was not going to be a day for the diet and I needed to step away from the rabbit food. I had plenty of sugary pick-me-ups and got through the afternoon before getting back into dad mode.

It is important when dieting to recognise when to put things on hold. If feeling under the weather, your body needs to heal and that may mean dosing up on comfort food. The best way to achieve weight loss is taking a long term view, so a little bit of sugar in the short term to help get over temporary ailments isn't going to hurt.

Today I could justify chunky KitKats and the like, but I'll be back on form again soon.

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Wednesday Weigh-In - 15 January

It appears that I didn't need to leap back in time to make amends for my weekend consumption. I just needed to get off my backside and go for a lengthy run. Last week the scales had me at 14st 4lb. This morning I'm weighing slightly less. Maybe it is time for me to become less hysterical after some bad days and focus instead on the majority of the week when I am a lot more disciplined.

Apparently I should feast on chocolate more often

Of course it could be considered cheating to go for a near 10k run the night before a weigh-in, but then my focus at the moment is more about fitness to ensure I'm ready for the half marathon in March. There will be a lot more midweek runs like this in the next couple of months so it stands to reason that I’ll need to upscale my fuel to ensure I've got the energy to do so. I guess I just need to find that balance of enjoying a little often, rather gorging a lot on occasion.

I expected to feel pretty dreadful today but my body has reacted well to last night’s exertions. A few simple stretches and a good night’s sleep seem to have done wonders. I’ll probably pay for it later on today but it is reassuring to know that not only can I go for longer runs, but that it isn't physically to my detriment.

This morning when I was getting ready for work, I could help but raise a smile when Spotify gave me ‘The Distance’ as the first song on a playlist. Either there is some very clever analytics work going on, or this was a complete coincidence.

With a colleague retiring today, I'm expecting to see quite a lot of cake in front of me. I'll enjoy some of that and will do so guilt free.

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Going The Distance

Tonight I've had a bit of a psychological breakthrough in regards to my half marathon training. I'm not afraid to admit that up until this point I've been feeling a little nervous about how far I'll have to go. I've become comfortable doing 5km but the thought of doing that four times back to back with a sprint finish on top has filled me with dread.

Last September I competed in a 10k run, coming home in a respectable 56.38 but a fair chunk of that race was covered at walking pace, most notably that blimming great hill in the middle of the golf course. I wasn't fit enough to run the entire race and in the four months since I've not gone beyond my comfort of a Saturday morning 5k. With the half marathon just over two months away, I had to get out there and get some distance into my legs.

The problem is as a working dad, time is a precious commodity. It is unrealistic for me to run first thing in the morning as I need to get my youngest up and ready for nursery before getting his big brother ready for school. My lunch breaks are now restricted by the fact that I'm making up time that I lose first thing, due to not being able to leave the school gates until 8.40 at the earliest. After work I get home, get the boys fed, bathed and ready for bed. After that, I cook for my wife, who has a much more stressful day than I do, and then my choice is to eat at the same time or pull on the running gear.

So many reasons exist not to go out in the evenings. Fatigue. Hunger. The weather hasn't been entirely helpful for my motivation of late, though I have made it out a couple of times for half hearted efforts. Last night I hoped to run but the rain arrived and drowned my good intentions. Tonight, with clear skies above me I left my excuses at home.

To mix things up, I made a change from my usual route. Going past all those take away outlets was getting a little old, plus a new direction meant I would be unaware of how far I had run. My mind tends to play tricks on me when I see distance markers, even at the parkrun, meaning I suddenly feel weary or notice an ache or pain that wasn't there before. Running blind tonight meant that didn't happen. And when I got back to my driveway I stopped my app to be informed I had managed this.

Boo-ya!

Just under 10k in 52:30. Had I known I was at that sort of distance I'm sure I would have found an extra 100 metres on my way home just to take it up to a nice round figure! Still, I'm feeling pretty darn satisfied this evening. If I can do this on a cold Tuesday night after the little one kindly provided me with a broken night's sleep, then maybe this half marathon business isn't quite as scary as I had been thinking.

13 miles. 21 kilometres. This guy is starting to believe he is going the distance.

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