2017 - February update

"I'm only actually moving around for LESS than 7 hours a day!"

So February ended with more of a whimper than a flourish as I didn't manage to get out and do any exercise in the last couple of days due to the amount of work I had on. The last weekend in the month saw Ali and I complete our first event of the year (a night run in Bristol - read the review here), and then I managed to get us out for a Sunday morning jog to try and stretch out the legs, although some legs were more willing to be stretched than others!!

Events

Our event calendar is slowly (alright, quite quickly) filling up with dates of various runs, mud events and triathlons for the year - with one event already done, Ali is off doing a mud run this weekend and has at least one event planned for each month throughout 2017! I'm a little less packed out with these events (I'd quite like to go fishing and watch the rugby as well!!), but have planned to take part in a summer series of evening triathlons near home, I just need to get on and book it now (and then make sure that I can still swim at least that distance required!).

We're both already booked into four Endurance Life Coastal Trail Series events before the end of the year in Exmoor, Gower, West Sussex and Dorset, but I'll leave the details of those for another post - let's just say we haven't eased ourselves in gently!

The majority of any exercise thus month has been running, as usual, as it's so much easier to go with the dogs and is able to fit in quickly around the amount of other stuff we always seem to be doing! We did, however, manage to get out on the bikes this month, and popped along the towpath of the canal, with dogs and all! If you haven't seen the video of Ali getting towed along by the dogs them head over to the video via this link and have a little look! I've got to admit that I wasn't too keen on having them on the lead on my bike but it certainly tired then put a lot quicker than a normal run - apparently 12 miles at doggie running pace is the way to make sure that both of them sleep well for the remainder of the afternoon...!

I've also had (and I still have as I haven't had time to sort it out yet) a slight problem with damp (and so mould) on my road bike (video here)... After a couple of posts on some Facebook groups the useful comments were to wipe it down, maybe give it a bit of a scrub, and then ride the **** out of it..! Whilst it would be nice to be able to follow the other comments (and Velominati rule) of just getting a new bike (because the ideal number of bikes is n+1!) I'm not in a fortunate enough position to be able to do that! :-( Hopefully, I'll get a bit of time over the next few weekends where the weather is nice enough to be able to clean the bike sensibly, let it dry and then get out and give it a good ride.

Health

Now being an accountant there was no way that I was going to go through these monthly updates without getting a few stats in! As I said in my 2017 plans post I got a Fitbit at the start of the year and so have been able to track steps, activities and sleep on that and so know when I'm hitting my targets and when I'm not! I've actually managed to hit my daily step count of 6,000 steps 52 out of 56 days this year, and am pretty sure that it was actually 53 days but forgot to put the watch on one morning so missed out a whole day! :-(

So far this year I've taken nearly 640,000 steps, which equates to over 535 miles (the distance between London and Randers in Denmark - as the crow flies!) meaning that on average I'm travelling over 9 miles a day (or taking just over 10,000 steps). You'd have thought with that amount of steps throughout the day I would be moving pretty constantly during the day, however, this doesn't seem the case - apparently, I'm spending over 17 hours a day either sitting still or asleep!! Therefore I'm only actually moving around for LESS than 7 hours a day! At least, moving on my feet so that my watch picks up that I'm moving (I'm not actually just dozing at my desk at work!)

One thing that I'm really proud of both Ali and I doing this month is keeping to our meal plans for the majority of days - if you missed the photo on the 2017 plans post then have a look here, but it's basically a two week plan of our evening meals meaning that we should be eating better and saving money at the same time as we're not having to constantly pop to the shops on the way home to pick up some food as we forgot to get ingredients out of the freezer! Most of the meals have been enjoyed, although we have now swapped out the smoked fish, new potato and beetroot salad because Ali managed to have it for a couple of weeks before admitting that it wasn't her favourite dish of the fortnight (which is fair enough considering she doesn't particularly like fish or beetroot!)

Lunches and breakfasts have been much better than last year as well, with a bit of pre-planning and bulk cooking meaning that the lunchtime shopping spend has decreased quite a bit for me, and the baked and sweet potatoes with a variety of toppings have kept me full for the rest of the day so not so much snacking during the working day… Another thing that I've been working on are homemade Nked bars, and I think I've got the Cocoa and Orange ones nailed! After seeing one version of the recipe online I gave it a go, tweaked a few things to make it taste as I wanted, and have been rolling out a batch each week. I'm going to write up the recipe and post it on here during the next month or so, so keep your eyes peeled for it!

Blogging

So one of the things I said I was going to do was to only write additional posts when I felt I had something to add, or if I felt strongly about that particular subject and wearing a helmet is one of those such subjects - if you haven't read my post on helmets and why I think people should then click here to go and view it. There was one thing that I didn't put into the piece - one reason was that I forgot about it (so it's a subconscious reasoning that drove me to write the piece), and the other was whether I actually wanted to write it...

I have a permanent reminder of why a helmet is a potential lifesaver - the scars across my knuckles mean I don't forget a bike ride out over 10 years ago - going down a steep hill and getting the handlebar shakes, slamming on the brakes and finding it was all gravel, and then doing the following 10 metres on my knuckles and the front of my helmet all down the asphalt! The overhanging couple of inches on the front of the helmet had been worn back by the time I had stopped, and it was going to be my face that met the ground next. I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have the helmet there would be plenty more scars in worse places, but I'm also counting myself lucky with it!

I've also managed to make sure that I write the first monthly update post (you're reading it right now!) so I'm counting this as a success, and so should you if you've got down this far! Thanks for sticking with me!

The one thing that I haven't managed to do this month is put together any video blog pieces - I was going to put up a video of one of the runs that I did with the dogs the other day, however when watching it back it made me realise quite how much I lope along when out running and the whole experience made me feel a little seasick! By the looks of it, the video footage is going to be a more long-term thing and will be more of a montage of different events rather than individual runs. Saying that I think I'll be taking the camera along to the Coastal Trail Series events, and trying to get a bit of the footage before, during and after the race so each one of those might have a video to go with it, and when I'm along supporting Ali at any of the events that I don't do I'll be taking at least one of the cameras then and getting as much footage as possible (with a couple of dogs in tow!)

'til next time

One Life - Liv 4 It, Love It

Rob 

Back 2 Black 2017 - Event review

"They are only puddles, just run through them!"

That's the first event of the season well and truly done, and I have to say it was rather enjoyable! Taking on a night run as the first race was a little daunting at first because of the mass start in the dark, but it was a laugh especially when one of the guys behind claimed he was going to follow me because I 'looked like I knew what I was doing!'

One of the errors I'd made in the build-up to the race was not buying a new headtorch, something that Ali had not been so slack in doing (although that was partially because her old one had given up the ghost and so she definitely needed a new one). Mine gave out such a pitiful light that when there was no one around I was struggling to see anything! Lucky for me the first mile and a half was spent running with a lot of people around so I was using all their lights instead! When we both passed the final couple of people who we'd been running behind I was certainly glad of Ali's super-bright torch and made sure that I was ahead to be able to see where all the roots and rocks were sticking up amongst the mud!

The event was held in Leigh Woods in Bristol and was all around the various footpaths and cycle routes in the woods, all nicely signed with reflective arrows and the odd flashing red light so that you knew there was a turn coming up. There were quite a few marshals around the course, although it was a bit weird as we'd been warned during the briefing of one particular area that was slippery and potentially dangerous due to the rocks we had to navigate down for five metres or so - yet there was no marshal at that point checking that people were getting down there ok!! Lucky for everyone there was a gate at the top of this section so meant that we all had to slow down anyway, and everyone was also making sure that all those around got down the section ok.

One of the amusing things was when we got to the first set of muddy puddles (about 300 metres into the run) and a large number of people seemed to slow and try and go round the puddle so not to get muddy or wet!! Ali and I, on the other hand, ploughed straight through the middle of them (much to the slight disappointment of the marshal who was stood just the other side of the water, who I heard voice his disappointment of his positioning when I accidentally gave his lower leg a bit of a soaking!) My thoughts were the fact that we were going to end up pretty soggy and covered in a decent amount of mud anyway, and as they are only puddles just run through them! The first lap of the woods passed pretty quickly, especially as we were all still in the middle of the group from the mass start, but as we climbed back up the hill to the carpark it was clear that a few people hadn't quite banked on this hill or had gone out a little fast from the blocks when we passed them whilst they were walking. A short stretch of car park/road later and we were back into the woods and mud again ready to take the second lap of the woods.

Lap 2 is where it was a load of fun - plenty of mud (some of it a bit deeper than first thought - see the state of our trainers!) and a nice rolling terrain which allowed for a nice little bit of time to cool off between the inclines. Because we'd decided to do the 5km route it meant that we were able to push ourselves a bit more than we would have done if we'd done the 10km (that would have been more about just getting around the course), and so each time we caught up another one or two people we were able to up the pace for a couple of minutes to get past before dropping back to a nice steady pace. It was just starting to rain again as we got towards the finish which allowed me to use my stellar motivational skills on Ali - "come on you're doing really well, only half a mile to go! Hurry, I'm starting to get wet now!" - completely discounting the fact that I was already soaked due to sweat, muddy puddles and the drizzle from the start! One final sprint up the hill, which went on for a bit longer than I first remembered but due to the rubbish headtorch couldn't see what was going on, I passed a few people also on their way to the finish line and back into the light!!

 Ali and I finished a respectable 24th and 21st respectively (out of 60-odd entrants), with times of 35:29 and 34:44 which were around 10 minutes behind the overall winner of the 10km race. This meant that we averaged a pace of 6:32/km (10:28/mi) although it certainly felt a damn sight faster than that when we were running, so it's pretty amazing how much the mud and terrain affects you especially when you are not checking your watch for the splits all the time! Ali did even better in her age category where she was 4th out of 23! I came 5th in my category, although there were only 9 entrants! I'm going for the fact that we're both doing well as we're in what most people would claim as the 'prime fitness' age group so are pretty likely to be running against the fastest people entering!!

Overall the event was great fun, and well organised - well-lit at the registration tent and no hassle grabbing our paperwork, number and timing chips! As I said earlier it would have been perfect if there was a marshal at the rocky point mentioned in the briefing before the start as it was highlighted as being potentially dangerous (especially as there was a marshal about half a mile beforehand and the next one wasn't until the finish), but due to the sporting nature of those taking part it felt safe enough going down there. I know that Wild Night Run has 7 other races in their series, and if they are all as good as this one I'd definitely recommend taking part - I'm certain that we're going to be looking at a few of them for the next year!

Here's a little tip for you though - if you ever find yourself at the race start and have to pin your number onto your front, but also have to wear a fluorescent waterproof jacket (and therefore don't want to - a go pro chest mount (because we all have one of them hanging around at race start right?!) is just perfect for pinning onto!! Although it's probably far easier to remember your triathlon belt or just pin onto your leggings/shorts!!

If you want to know more about the Wild Night Run race series then click below, and to see when more of my blog posts are available 'Like' the Facebook page!

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One Life - Liv 4 It, Love It!