Stressed And Running….Not A Good Combination!

Dealing with stress is something we all go through in life and we all handle it in our own ways. In my particular case I tend to go for a run, it helps clear the mind and replenish my energy supplies (ironically) in order for me to deal with things in a more calm and composed manner. What happens though when the stress levels get too much for running to be able to help deal with it….thats what I am experiencing now… or I should say “was” experiencing over the last week or so.

I use my videos to deliver content in a shorter snappier way, although for those of you who watch them will understand I tend to fail on that and ramble on far too much! However I wanted to delve in a bit deeper and share a bit more as to how I got into this situation and what I did to get myself out the other side!

Being self employed puts a huge pressure on a work life balance, especially when you have a family as well. It’s something my wife and I have dealt with for a few years now and 9/10 we get it right….but on the odd occasion we don’t. Work is going really well at the moment and I can’t complain, it pays the bills and allows us to be flexible….what it doesn’t do though is provide time off!

Over the past 2 weeks I have been eating uncontrollably and have put on half a stone….the first few days I just thought it was my training causing me to eat in excess but as the days progressed I realised it was way over normal, even when I am in the height of marathon training. I brushed it under the carpet but other little signs were creeping into the picture, low patience levels, limited attention span, the mind flitting from one thing to another.

Last Friday it all came to a head when my wife and I took some time off to go to a music concert, we had an amazing time, loosened up and enjoyed child free time. We got home in the early hours of Saturday morning and I managed to muddle my way through the day feeling really tired, however I still managed to get up at 5.30am Sunday morning to get my 20 mile run done.

Once home, that’s when it hit me. I felt like I had been hit by a bus….it seemed that Friday night was my bodies chance to finally let go of all the stress and tension I had been carrying around and Sunday’s long run emptied my body of all its remaining energy.

Due to this, my weeks training has been thrown out due to me having severe energy level issues. Monday I couldn’t even contemplate a run, Tuesday I had a gym induction, which is positive but that sucked my time and energy to get a run done and so Wednesday was my only day to get some running squeezed in. I approached Wednesdays run with caution, wanting to do a session or some kind of workout but with the understanding in my mind that I couldn’t even contemplate running at any sort of intense pace.

It was at that moment when I pushed the reset button and just ran. The camera was playing up so I stuffed that in my pocked…dialled into my running form and zoned into enjoying running. I can safely say it was the best run of the year so far! Completely revitalising and re energising, not having to worry about hitting splits, running certain distances and what time I had to be done by.

That run opened my eyes as to what I need to do in the future when I am encountering such issues again…throw away the plan and embrace the enjoyment of running again. I am so lucky to be able to run on the trails where I live and sometimes we forget about our surroundings and focus too much on goals and targets.

Now I feel ready to tackle the upcoming marathon challenge that faces me on the 5th May 2018.

If you ever feel like it gets too much for you…just remember why you started running and go back to basics. Its great to dial into that feeling of enjoyment again.

2017 Update – Better Late Than Never!

Greetings and a very belated Happy New Year!

First of all I want to start off by apologising for the lack of content on the blog….I made a new years resolution to get regular content on my YouTube channel and so although that has worked…the blog has dropped off! I shall however endeavor to keep it up to date more regularly!

So Let’s just recap on where we finished training wise in 2016 and where we have kicked off from in 2017…..

2016 was a great finish to the year….solid blocks of training documented in the blog section meant that some PB times were set in the shorter races.  A great 8 days were had off over Christmas and things kick started back in the first week of January.

2017 has seen me embark on a 10 week training plan courtesy of Dan Page, a very talented running coach and quick runner himself!  I sought Dan’s advise at the beginning of the year because my first race in March would be a 20 mile race.  For those of you who have followed my running journey on YouTube, you will know that my only race over half marathon distance was the Gloucester Marathon and that didn’t end well.  I had been chatting to Dan towards the end of 2016 and with this race in mind the majority of my long runs in November & December were at least 15 miles.  I felt this would give me a good base to build from come January….

Fast forward to today (March 7th 2017) and the race is only 4 days away… training has been great…9 solid weeks of hard work (bar one bout of illness that took me out for two sessions) has seen me clock around 40 miles a week straight and multiple long run workouts that nearly broke me are now in the past!

The 2017 racing journey begins this Saturday morning at 9:00am and I can’t wait to attempt to run a solid 20 mile race without fading too much at the end….a week later we get back to half marathon distance with the Forest of Dean Spring half marathon.

We then embark on another training block for our May races….

I can’t wait to get back out there this Saturday and get racing again, make sure you keep up to date over on YouTube as a race vlog will be coming!

Running Training 19/12/2016 – 25/12/2016

Training is finished!! This week is just a fun and casual week, winding down to a nice week off.

Monday

Easy 7 miles (last mile hard) – Went out for a nice easy 7 mile run, felt great so just pushed for a last hard mile. This is just the philosophy I have taken over the second half of the year due to other peoples feedback of finishing stronger on runs. I don’t do it on every run but just when I feel like it.

Tuesday

Went out for another nice easy run, this time with James for 10 miles. Again, kept the HR low and just plodded around clocking up the easy miles working on the base fitness.

Wednesday

Rest

Thursday

Typical me….went for a final easy run before stopping for a week, got to mile 5 and wanted to up the tempo so did a harder final 2 miles, rounding up my total for 25 miles on the final week.

Friday

Rest

Saturday

Rest

Sunday

Rest

Summary

Lovely and easy week, absolutely over the moon with the second half of the year and delighted to finish strong and can’t wait to kickstart 2017!

Welcome To My First Blog

Welcome to my very first blog post here on The FOD Runner! It is currently 6am on November 5th 2016 and we are in the middle of our “base building” winter training phase. As you are joining me part way through this I would recommend you hop over to YouTube and watch some of the latest training videos i’ve put up as that will give you an indication as to what I have been up too! Or, alternatively find out what our winter goals are here:

So to fill in you guys in briefly, we are currently running 4 times a week at the moment, which consist of:

1) Rep Session
2) Easy Run
3) Workout Session
4) Long Run

This training has been ongoing for 5 weeks now so we are fully in the swing of things, progression is happening and a couple of weeks ago I ran a PB half marathon time in training of 1.27.58, which im delighted with!

We have one more race left of this year, which is the Newent 9 race, a 9.5k undulating tarmac road race in a couple of weeks but other than that….we are looking ahead to the first half marathon of next year, Newport on March 6th!

I hope you will enjoy reading my blogs and watching my videos, any feedback is always greatly appreciated!

Stay tuned for the next update where I will be documenting my weeks training!