An inspiring yoga session today…

After yesterday’s little trot I was surprised that I could walk today and more than surprised that I had a fantastic yoga session.

I find Reas’ philosophy creeping into my life and found myself telling someone last week, ‘you have all you need for success…’ and then realising that this was a direct quote from the sweaty, tough workouts that make Sunday morning so much fun.

Today was a really basic, very tough, intense Astanga session. There was enough room in the class to spread out a little but still enough people to really get that unique vibe flowing (and the floors and walls soon dripping with sweat…). It took me some time to warm up and ease out the kinks but now I have mastered the concept of expecting nothing from the session and letting the breath lead I am opening up new realms of pain and suffering (or to paraphrase Murakami, ‘pain is inevitable…suffering is optional…’).

I am now ready for the training to begin, again, at 6am tomorrow.

Today's Run

A massive jump up in distance this week, due to Philip being away four weekends before Christmas and also as we are doing an Ultrarow on the 7th November, 16 hours on a rower...

Anyway back to today's run, the aim was 15 miles, in the end we did 14.3, further than Philip has ever run. Having deposited water around the course off we set, steady and comfortable, except that Philip can't run in a straight line and kept wanting my space......
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Everything was going really well until we hit mile 13 then Philip hit the wall, but determination and guts he finished the last bit, I take my hat off for that.

This was a big jump up in distance and Philip did really well, he was disappointed at the end for suffering the last bit, but you learn from this and he will be stronger next time..

This run came earlier in the training plan than scheduled so GOOD WORK PHILIP, keep running.

As for me I thought I deserved a glass of wine and chocolate... ( well even Personal Trainers are allowed a life:)

Trevor

14.3 miles - 2 hours 22 mins

You know that you are making progress when you get back to the gym after a little run and everyone is rushing around trying to give you energy drinks, jelly beans and gels in case you suddenly drop dead.

I kind of felt sorry for Trevor this afternoon as he looked so worried that I was about to keel over and die whilst he had barely broken sweat (this guy is not human – or at least cut from a different cloth then myself). However, what Trevor has yet got a handle on is that by the time I got home, had a long bath and a gallon of fluids I was already working on the next run. What went well today? What went wrong today? What points can I learn from this and how can I improve next time. I had made of list of positives and learning points so that next time I head out it will be smarter. I am never going to be a great runner but I have to play to my strengths – that is my analytical skills, my ability to analyse things and most of all my sheer tenacity.

So, pragmatically…

It was the furthest I have ever run. It was 13 miles of relative pleasure and then a mile and a bit of exquisite pain. You play the odds and this is a result. It was a run where I learnt the importance of gels, the importance of digging deep and the sheer magnitude of the run. If I had not gone out today with a huge degree of respect for the distance I would have been even worse – so this is all something which goes into the planning and strategy for next week.

I leave the hard planning to Trevor but I still take a lot from my own notes – which now run to pages. If I can run close to 15 miles I can run 26 and a bit. I don’t think it will be easy but it will be the ultimate test of my mental tenacity which I think is worth the pain alone.

Friday 28th October

One of the many benefits of being a Personal Trainer is that you get to do your training runs with clients, although as I am finding they all tend to be within a 2/3 day period.

Never mind they are all useful and various paces so that helps my training...

Back to my morning run with Tracey this morning, it's 6.00am, dark, misty and not very nice, I think it's cold, leggings, long sleeved top and jacket, Tracey is in shorts and jacket,10 mins into the run she is complaining of being hot and jacket off.

At the start Tracey says, needs to be a slow one today, which is fine, but Tracey saying a slow run and doing a slow run are 2 different things, off we set, I'm constantly trying to slow the pace down, the only time that happens is when Tracey has her obligatory stop to re-tie her shoe laces, every time........

The pace is constantly getting quicker and quicker, until the last mile until she is now tired and moaning at me to slow down (the cheek) its my job to control the pace.

Good run done, 4.5 miles, feel better for it.

Back to the gym, quick shower then onto training Philip, it's chest and bicep day, his favourite ( not ). Really good session for Philip much better with the weights.

I am now looking forward to 12 or 15 miles with Philip on Saturday.

Everything is coming round so quick, it's only 10 days to our ultra row on the 7th November, and then only 4 months to the Marathon..........

As they say onwards and upwards..

Sympathy for the Devil...?

6am and the alarm goes off.

I roll out of bed to some polite encouragement from my wife of the ‘turn that bloody alarm off…’ ilk and almost fall down the stairs. I get dressed with eyes closed; running shorts, t shirt socks and swear loudly. It’s dark and cold outside and my bed is warm. Not a tough decision really. It’s time to run.

Ten minutes later I am in the gym and on the treadmill. I don’t usually train indoors as it is a good way to get injured but I am tired and cranky and miserable and simply can’t face a run around Bicester in the dark alone.

On goes the IPod and up goes the speed. I start with some James Brown, then onto some Sandie Shaw (which, to be honest, is worth getting out of bed for alone) and then work through some Madonna, Kings of Leon and some Bowie. You got to have Bowie when it gets tough…in fact, I bet I Paula Radcliff sings Jean Genie all the way around on her record breaking runs. Then it’s in to the home straight and Sandie Shaw is willing me on with her seminal cover of the Rolling Stones classic….

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste

To which I always add…

Because all this running has laid me to waste...

An hour later I am standing in my kitchen, coffee in hand, stretches done and I have to admit that I feel great.

Trevor's Saturday

Saturday 22nd October

It was with joy that I sprung out of bed at 5.45 this morning, meet Philip at 6,30 in the dark and had a joyous 9 mile run, taking in the daybreak and sunshine, finishing at 8.00am to then go to work…….

That is how it should have read, in reality it was a bit more like the following...

It really started a couple of days previous when we were arranging the 9 mile run on Saturday, the time was getting earlier and earlier, due to Philip’s commitments and then mine and we ended up with a start time of 6.30am.

On the whole that is fine, except that I had a small accident the gym on Thursday, I had been talking to Joanne, and giving help (I think that was what she called it) on her routine for her up coming Pole Dancing final. At the end of this I left, only to return to find Andy in there as well now talking to Joanne, anyway they suggested that I try one of the Pole moves, which obviously I did, with scant regard to the fact that I have a marathon and charity Ultrarow coming up. I did the move, not very elegantly, anyway, 3 hours later my back was hurting, by the following morning my back was really stiff and I struggled out of bed. Frantic calls to Paul Skidmore, who is excellent at sports massage on Friday morning and luckily he was able to see me that afternoon. Ninty minutes later I was not cured but feeling better and reassured that I had not done anything too stupid and that I should be able to run the next day.

Come Saturday morning, alarm at 5.45, go to move, oops still stiff as a board, too late to cancel Philip, so with the knowledge from Paul saying you will be fine, I carried on, a bit stiff but able to jog. Philip had seemed to have lost his pace from previous weeks, where we have been averaging 9.15/9.20 per mile, Philip thought today would be a good day to run a bit slower, about 9.53 pace.

Not sure if my back will thank him, I will let you know.

We have been blessed with lovely weather so far, it does make training that much easier, I know we have a lot worse to come.

Today Philip has also informed me that he will be away 4 of the next 8 weekends, so it looks like a lot of long runs during the week…

In the mean time KEEP RUNNING…..

Trevor

Away with the Fairies (9 miles: 1hour 28mins)

Today, we discovered a fundamental flaw in my running…after a few miles I am away with the fairies and forget what I am meant to be doing.

When we got back to my house this morning, on a crisp, beautiful autumn morning, Trevor looked at me worriedly and asked, ‘why so slow today?’
I had to explain to him that although I am a bit tired I am not injured, I am eating ok and that I had found the run beautiful (especially the first mile and a bit in the pitch black…). The problem, from Trevor’s point of view, was that after about five miles I had wandered off to dream land and the pace had dropped significantly. Words like lack of focus and gormless dreamer were not mentioned but they were certainly implied.

Once I have found my legs and my lungs and got them working I find it very hard not to wander into my own private land. I sing songs to myself, I recall whole chunks of books I have read, I make plans for the day and talk through my problems and worries – the running almost seems to come second. However, it seems that I need to keep focused and make sure the pace doesn’t drop (and my argument of Siberia is a bloody long way to go so we best take it slow and enjoy it seems not to hold water..) or I fear that my future holds endless sets of burpees and an annoyed Trevor.

However, just sometimes, when we are out and the sun is just rising and the whole of the world belongs to us I am going to slow the pace down, take in the beauty of the day and store it away for when we are out on the ice and it is cold, tough and miserable.

Katie Says....

I have become a Siberian widow…

Over the last few years I have become used to my husband’s somewhat bizarre lifestyle. I no longer worry when he calmly declares over dinner that he is off to North Korea for a few days, or has a meeting booked somewhere in the Balkans and may be home sometime next week (invariably hungover and looking slightly sheepish) or finding him skulking about the house in the middle of the night with a scotch in his hand and his beloved Miles Davis on the stereo. However, Siberia may well be the final straw.

I don’t mind that he now owns more lycra than me (at least we haven’t seen the hand knitted cardigans yet this winter…), or that I can not get near the washing machine for sweaty gym kit or that he goes out before the dawn several times a week to train with Trevor but I do object with how he passes through the house and simply strip mines it of food. He no longer eats but denudes the place of calories.

For example, the other night I cooked a delicious meal for him. I gave him twice what I had and within thirteen seconds he was licking his lips and looking longingly at mine (even the dog knows better than this…). Twenty minutes later he is back in the kitchen and pounds of qunioa, porridge or barley is disappearing into his bottomless pit whilst I have to hide anything I might potentially like to eat later before that too vanishes. If I am lucky I hear: too much fat or too much salt and know that there will be something left for me when he has finished. Last Saturday I noted, with a degree of awe, that he had seven meals and still he went to bed complaining of hunger.

For me, at least, the race can not come soon enough or else Sainsburys will soon be delivering food by the pallet load.

(Post script - made a mistake tonight - cooked low fat banana bread....which lasted a whole five mins...)

Trevor's Update

Now I’m not as amusing as Philip at writing these Blogs, but I will tell you straight...

Its Thursday the 20th October, I have had another tough week of training, I also had a massage with Paul Skidmore at The Fitness Company on Monday (although after my hamstring felt as if I had tweaked it, it feels ok now).
I’m sat here writing this, my shoulder hurts, my back aches and I feel tired (even PT’s are allowed to feel tired). Anyways, enough sob story, just to let you know what is planned this weekend. I have a quick 4.5 miles tomorrow morning followed by weights later, also I get the pleasure to train Philip.

Then at stupid a clock on Saturday morning we will have a 9 mile run ( at the moment it will be cold, good practice I suppose).

Another blatant plug to raise money, Philip & I are doing a 16hr rowathon on Monday 7th November at The Fitness Company, this is to help raise the money for Iain Rennie Grove House Hospice Care Charity, come along on the day and support us, 16 hrs.’ is a long time, also pop into the Fitness Company and have a go on the sweep stake board to guess how far we will row on the day, £2.00 per go, £50.00 to the nearest choice and the rest of the money to charity,

Legs and Arms

Yesterday, I had a beast of a work-out.

By the time I had finished training my legs and triceps, which is my favourite workout, I staggered out of the gym feeling weary and sore. It was a wonderful feeling. It is a sweet mixture of pain and pleasure which means a job well done (both from Trevor and myself) and a few days of soreness to come. These days always take me back to the core reason why we are doing this: because we know that sometime in the future we wont be able to do this and that each rep, each curl and each mile we run will help change a few lives.

Over the last few weeks we have talked a lot about the marathon.; the distance, the pain, the relentless training but we have not lost our sense of wonder that we will soon run across a frozen lake in Russia. Our wives may well divorce us, our toe-nails may well turn black and we may be permanently sore but at the end of the day people will benefit from this.

I think that above all this keeps me sane.

Up with the Larks

Even the birds weren’t up when I hit the gym today.

Trevor was on full form and had me working my shoulders and back. This is a killer work out made worse by Trevor throwing in some new exercises and sets. It is a brutal way to start the week. However, I never complain as it would only fall on deaf ears and I am secretly happy to be up with the larks and feeling the pain. The rest of the week simply goes well after this.

I could never be a personal trainer. I could not get up at dawn on a regular basis and motivate people. Trevor does not let this bother him and always has a word of enthusiasm, some tips or a pithy put-down. It makes me think that he isn’t quite human…

16th October 2011

Another hard week of training,( I must remember to thank Phil for this idea of running Baikal Ice Marathon )

A good week of training with weights, followed by 4.5 miles with a client Friday morning, then 9 miles on Saturday morning and then a 10K race at Blenheim Palace today with another client.

Good to be getting the miles in.

Back to today’s race, Phil was also at Blenheim as I had suggested that he did it as his training run this weekend. He gleefully accepted as it was a shorter run then he was meant to do…….

There was a lot of talk from Phil that he would be a lot quicker than me and my client today, and although he set off a lot quicker than us (we also had to stop and help a lady who had tripped over my clients foot and gone flat on her face) QUESTION:- when in a race, when you overtake people why is it necessary to cut directly in front of that person as soon as possible…. I just don’t get it..

Sorry for the ramble, back to the race, around half way we found that Phil was only 40/50meters in front of us at this stage I don’t think he knew we were there, so we just quietly closed the gap over the next few K, until he could hear me, after a few words of encouragement from me (something along the lines of “move your arse you should be further ahead” Phil speed up.
Although at this stage my client got a second wind and we caught Phil up, with only 250m to go.

At this stage Phil swore at me and said that I was not passing, not very friendly I thought…., So with 50m to go I thought I would ease pass him, I’m sure I heard a few rude words being uttered under his breath… Maybe they were congratulations????

It was a great race, Phil did have a good run, although beaten by me, with my client 1 m behind him (she did amazingly well)

So far with training the weather has been very kind…..

I thinka glass of wine is deserved tonight and then the training starts again Monday morning at 6.00am

Speak Soon

Trevor

Duck Curry

Ok, let’s be honest, Blenheim is a super place to run.

I am just back from a 10km race at Blenheim Palace and I have to say that it was thoroughly enjoyable. I am not talking about how well the race was organised, how beautiful the grounds of the estate looked as the mist burnt off, or how great it felt to be out racing friends on a Sunday morning but what Jana said to me just before the start of the race.

I adore running with Jana as she is always so committed and always digs deep on runs even when perhaps she would rather be home. It is for these reasons that I am under oath not to repeat what she said. However, I can broadly hint that it involved a duck curry and her bowels…and made me laugh so much that I was still giggling at the 7km mark.

The race itself (and no, Trevor, you are wrong, it is always a race….) was beautiful. I was quite a long way off my personal best and crossed the line in a perfectly respectably 53 mins 34 seconds, which was about a second behind Trevor, who had run up behind me with 500m to go, and hung there goading me (he probably will claim that this was encouragement but I think we are back to the old argument of semantics – he says undulating, I say: bugger this, its hilly, let’s go for a pint…)

Aside from being such a pretty run it was also nice to take some time to do something fun as the training is becoming, by necessity, increasingly less fun. Driving home I had to smile again as I thought: well, that was only 10km. I have to do some serious miles next weekend…and then remembered that a year ago the furthest I had ever run was to the local pub for last orders.

6 miles...

I was up and running by 530am this morning

There is something somewhat disturbing about running so early as there is limited street-lighting and I am often reliant on my flashing arm bands for guidance. It does, however, force you to slow down and focus on technique as one false step could see you falling off the pavement.
It was a slow, painful run but it did help clear my head. There is something almost elemental about being out, alone, with nothing to do except let your mind unwind and come to its own natural conclusions. The miles do not really fly by but they skip along at a pace which gives the perfect thinking:sweating ratio.

Once home, it was time for some stretches, some coffee and a shower. Then as I stood in my kitchen, drinking strong coffee, a warm glow of smugness that all was well with my training.

Legs and Sprints

It was leg day today.


I love training legs. In fact, let’s be honest, now, who cares about biceps or a barrel chest when you have good legs? No woman is ever going to have her head turned by a massive pair of guns or a 52” chest…..

Ok, so maybe I am wrong, but there is something awesome about loading up a bar with weight and banging out sets of squats until the cows come home. It is such a basic exercise but such a powerful one and I am always surprised at the number of people who don’t squat correctly…top tip – they are called sissy squats for a reason…

Trevor also threw in some triceps today as he doesn’t like me coming out the gym dripping in sweat and smiling. My wife always likes this as she says my triceps were the first thing that attracted her to me (and there was me thinking that it was something to do with my winning personality or that on the night we first met I was drunk as a lord and knocking back key-lime martinis…)

Straight after the weights it was onto the treadmill for sprints (note: Trevor has banned me from the treadmill as it's way too easy to get injured running on it, but he gave me special dispensation today as I had a pretty sleepless night last night and would probably have got lost if I had been allowed to run outside…)

I don’t like sprint training. No one does. It’s painful, and dull and pretty demanding. However, it seems to reap spades on race day so I grit my teeth and do it. Today I simply had to listen to some music and turned the IPod up full volume. I threw on some James Brown, some Janice Ian, some Freezepop and finally some Grease, because, after all, grease is the word…

As I left the gym I felt a certain degree of smugness as I don’t have to sprint until next week again…

Monday: Shoulders

It is 7am and I am back from the gym.

I am enjoying a few quiet moments, to stretch, to think, and to just be calm before the week begins.

Today we worked shoulders, which is always a nice, tough work-out and by mid afternoon I will be struggling to move or cook dinner. That, to me, is the mark of a good workout.

Today’s work-out was hard and cathartic. It is nice to set up expectations for the week, both physically and mentally and it is also nice to know that the rest of the day is my own and does not need to involve marathon demands. Though, of course, almost every waking hour is spent worrying about diet, training plans, muscle aches and fund raising.
However, I will now put those thoughts aside, drink some coffee and wait for the day to begin.

Yoga

I am now back to yoga classes.

I have been struggling with a small injury (Ha! I am finally a runner…) for the last few week’s and this is totally self inflicted. I had not been warming down properly, not stretching as much as needed and neglecting yoga. There is a simple rule in my life: neglect yoga…get injured.
But now after much time spent on the treatment table and some sessions with my foam roller I am back at classes and loving it.

Once again the true sound of my yoga practise is me at the back of the room grunting and groaning and swearing whilst the rest of the class bind effortlessly.

Our inspirational teacher has taught me that I need to leave the ego behind and expect nothing from my yoga and this has opened the door to some amazing practices which have not only cleared the mind but strengthened my body and led me happily back to fitness.

My wife, as ever, is tolerant, of my training though she refuses to engage with me until I get home from the early yoga session on Sunday morning. She would never admit it but yoga has made me a better person and for that we must all be happy…

However, last weekend when I returned from class buzzing like I had just ingested a whole bunch of Class As she did point out that I was the least likely yogi in the world (apparently my shoulders are way too broard…). She then went on to point out that at the last race I did she could easily pick me out of the crowd as I least likely looking runner in the pack (apparently my shoulders are way too broard…). I then suggested that perhaps I looked more like a body builder which at least put a smile on her face and uncontrollable giggles which went out for most of the afternoon.

8 Miles....

I am noting a sudden lack of compassion on Trevor’s part….

Last week we took off like an amphetamine charged rabbit and this week he complained (somewhat bitterly and at considerable length, I thought) when after a mile I broke into song…

It's twenty five miles from home
Girl, my feet are hurting mighty bad
Now I've been walking three days and two lonely nights
You know that I'm mighty mad…


After that he stepped up the pace and did not catch my next song…

Sometimes I just feel like, quittin I still might
Why do I put up this fight, why do I still write
Sometimes it's hard enough just dealin with real life

Which was a shame as I have been saving 8 Mile for our first 8 mile run.

The miles continue to build, the reality is beginning to sink in and I am spending more and more time in my record collection for the next song….

But I do indeed take my hat off to Trevor. The training is going well, I
am injury free and not hating the training too much.

For such a busy guy he gives his time and advice so freely that I feel the best way to repay this is to make every session count and give it 100%...and, of course, keep singing…

Philip

8 Miles

Just returned from our 8 mile training run, completed in 1hr 14 mins, ave pace 9.20 per mile, good steady pace. Philip is now getting to know the Bicester area, slowly as I'm sure if I went quicker he would be lost and properly end up running twice the distance (will have to remember that), after last weeks training run of 7 miles where he said I was unsociable
and all he saw were my heels, I tried to run by the side of him, this lasted a couple of miles then we were on country roads so he had to run behind me, although at times he couldn't see my heels cause he was too far back.

A very successful steady start to our training and things are going well and the weather is being kind, hopefully it will last.

It's now time for a soak in the bath, relax and a day of training on Sunday...........

Think I have decorating to do, how did I commit to that......

Bye for now

Trevor

Update

It’s been a while since I posted an entry on the blog, but just a quick catch up, training has started in earnest for Philip & I now, with weekly long runs, a speed session and a steady run, along with gym work and classes our workload has increased in the last month.

The Baikal Ice marathon now seems very real and is only 5 months away.
I have taken care of the training plan over the next few month, and as long as everything goes to plan we will arrive for the marathon in great shape, Philip has started to moan about the training already, claiming that in our last training run he only saw the heels of my shoes, he must have good eye sight because it was 5.45 in the morning…

We have planned a 16 hour row at The Fitness Company to help raise money for Iain Rennie Hospice, this will be on Monday 7th November, come along and give us some support, we will be starting at 06.00 and finishing at 20.00 so plenty of time to pop in, come and have a guess at how far we will row, £2.00 per guess, £50.00 to the winner.
Trevor