Base! How slow can you go?

Right I am having to build this thing from the ground upwards, I am getting injured to often (I'm probably still carrying one with my last knee issue), I am way too heavy (for me), and training for events has just become a lottery (will I 'lose' my entry fee or not, will I be able to complete the training or not).

I ran for the first time in five and a half weeks the other day, I ran on grass, and I ran very slowly. Basically I opted to base train and thus keep my heart rate somewhere near what would appear to be my MAF (I have just started reading all things - maximum aerobic function). Afterwards my knee was not happy, so it will have to a slow phasing in of the slow running, and likely a trip to the physiotherapists office if I see no 'strengthening' or absence of niggles going forwards.

The joy of my second slow run (also on grass) was that it was a much better story for my legs, with no lingering twinges or aches afterwards. However, the actual heart rate part was a mess, I couldn't find a rhythm and so it was run / walk all the way with no sustaining of the run phases for very long at all. It was a sunnier day so may be that didn't help, perhaps I was stressing more about finding the sweet spot of running a good while at MAF, what it was I was frustrated. That said I am more determined to explore this stuff and carefully build a progressive aerobic base... I have a lot of reading to do.

Struggling to turn around

After turning a few too many degrees in the wrong direction I am trying to get back into the 180degree turn groove. I am literally starting out at first principles, by doing what my blog title tells me and getting Andy on the move. Keeping things outside of training plans, eating plans, and just sticking to simply doing more in my day. So far in the last few days according to my fitness tracker I have covered (mostly walking) 16.8km, 18.67km, 13.5km, and 17.1km.

It is essentially the thing that you will always read in the fitness magazines, tweets, etc. - "move more", "get off the bus one stop early", "take the stairs", or some similar sentiment. I won't be able to get back to my running without first getting on with the simple simple process of sorting out these small things. Through this simplest of first steps I hope to get the snowball rolling down the hillside to generate the unstoppable giant snow boulder that I hope my next phase of my running / fitness journey will be.

It is not going well

I would like to report great feats of fitness endeavour, and of striding towards my target180 challenge... ah, no. Knee injury post-half marathon is lingering, back issue grumbling, and I seem incapable of sensible eating at the moment. There is not a lot else to add, except I am trying to work out how to break the funk and get the ever expanding wagon back on the road.

At this point I am just looking to keep things simple, win a few small fights and then get back into running and target180. I made a good start a few weeks back I need now to reboot and get back at it.

Last week - 'recovery' after a half marathon

I can't say that I have worked out the best way to get over running a half marathon, and last week I tried something different. After running hard on Monday at the Milton Keynes half marathon, and beating my time from a month ago by almost 4 minutes, I opted to keep moving. Not running, but by walking rather than simply putting my feet up. At first it seemed to be working, but then my body let me know what it thought of the plan.

Through last week I began experiencing what I hope is runners knee and nothing more serious. Certainly my symptoms fit and my activities, before the pain and weakness in the joint definitely look like prime causes. After weeks of no running with my back problem I ran the Cardiff half because of an emotional need, and then found I could do some training afterwards, and then I ran another half... too much load to quickly on a body that during my back injury went about expanding in all the wrong ways.

Too much, too soon, well I have never done that before! Generally last week went well, knee aside, and this week whilst trying to curb my enthusiasm I'll be mixing good rest with a couple of sessions (though perhaps cross training and not running).

Target180 weekly sum-up: a week of good progress

So I went and declared much of my intention in my last post around turning my fitness around in roughly six months, and now I am going about working on some of the key elements.

So this week just gone I have been busy racking up as much walking as I could without taking time out of other things. Walking into work one day, taking my lunch out to the park and walking a couple of laps, not taking the lift using the stairs, walking to a meeting across town rather than ordering a taxi - all of which have felt great and haven't left me overly tired.

The bullet-point for the week summary runs something like :-

• everyday this week I crashed through the 10,000 steps mark, topping out at 20,868 one day.
• ran on Tuesday (5km) and Thursday (8.3km)
• ran at a better pace than I have in months in both run sessions
• dropped another 1.5lb of body mass
• my trousers are definitively looser and my back is feeling much better
• generally noting that my face looks less puffy and bloated - even got a complement from Mrs.H. that I was looking better (!! heheh)
• made some great choices around food without feeling that I was depriving myself

So basically without following any of the many many regimes listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diets (really there is such a page and such a list), I have eaten sensibly without changing the nature of the food, and moved more. Holy-moly I think I may have hit upon a genius new diet fad system... ah no, wait... "eat less, move more" I've definitely heard that somewhere before.

Fabulous dinner earlier this week - Honey mustard chicken thighs with spinach and peas (something from a BBC Good Food recipe I think)

The next measure of 'progress', or moreover my current fitness, is the Milton Keynes half marathon on Monday. I am really looking forward to it even though my race pack was lost in the post and I have to go to the trouble of queueing for a replacement on the morning of the race (the race pack and number arrived at the eleventh hour, so I'm all kitted up and ready to go). I have a huge soft spot for the town, and the event as it where I ran my first ever marathon four years ago (time flies). We are travelling as a posse and if the weather plays ball a good time will be had by all - I don't mind rain while I run, the family stood watching tend to have a much clearer preference for the dry.

Just have to remember Monday is a half-marathon and not one of these :-)

Pacing wise I have to be careful not to let my head lead the way, and listen to my body instead. The 'plan' is to go out close to my average pace for the Cardiff Half, where I blew up in the last quarter of the course, and take this run more conservatively. The people around the course in Milton Keynes are usually fantastic so I hope to enjoy the atmosphere and enjoy the process of running a half marathon with no pressure or anxiety.

Have a good running weekend and I hope your projects and targets are going well.

Target180 - my new personal challenge

Having turned over most of the bad habits of the last few months and reset myself pretty well I started to look at goals / challenges. I wanted something to hang my efforts, on a little phrase (a mantra if you like those sorts of things), a short memory aid, something to keep in mind during a long run or tough session. I mulled over all sorts of stuff numbers came up quite a lot, goal times, numbers of events run, that sort of thing.

Eventually, I settled on 180 - the 'logic' being I should be able to turn around my running form in about 6 months (a sensibly long time I reasoned), and at the end get a personal best in some event or distance or another. Probably targeting the autumn Cardiff Half marathon, though not definitively as I'm leaving it open so that the chosen event doesn't consume all of my thinking - I want this to be about process and all around signs of improvement. So, 6 months is sort of 180 days taking 30 days in a month... then the number resonated and caught my imagination - 180 degrees, an about turn, a complete change of direction. An about face on the slide in fitness, activity, and body weight since the New Year.

So to set some benchmarks and give a feeling of the scale of this process and progress towards my Target180...

• I just ran my slowest half-marathon, 2:13:44 (Cardiff World Championships half-marathon, 26th March)
• This weekend just gone I ran my third slowest timed 5K, 28.08 (Cardiff parkrun, 23rd April)
• I was at my heaviest in over 5 years, at 15st 9lbs (99.3kg), on the 13th of April

The early signs are good, I've dropped 8lbs, my trousers which were getting uncomfortably tight are fitting better, my running feels less of an effort than it has for weeks, and I am generally finding lots of small ways to increase my movement. Motivation at the moment is very high and a little like the early progress needs some careful looking after. In fact the biggest challenge in any journey like this is to manage your expectations and cultivate your patience. It is far to easy to rush at the target and forget that there is a timeframe. Despite immediate look of all those before and after pictures that flood the health and wellness social media (and mainstream media) there are always large gaps in time hidden between the two photo - unless they are faked of course, as many reportedly are.

My Target180 is a journey and it has started, it didn't have a hard start date and won't have a hard finish date, after roughly 6 months the aim is to have made that turnaround and be travelling towards better fitness.