The Matt and Carolyne Ledger blogg.

 

 

Blog Entry 1 – No Rest

They say there is no rest for the wicked and the same applies to fund raisers! No sooner is one season over then we are planning next years set of events and scheduling a multisport training program. Its funny how easy (and fun!) all these races seem when sat in the comfort of a warm house with a brew and how painless online entry into these events is. Sadly though that is where the comfort ends and the pain begins. In addition to the usual festive stress we have decided to branch out and go for a bit of extreme trail running in the form of Hellrunner. It’s around 12 miles of hills, bog and mud. So not so much of a run as a wade around Delamere Forest in Cheshire.  After that is the relative sanity of the Manchester 10k which last year took us through Old Trafford football ground (if that inspires anyone to join us?) with about 27,000 other runners.

So, on Christmas day, when you were having your Christmas dinner, watching the Queen and sipping a glass of mulled wine, we were running around the local muddy, hilly, really cold and windy nature reserve wondering why we couldn’t have just done a cake bake or something civilised and sensible instead!

They say No Pain – No Gain. We are putting in the pain and how much Rottweiler’s in Need gains is down to you!

 

Blog Entry 2 – Ow my head hurts!

After spending a few days procrastinating and finding other important race related tasks to do like tidying out my gym bag, ironing my Rottweilers in Need T Shirt, buying running and triathlon magazines and a 2008 wall planner with lots of coloured stickers to denote various training, racing and resting days the inevitable moment arrived where our training took off in earnest.

I’ve been training using a heart rate monitor that nags me every Monday morning if I’ve not recorded any sessions the previous week and beeps at me if I slack off during a session and my heart rate drops below what it considers to be a decent rate. We had one small panic when the monitor itself slipped off and the machine I was on thought I’d had a heart attack and died. I tried taking it into the pool while I did my long swim for the week only to realise one snag – you can’t actually see what it says unless you stop which is a great excuse to rest but not so great for accurate readings.

Matt of course doesn’t bother with any of this technical fandanglery – but he is young and sickeningly fit. He’s one of those annoying people who can just drive past a gym and gets fitter! So after he’s done his 20mins on the treadmill, had a sauna and Jacuzzi, nice long hot shower, burger from MacDonalds, popped back to give me a banana, been to the DVD rental place next to the gym to get us a movie and sat in the gym café reading the paper or popped down to the driving range for a bucket of golf balls - I’m still huffing and puffing away trying to get my athletic physique back. There is no justice in life!

One of the greatest challenges of going long like this is the incredible boredom of running 10k or cycling 40k and not actually moving. It’s hard to occupy your mind with thoughts other than I don’t like this, my legs/knees/back/head hurts, are we nearly there yet?, are we nearly there yet? And so on. I’d learnt long ago that contemplating what I would have for my tea when I finished was just sadistic so instead I decided to try maths puzzles – for example trying to calculate how many calories I’ve burnt off, the average rate of calorie consumption and how many mince pies that equates to. The gym tried to get us all “training our minds” aswell with some puzzles from Mensa. After getting very confused with one of the formula questions, standing on my own foot and very nearly falling off the back of the treadmill I decided these were possibly a bit high brow and I should stick to trying to lip read Eastenders or make up my own plot lines which can be very entertaining. And low and behold, just as the alien spacecraft was about to descend on Albert Square, my session was up and it was time to go home for tea!

 

 

Blog Entry 3 – Every cloud has a silver lining – every silver lining has a cloud!

 The week started off slightly disappointingly with the news that the Ironbridge Triathlon had been cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances” which came as a bit of a blow as it was the only one in the series that was offering a river swim. With disturbing timing, my latest edition of Runners World arrived sporting a gift magazine from 09 Events listing their offerings for 2008/9, including many spectacular races such as the Great Wall of China marathon and the Pyramids at Dawn marathon - our spirits were lifted. But behind every silver lining there is sadly a cloud, and for their 2008 series there was no mention of Hellrunner (our first effort of the season – the half marathon-ish hill/bog run). Thankfully, the lovely chaps at 09 Events have informed me there has just been a change of sponsor so my wall planner is not totally messed up!
Buoyed by the news that Hellrunner was most probably still a go, we trotted off down to the gym like good little athletes. After being good and training well all week, I decided to test my progress with a Sprint distance triathlon in the gym (5k run, 20k cycle and 800m swim or 3mile run, 12 mile cycle and 0.5 mile swim in old money) while Matt decided to monograph some golf balls. I normally rest on Saturday’s and keep Sunday for the biggest effort for the week as all races are held on a Sunday so it gets you used to Sunday not being a lazy day. After completing the distances in around 2 hours (inclusive of getting changed at a leisurely pace and saying hello to a couple of the other athletes/saddo’s who like me were there at 10am on a Saturday) I was feeling jolly proud of myself and made a schoolboy error by just stopping once I’d made the distance. I know that doesn’t sound too terrible but lactic blood pooling does sound very serious indeed!
In a nutshell, when doing aerobic exercise your body diverts blood away from your non-essential parts to help feed oxygen rich blood to your legs and arms. This means that blood is diverted away from the stomach and it effectively goes on standby for a while. So whatever is in there doesn’t get digested. When you stop exercising suddenly, the blood rushes back, your stomach wakes up and there is your half digested breakfast and sports shake. I’ll let you guess what happens next. So lessons learnt this week – warming down is as important as warming up!

Blog Entry 4 – Christmas is coming the athlete is getting fat

 In an effort to prevent the excesses of Christmas taking its toll on my fitness I’ve been going a little mad and training every night in the run up to the holidays. Yes I know it’s crazy and reckless and a bit too rock ‘n’ roll! Who am I kidding – it’s long and hard work made doubly difficult now we are in the run up to Christmas there is actually something decent on TV for once and while everyone seems to be winding down for Christmas things have simply gone mental for us! To de-motivate me further Matt has injured his back and although I don’t mind training alone I find it difficult not to cut sessions short when I train and Matt sits in the Jacuzzi (purely for medical reasons though and apparently it’s harder work than you’d think!).

Hopefully, Royal Mail has done it’s thing and Santa got my letter. It’s a sorry state of affairs really – as my list of presents includes a new pair of Asics trainers specifically designed for treadmill running, some compression clothing to aid and speed recovery and some anti blister socks. It is startling how much a single sport can take over your life once you get the bug. Matt can testify to this with his new found golfing obsession and my father will be smiling reading this as he remembers how equestrianism took over our lives when I was younger. I think I’m one of only a few 10 year old girls who got a hoof oil brush from the Easter Bunny! (and was really happy about it!)

Although we have a few good hill running sessions planned for the Christmas break around Rivington Barn (http://www.rivingtonhallbarn.co.uk/surrounds.htm) where hopefully the views will take our minds off the pain and effort of running on such hilly terrain, it is more than likely that these will be abandoned in favour of warmth and comfort and some much needed rest. I have the additional excuse that some of my old college pals are coming back up north for the first time in many years so we have a bit of a reunion planned. I wonder if I hit the Christmas sales hard and fast enough I can count it as a cardio session. It might be worth recording my heart rate while I do battle with the crowds.

 

Blog Entry 4a – I can see your house from here

 This is only a partial entry as I completely wussed out of doing any actual training over the festive period. It is mainly to inform readers that for Christmas Matt received a voucher to do a static line parachute jump – as just giving someone sponsorship to jump out of a plane is a bit of a cliché (but don’t let that stop you clicking on the link below) I am contemplating setting up bidding for those of you who want to right the wrongs for golf widows everywhere and go up in the plane to push him out!!!! Whether the parachute company will let anyone do this is another thing but I am not going to let facts and reality get in the way of a lovely fantasy and brilliant fundraising idea (even if I do say so myself).

Blog Entry 5 – The best laid plans (01/01/08)

 Despite my aspirations to train over the festive period I am ashamed to admit that we managed precisely none of the planned sessions. We did however, manage a 4 hour stint round Chester Zoo – which did involve some running between shelters as it was throwing it down and some cross country running whilst looking for golf balls in a monsoon! This left me feeling somewhat peeky and not really in the right frame of mind to go out running.

In order to make up for this, I trotted down to the gym on New Years eve for a good 2 hour session and to test drive the lovely new cross country running shoes Santa left me. Whilst there I noticed that the gym was also open for a tantalising 4 hours on New Years Day and so being the dedicated athlete that I am I was home and in bed by 11:30pm on New Years Eve and stone cold sober in order to be up at 8 and at the gym when it opened. I feel slightly better about the sloth exhibited over the Festive period now!

Anyone who lives near a park or sports facility will be well aware of the phenomenon called Wimbledon Fever (where every man, woman, child and dog grabs a tennis bat during the Wimbledon period and heads off to thwack a few balls around with dreams of becoming the next Tim Henman or Great British hope) and also the Resoloutioner. These are the folks seen from January 1 st until about mid-February who make New Years resolutions to lose weight and get fit in the coming year. You can see them jogging down the road at ungodly hours in the morning or signing up at the local gym for the package that includes everything!! Much as I applaud anyone who decided to take up a more active lifestyle and get healthy it does become a little frustrating when the gyms are at capacity and I (the year round saddo) am left with 2 alternatives –

1. Abandon the carefully designed and very prettily coloured training plan I spent hours doing on the computer and printing off in high resolution colour, or

2. Take to attending the gym at peculiar times in the vague hope I’ll be the only one daft enough to be training at 9am on a Sunday or 8.30pm on a Friday night.

Sadly neither of these solutions are 100% guaranteed. My advice to the resoloutioner is unless you want to become a gym bore - try the classes. They usually come free as part of your membership and are much more sociable and fun and just as healthy as training in the gym itself. With the added advantage that you won’t become a self deprecating obsessive. Earwig on any gym conversation and all you will hear is talk of smashing PB’s, lactic thresholds, principles of training you need a degree in Sports Physiology to comprehend, and every athlete’s favourite topic – injuries sustained!! Listen and you will find none of them EVER twist the knee – they do things to cruciate ligaments, they never have sore legs but have suspected tendonitis or compartment syndrome. So unless you want to end up sounding like you’ve swallowed a medical dictionary or have some really cool scars I’d try the classes.

 

Blog Entry 6 – It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife. (07/01/08)

 This weeks training sessions have been an exploration into the world of irony.

On Saturday I went for my first 10k (6.2 miles) run in a really long time. I’ve been building up to it steadily after all my injury related time off (which was spent doing rehab stretches and discussing the pros and cons of the RICE protocol Vs heat treatment with the other injured athletes) and it went exceptionally well. The paramedics weren’t called and I was able to walk to the changing rooms and didn’t need to be carried. The ironic part of this (yes I know you were wondering when I was going to get to the point) is that I wear contact lenses, I sometimes wear glasses but never when training as it’s just not safe and they steam up, but on this occasion I didn’t have them in and refusing to run with my glasses meant I only had the option of going blind (well very short sighted anyway). This left me in the unenviable position of running in a fuzzy gym where the only thing I could see clearly was the one thing I was trying to ignore – the digital read out on the treadmill that lets you know EXACTLY how long you’ve got left to run!

I also sustained an injury this week that needed taping up! It is a sad fact that Velcro, sweat and a few hours repetitive movement is never going to be a happy combination. I managed to wear a couple of holes in my side and on the inside of my arm. This combined with further training and sweating has proven to be exceptionally stingy! So I taped up. This led to a certain amount of excitement amongst my training colleagues who thought it was something cool and gory and failed dismally to hide their looks of disappointment when I explained the true cause of the taping.

 

Blog Entry 7 – Tell me why! 14/01/08

Another grey and miserable week has come and gone. It’s at times like this when motivation is at an all time low. Scientists call it ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’. I call it ‘can’t-be-arsed-it is’. It’s the complete opposite of ‘it’s-a-nice-day-it is’ that people call in sick with during the summer months. It doesn’t help when none of your work colleague’s share any of your sporting aspirations and all you get are helpful comments like, “all this exercise won’t make you live any longer – it’ll just seem like it!”

In an effort to boost morale, and my motivation, I’ve been doing some inspirational reading. My first book ‘UltraMarathon Man’ was written by a chap called Dean Karnazes who is as inspiring as he is nuts! His endurance achievements are breath taking and of a world record level (seriously, look him up!). This for a mere mortal such as me can be a little disheartening. However, he also eats pizza, which he gets delivered to him while he is running, and only started this crazy venture when he was 30.

Lessons learnt from this book – The odd bit of junk food and age are no barrier to achievement.

I then moved onto ‘Not Normal Behaviour’ by Stuart Staples, it’sabout one chaps decision to do an Ironman Triathlon (an aspiration I share and am working on, albeit slowly!) – for the uninitiated to “stupid things you can do on your weekend” this is a 2.4 mile open water swim, 112 mile cycle ride and 26.2 mile run. All in 1 day. The time limit is in the region of 17 hours, with the ‘elites’ completing it in 8 to 9 (I think they must be allowed Jet Ski’s and motorbikes!!!). This book charts the progress of Stuartfrom making the decision to enter, through training trials and tribulations to completing his first Ironman. It covers essential areas like race t-shirt etiquette when attending registration, the dilemmas of putting sun block between your toes and how beer and late nights are not a great fuel before a race, but it can be done. Interestingly enough a recent study has shown that beer rehydrates you better than water after long exercise.

Lessons learnt from this book – Tri training is consuming but it is possible to have a life as well.

After that I found the ‘Looniness of Long Distance Running’ by Russell Taylor. It follows him from being a 38 year old couch potato, whose last memory of any sort of PE was at school, to completing the New York marathon and various other races along the way. It’s not a race I think I could ever manage – American enthusiasm scares me on a good day! It’s also a little difficult to stop and have a sly rest with lots of people shouting at you not to stop – there are only so many times you can get away with checking your laces!

Lessons learnt from this book – Anything is possible with enough determination.

I’ve now just started ‘No Need For Speed’ by John Bingham and have ordered ‘Running on Empty’ by Andy Blackford and the movie ‘Run Fat Boy Run’ for my birthday. I would also highly recommend ‘Slow Fat Triathlete’ by Jayne Williams to anyone considering a foray into the world of triathlon who is worried they aren’t as svelte as Tim Don or Chrissie Wellington.

So am I more motivated and champing at the bit? Not really. Am I closer to ascertaining why I do this to myself? Not in the slightest. The training sucks and consumes your life and all your spare cash. The races are hard and hurt quite a bit. But to be able to cross the finish line (whether sprinting or crawling on all fours) and know that you beat the distance and can now call yourself a triathlete or a runner makes it all worth it – and you get a T-shirt/medal to prove it too!. (Either that or an excess of lactic acid in the brain makes you forget all the pain and training it took to get across that line). I guess I am what I am and I do what I do – about as deep as a cup of tea but then not all runners are philosophers!