The last couple of weeks have been quite busy. Last Monday, I went to STC swimming training as usual. There were quite a lot of us in the session and we had some long sets to swim. I’ve not done enough swimming this year and I’m finding it quite challenging, but I managed to get 2000m done within the hour. This week felt a little better. There were only two people in Lane 2 (Kevin and Sonia), so I decided to take my chance and go for it. I was the slowest by far, but when I glanced over my shoulder I could see that I was at least keeping pace with (and occasionally beating) the swimmers in Lane 1. It was also quite bizarre to glance over my other shoulder and see Huw and Stu motoring away. I had a few technical difficulties with my Garmin, but think I swam around 2200m, which made me feel more hopeful for the Long Course Weekend.
On Tuesday last week, I went to the Lordshill Road Runners Magic Mile event. This was one of a series of 5 x 1mile events that are taking place in 2016, with the next one taking place on 26th July. The events are not serious races (well, not for most people) – they are free to take part in, with donations going to LRR’s chosen charity, however they are limited to members of local running and tri clubs.
It was great to see friends from Lordshill who I haven’t seen for a while, and also great to catch up with Liz, Claire and Sheila from Southampton Tri Club. Liz and Sheila had on tri club tops, but I don’t have one yet… and I also hadn’t realised that so many people would be wearing club kit. As usual, I had opted for my most comfortable and attractive running kit, so I was decked out in SOAS from head to toe.
The start and finish of the event are a short distance apart with participants gathering at the finish and being led to the start. I was so distracted by chatting to Claire that I walked part way to the start before realising that I was still carrying my rucksack and wearing my hoodie – oops. I dashed back to the finish, dropped my kit off and then had to hurry over to the start. I just about had time to use my inhaler (but no time to tuck it in a pocket – thank goodness for the secret pocket in the front of my SOAS crop top!) before we were off.
The first section of the course slopes gently uphill to the crossroads on The Common. I would have preferred not to start on a slope without a warm up, but enthusiasm got me to the turning point and I felt good that I wasn’t the very last person. It was then a gentle downhill towards the Bellemoor. I felt ready to go faster, but this is the path that I used to cycle to work on every day and I know that there are some broken patches of tarmac. After taking a tumble in my last half marathon, I was carefully scanning the ground ahead to make sure that I didn’t trip.
At the bottom of the slope was another left hand turn onto The Flats. Unsurprisingly, this section is completely flat apart from a couple of speed humps. I had been following another runner since the crossroads, but I could see that I was gaining ground, even though I don’t think I was speeding up. As we got towards the finish, I managed to pass her.
I finally crossed the line in 8:42 – definitely nowhere near my PB (which I think is 7:27), but quicker than I thought as I had expected to be closer to 10 minutes 🙂
Wednesday evening took in another mile event – this time Mile of Miles, a 10-x1 mile relay at the track. I knew I wouldn’t be quick, but I wanted to beat my time, and as my favourite photographer, paul, was there then I lso had to try to make it look like I was enjoying every second!
I was the slowest runner for Lordshill, but was quite pleased to finish in 8:19, 22 seconds faster than my run the night before.
On Thursday it rained really hard, so I abandoned my planned open water swim and track session for a lazy evening at home.
On Saturday, I was Run Director at parkrun. It wasn’t too busy (600+ runners), which was good as Stu was out doing a long bike ride, so I needed to manage the event on my own. We had a longer finish funnel this week, which meant that there weren’t problems with runners backing up and we didn’t need to manage two (or more) queues. I then had some help from Kate to process the results. The temperamental scanners worked first time and because of our lovely new finish tokens, there weren’t too many names on the manual entry list.
I had hoped to get out for this week’s RR10, but I spend yesterday at a work conference in Bristol, and didn’t get back in time to be able to run which was a shame, and I have loads to do tonight ahead of another conference tomorrow, so I’m having an evening at home. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get to do Medina parkrun (Isle of Wight) on Saturday morning.
What are your plans for this weekend?
Finally, if you haven’t seen Strava’s latest video yet, it’s worth a watch:
The IDEAfit photo a day image for March 17th is ‘Happy’. I’ve chosen a picture of my brother and his son having fun in their dinosaur onesies!
My brother and his son
Motivational quote from Sarah
It was LRR training tonight, and I was all prepared to go to swimming afterwards, or so I thought… but I realised that I had forgotten to pick up my contact lens case, so I wasn’t able to swim. (In theory, I could wear my contact lenses under goggles, but that’s not recommended and I only own prescription goggles, so I wouldn’t be able to see). It was quite frustrating, but it meant that I got an early night.
Today’s guest blogger is James from ‘Running – one step at a time‘. I’ve known James for several years now. I met him through parkrun and have witnessed the impact that he has had on my local running community. He loves a new challenge and never seems to sleep!
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m almost 45 and spent most of my life being fairly sedentary! I’ve worked as a software developer and project manager for 20 years and enjoy a technical challenge. At 39, I took up running as I’d set myself a challenge of completing a Cancer Research 10K run as a means of getting fit and losing some weight. Having completed that challenge (it was tough and I only found our recently that Di Mattingly [current Women’s Captain of Lordshill Road Runners – my runing club] was also taking part and thought the same!), I then set myself the challenge to run 875 miles the following year. Without that challenge and discovering parkrun, I’d probably have resorted to life on the sofa! Whilst injured, I decided to take up swimming after about 30 years of not getting in a pool other than to bob about with the children and also bought a road bike on the Cycle to Work Scheme – I work from home! The combination of running, swimming and cycling inevitably led to taking up Triathlons… I competed in 3 triathlons in 2013 and have a handful lined up for 2014! I’m very active within the local parkrun events having started up one or two (OK, a few more than that) as well as being the Event Director of Southampton Juniors parkrun.
When I’m not training, I’m a husband to Denise (married for 13 years) and dad to 7 year old Daniel and Connor who’s 5.
What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?
Um. Can’t really thing of anything…
How would you summarise what your blog is about?
My blog, Running One Step At a Time, is really a way for me to collate a diary of my training and memories of the events I’ve taken part in. I try to impart some useful information to readers of the blog where I can and for a time, the blog contained more information of how to get the most of an iPhone app, RunKeeeper, which I was using to log my running training at the time. Over the last few years, I’ve had some great opportunities to enjoy events such as parkruns, the National Lottery Olympic Park Family Run and skiing holidays with my children and it’s been a great way to record those experiences to one day, we can all look back and remember those experiences. Along the way, I’ve included details of my involvement of setting up parkrun events, Magic Mile events and my involvement in Race Directing last year’s Lordshill 10 Mile Road Race.
James and his family in the Olympic Park Run
When and why did you start blogging? Are you still blogging for the same reasons?
I started blogging in late 2009 to record how my training was going and my experiences along the way. I’m still blogging the same kind of things although I do try and include details of setting up parkruns and other events such as the LRR Mile Series which I’ve been actively involved with.
Which three blogs/bloggers have had the most influence on you and why? Are there any particular bloggers that you look to for inspiration?
I rarely read other people’s blogs although always read the posts from you and Teri and have recently read posts by TryTri’s Chris Rees. Knowing these people as friends and reading of their experiences in training and events gives me inspiration to keep at it!
How would someone describe your blogging style?
Informational mostly. I try to include as much information as possible just in case something may be of use to the reader.
What tips would you give to anyone thinking about starting to blog?
Just do it. Whether you blog once a day or once a month, your story might be of interest or use to someone else. It needn’t take long to post and even if the only person that benefits from it is the author, that’s good enough.
Who do you think the main audience is for your blog? Are you writing with any specific person in mind?
Mostly friends and followers on Facebook. I get quite a lot of traffic from people experiencing problems with Runkeeper still although the content on the blog on the app is quite dated now
How do you decide what is ‘blogworthy’?
If I’ve done something new in training, tried a service or product that I feel has helped me in training or if I’ve participated in an event, I’ll normally blog about it. Hopefully, a reader will find those kind of blog posts useful.
What do you find most challenging about blogging?
Simply getting around to posting on the blog and keeping things interesting for those that are reading it, many of whom are training more and/or participating in more events than me and probably have more interesting stories to share!
What do you do when you aren’t blogging?
Spend time with the family, work, train and sleep! Also, parkrun related stuff takes up time each week as well as being Vice Chairman of Lordshill Road Runners and Race Directing their road races.
What skill(s) do you hope to master over the next year?
Improving my swimming and delegation! 😉
What is your favourite gadget and why?
My Garmin 910XT which records runs, swims and cycle rides (as well as my recent skiing holiday adventures!). If I don’t have a Garmin activity, it never happpened!
What’s the furthest from home you’ve travelled for a sporting event?
In terms of the ones I’ve participated in, I don’t travel far due to family commitments. London is probably the furthest to date for the events in the Olympic Park.
What’s your favourite food/recipe?
I couldn’t live without mature Cheddar cheese, wine gums, peanuts and yoghurt! Is there a recipe that includes all of those? I do enjoy a well-cooked steak!
What is your strategy for dealing with an injury? Have you ever had to put it into practice?
Ignore it for a while until it’s far worse then regret ignoring it! That used to be my strategy! However, I now stop the activity that caused it (almost always running) and focus on the other activities instead. I’ve never been to a physio but did recently have my first sports massage. Ouch!
Do you have any pre-race rituals or superstitions?
Arrive really early. Wonder why I arrived really early. Wish I’d stayed in bed for longer and make a mental note to not be so keen to arrive the next time. The latter bit is duly forgotten the next time and the cycle continues! Oh, avoid Gatorade (particularly having drunk litres of the awful stuff before the Great South Run a few years back).
Describe your philosophy for life in a six word sentence…
If you want something doing, do …
What is the most important advice that you can give to readers?
Set yourself regular challenges no matter how large or small. Without something to focus on, you’re unlikely to find the time, motivation or inclination to achieve something to be proud of.
OK, so I’m trialling a new feature on my blog that I’m hoping will be an equivalent of a Twitter #FF (Follow Friday) – every week, I’d like to highlight someone else’s blog that I read regularly and that I think people who read my blog might enjoy. Please feel free to give me feedback on this idea as well as commenting or asking questions.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? I’m a 21 year old full-time Masters student studying Human Resource Management. I work and study in Southampton, but home is Rayleigh, Essex. I’ve recently graduated with BA (Hons.) Criminology.
What is something people would be surprised to learn about you? I performed in the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony as a dancer in the Pop music decades section.
Jo in her costume with a fellow performer
How would you summarise what your blog is about? A girl’s journey as a complete beginner to triathlon and sport & fitness in general.
When and why did you start blogging? Are you still blogging for the same reasons? I started in February 2013. Iwanted to blog as it felt like a great way of keeping motivated and to connect with other like-minded bloggers.
Which three blogs/bloggers have had the most influence on you and why? Are there any particular bloggers that you look to for inspiration? A lady called Simone from Australia has been a great support through my blog. We began blogging about tri at a similar time. Simone often talks about battling bi-polar disorder and how Tri is helping her to overcome her problems. I feel very inspired after reading her blog posts. Her blog is here: http://meltdowntoironman.com/
Also I would have to say you,Tamsyn! You are so enthusiastic, and keep on going no matter what – reading your blog definitely keeps me motivated. So thank you 🙂 (Aw, thank you, Jo!)
How would someone describe your blogging style? There’s always a sense of discovery, and focus on feelings and emotions that a beginner may feel.
Jo’s Breeze group in front of Winchester Cathedral
Which of your blog posts has generated the most discussion and why? My post about the Breeze Bike ride in Winchester has the most views, as Breeze RT’d it on Twitter!
What tips would you give to anyone thinking about starting to blog? Be honest with yourself and write from your heart.
Who do you think the main audience is for your blog? Are you writing with any specific person in mind? Other sporting individuals, and family and friends who are interested in seeing what I’m up to.
How do you decide what is ‘blogworthy’? If an experience felt good enough or painful enough to write about.
What do you find most challenging about blogging about sports/health? Possibly not knowing all the technical stuff, or if what I’m doing is the correct way.
What do you do when you aren’t blogging? Studying, training, working or letting my hair down. (Jo also seems to like mixing with triathlon royalty!!!)
What skill(s) do you hope to master over the next year? Bike maintenance and breathing properly when swimming.
What is something you would like to ask the next featured blogger? What is your biggest worry when it comes to triathlon?
What is your favourite gadget and why? My Garmin, always there for me whenever I run.
What’s the furthest from home you’ve travelled for a sporting event? 30 miles.
Do you listen to music when training? What music motivates you? Yes, almost always as I have a bit of breathing trouble due to asthma and the music covers up the sound of my rough breathing which can make me panic! I find rock music good to run to, as normally it has a good beat to it.
What is your strategy for dealing with an injury? Have you ever had to put it into practice? I haven’t had any major injuries thankfully, but I had bad cramp after running and swimming that lasted for a few days once. I just kind of moped about a bit as I didn’t understand what it was at the time!
Do you have any pre-race rituals or superstitions? Only going to the loo – if I don’t I will need it as soon as I start running.
Describe your philosophy for life in a six word sentence… Growth occurs beyond your comfort zone
What is the most important advice that you can give to readers? Challenge yourself, you never know just what you can achieve.
Is there anything else that you would like to add? I have my first triathlon planned this year. My biggest concern is that I have terrible eye sight, even with prescription goggles and that T1 will be a nightmare trying to find my bike.
I’ve been so busy in the fortnight since we’ve been back from Portugal that I’ve not been able to update my blog as much as I’d hoped to, so here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve been up to.
CC6
The Sunday morning after we got back was a cross country race out in the New Forest. It was hard getting up in time for it as I was feeling shattered from the previous day’s travelling, but I knew I had to if I still wanted to be in with a chance at winning the club’s participation award.
I played cat and mouse with Kathy for a while, but towards the end her superior speed won out and she was able to finish ahead of me. I felt quite pleased with my performance as I didn’t give up and I knew that I was running on tired legs.
It was good to be back at my swimming lessons – I hoped that I would be stronger and would not have picked up any bad habits whilst I was away, although I know that swimming with a wetsuit on makes me lazy! I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in any of my blog posts, but in the last session before my holiday, I dived into a pool for the first time in my life. This probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for me it was massive. I’ve spent so long standing on the edge of a pool, but was terrified that I would get too deep and be unable to breathe, or would hit my head on the bottom, so I just couldn’t bring myself to try it. I’m now desperate to go swimming with Stu as I really want to show him how well I can dive.
Chris got us to practise quite a lot of butterfly, which is not (and never will be) one of my favourite strokes. I’ve now had two lessons since I’ve been back and I know that I really need to work on keeping my head more streamlined during front crawl as I lift it up and don’t even realise that I’m doing it. I was also given a few pointers when doing breaststroke to try to keep my hips lower so that my feet don’t come out of the water. I’ll report back on my progress soon!
I received the video of me swimming in Lagos, which has really shown me where my swimming is going wrong, so I’m keen to get in the pool and practise:
Lordshill training
On my first Monday back, I coached a session on hills, so we went to Holly Hill and I got my group to practice various aspects of downhill running which I think went quite well, but it involved more running (to and from the venue) than I had anticipated and my legs were a little bit grumbly!
This Monday, I had planned to do a core session. I had a long list of exercises, but unfortunately, it rained and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to make my athletes lie on wet ground 😦
Southampton Tri Club
Straight after my LRR session on Monday, Stuart and I rushed down to The Quays to have a go at our first session with Southampton Tri Club. Katherine had originally tried to persuade me to wait until she was back, but I wanted to join asap and Huw at work persuaded me to go. I was in a lane with three others: Liz, James and Jo – all of whom are bloggers and LRR members! We did a 200m warm up, which felt like hard work, before being asked to do ‘200 off 4:40’. I didn’t know what that meant, so the coach explained that we had to swim 8 lengths of front crawl and have a break within 4 minutes and 40 seconds. unfortunately, I’m quite slow, so it took me over 4:30 to swim 200m. This would have left me with no break, so I waited for the others to do 2 lengths before joining in again. We had to repeat it 5 times, which felt really hard – I don’t often swim that far in a session. (Later when I asked Stu what he had done, his main set was exactly the same!!! How is that fair?!) We also had to do a variety of sculling drills, but I had to work extra hard as I didn’t have a pair of fins.
Overall, I really enjoyed the session and know that I need to work on my technique if I’m going to do OK at Challenge Weymouth, so I signed up to Southampton Tri Club yesterday evening and am now an official member 🙂
I’ve now done a second swimming session and know that it takes me 4:44 to swim 200m. I’m definitely towards the bottom end of the group, but I am not the slowest and I hope that I’ll start to make good progress.
Yoga
On Tuesday evening, I went back to yoga with Stu. Our usual instructor, Wai, is away, so we have a different instructor. It’s nice to mix up the sessions a little. We did a few shoulder stands and plough pose, which is one of my favourites… although I can’t seem to stop my feet from going right over and touching the ground, whether or not my legs are straight!
Weight Watchers
At my first WW session after our holiday, I found that I had lost 4lbs. I went again today and had lost another pound. I had thought that I might have lost more as several people commented on how good I looked today and I felt that I was looking more trim. My WW leader said that she didn’t think I needed to lose more weight and as I my BMI is now 24.47, which is within the healthy range. I am happy to be classed as a gold member again as the money that I save can be used for my tri club membership, but I would still like to lose at least another stone – I’m sure that it will help me to run faster! Every time I so much as glance at something ‘bad’ I ask myself whether Kat would eat it and the answer is usually ‘no’!
Interval training and social run
On Thursday morning last week, Stu, Liz, Katherine and I met for an interval session. This is when I usually have a Run Camp session, but as there are no more until after Christmas, we decided to have ‘Run Gang’ instead (it’s like ‘Bike Gang’, but with running!) Stu had devised times for us to do 400m intervals, but my Garmin decided to amend my pace and breaks, so I wasn’t getting any rest. In the end, I reset my Garmin and just did the best that I could. My last interval felt really good – for 200m I felt like my technique was as good as Mo Farah’s or Usain Bolt’s – but I was unable to sustain the pace.
On Thursday evening, I went for a lovely 11km run with Teri. It’s nice just to be able to run and chat. We had intended to run around Portswood, but we ended up going through Bevois Valley and then back towards the Common.
This week on Thursday morning, Stu and I met Liz and Katherine for a gentle run around the new parkrun route (Route C). I didn’t want to get out of bed, but was glad that I did the run when I had finished.
Sports massage
On Friday I had a sports massage at You Massage Therapy. The masseur, Pete, is a really nice guy who is interested in sports. I’ve had sports massages from other people, but Pete seems to get the pressure just right. I thought that a massage would be a good way of preparing myself for my forthcoming race.
parkrun
On Saturday morning, I was Run Director at Southampton parkrun. It was meant to be Stu’s turn, but I wanted to save my legs for Gosport Half Marathon. It was the first time that Route C had been used and quite a few people got PBs, so I’m looking forward to trying it.
Tri Expo
After parkrun, we drove down to Bournemouth for the Primera Triathlon Expo. I ended up buying various goodies for myself:
– Endura overshoes
Endura overshoes
– Endura toe covers
Endura toe covers
– Bike bag
Topeak top tube tri-bag
I also bought three bags of blueberry protein powder.
Superlife blueberry super protein powder
We were both given Bustinskin swimming hats and USN bottles and vooma gels.
USN vooma gel and bottle
Stu decided to check out the bike porn and decided that he liked a Storck bike, but at over £9.5k, it’s a bit out of his price range!!!
Stu admiring a Storck bike
To console him, I let him buy a couple of sachets of recovery hot chocolate.
Apres recovery hot chocolate
Christmas presents
After we left the tri expo, we went to visit Stu’s parents with an ulterior motive in mind… members of Southampton Tri Club are expected to bring a pull buoy, fins and hand paddles to every swimming session. Stu and I had added these to our amazon wish lists, but realised that we need them now. Unfortunately, Stu’s mum had already done her Christmas shopping, so we collected our presents early – thank you, Brian and Sally!
My Christmas presents from Brian and Sally
Gosport Half Marathon
I have kept Graeme’s words in my mind about self-limiting beliefs, so I decided to aim high despite not being on form since April 2012. I decided not to look at my watch for the first two miles of Gosport HM as it takes me nearly that long to warm up, so I was delighted to find that I was running at a reasonable pace when I finally glanced at my watch. I chose to continue running according to how I felt and was delighted to achieve a 5 mile PB (42:10), which meant that I was on track to get somewhere near my HM PB of 1:52:19.
It was an overcast day that was about 6° C with no breeze, so it would seem that those conditions would be ideal for running. Unfortunately, although my breathing was comfortable and my legs felt good, between 8 and 9 miles, I started to overheat and got tunnel vision, so I had to slow down. I took on plenty of water and was fully hydrated before the race, but I could not cool down. At 10 miles, Stu was by the side of the course (he had cycled to the event) and he could see that I looked ill, so he kept popping up for the next three miles as he was worried about me. I was determined to finish and hoped that even if I wasn’t near to my PB, I would still get a sub 2 hour time. I was also aware that I was my club’s leading FV35, so I hoped that I would be able to retain my position.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. In the final mile, I was passed by many of my clubmates. Full On Sport’s chip timing system failed, but according to my Garmin, I finished in 2:00:13. I was incredibly disappointed, but Stu has pointed out to me that not only did I get a 5 mile PB, it was also my second fastest ever HM and it was over 30 seconds faster than I did the race last year. I also managed to completed it (and a cross country race on the day after I got back from Portugal), so as long as I complete a cross country race on 1st December, I will win the Lordshill Road Runners Championship participation award alongside Di Mattingly.
As I know that I need to work hard on my cycling, I realised that I had better buy myself some winter cycling clothing, so I went online to Wiggle and ordered myself some bib tights and a long-sleeved jersey. There wasn’t a lot of choice, so I chose DHB Team Wiggle Honda kit as it had great reviews. Orange isn’t my favourite colour, but it all arrived today and I think it looks quite nice.
My new Wiggle Honda kit
I was also lured in by SportPursuit… it’s such an evil website, as it knows just how to suck me in. I wanted to get a pair of plain black shorts and ended up ordering a pair of black shorts, a Pearl Izumi jersey and a pearl Izumi winter jacket for cycling.
I think these goodies should arrive just before Christmas 😀
Triathlete | Blogger | Running Coach & Fitness Instructor
Ambassador: SOAS Racing
* Winfields Best Outdoor Bloggers 2018Â
* 2018 Running Awards nominee
* Naked Nutrition Top Fitness Bloggers 2017
* Winfields Best Outdoor Blogs 2017
* Feedspot Top 200 Running Blogs 2016
* Wimi Fitness 50 Best Women's Running Blogs August 2016
* Vuelio Top 10 UK Sports Blogs July 2016
* UK Blog Awards 2016 Best Health & Social Care blog nominee
* UK Blog Awards 2016 Best Lifestyle blog nominee
* Blogging Edge UK Sports Blogger of the Year 2015
* Bloggers' Lounge Health and Fitness Blogger of the Year 2015
As an overweight couch potato, I decided to turn my life around. I lost over 2.5 stone and now love keeping fit and healthy. In February 2013, I set myself a five year challenge to complete an iron-distance triathlon (2.4 mile/3.8k swim; 112 mile/180k bike; 26.2 mile/42.2k run).
Swimming: In the past 3 years, I've learnt to swim and completed a 17.5km swim around the Isles of Scilly in 2015. I've been chosen to be an ambassador for Swimathon in 2017.
Cycling: I cycle to work every day and am a Breeze cycling champion. I have a British Cycling Ride Leader Award level 1. In 2015, I supported the YMCA Tour de Y nearly 400 miles from Lake Windermere to London over 4 days. I've also cycled across the Japanese Alps and conquered various Cols (including Col D'Aspin and Peyresourde). I completed a 100 mile charity bike ride in 2016 whilst over 5 months pregnant.
Running: I'm a Run Director at Southampton parkrun, one of the largest parkruns in the UK. I'm also a UK Coach in Running Fitness. I ran throughout my pregnancy, completing parkrun on my due date in 30 minutes.
I've completed two half iron distance triathlons and train with Southampton Tri Club and SUTRI.
As well as swimming, cycling and running, I enjoy yoga and weight training. I've achieved a black belt in karate and competed in the British Teamgymnastics Championships.
