Eat For You Dietitian

This year started with motivation and excitement for many new exciting prospects. I won’t bore you with the different ones but I guess the most physically and mentally demanding would be training for my 3rd marathon distance and 1st London Marathon.

I’ve never been great at planning my training to achieve a specific finish time for marathons or half marathons distances. I’m more of a free spirit when it comes to planning my weekly mileage, stretching, strengthening sessions and so on. I actually sort professional support from a running coach last year which helped so much and I achieved my half marathon sub-2hours PB which made me feel amazing. Unfortunately due to hopefully buying a house this year that wasn’t an expense I could keep up. Highly recommend though.

This period of training has been mixed with following Fiit training plan for my strengthening, getting back in the gym once a week to start using free weights and running when time and my body allowed. Right hip pain treated with physio and a few terrible colds and sinusitis thrown in has made it difficult. I’ve been guilty to scrolling through social media, being amazed at other people’s mileage, paces and just smiles after running. Sure I’ve had that but I’ve also had more frequent lows. Lows that I’m too slow to join my run club I try to go to weekly if I can, that I’m only half way through my fundraising target and no idea what happens if I can’t raise the full amount and that sometimes I even feel too tired to stretch even though I know it will make me feel better.

At the moment I haven’t run in a week. I last ran with my run club after work, 6km hard run for me, lovely pacer stayed with me the whole time even though the rest of the group were comfortably running faster. 5.54min/km and my lungs and breathing felt like fire. I kept wanting to stop but I kept going and I finished.

I should’ve tried to get in 2 runs last week before my long weekend away but I couldn’t handle any early alarms. My body barely wanted to wake up at 7.30am which gives me enough time for a short 🐶 walk before leaving for work.

Being surrounded by snow for the past 4 days has made me realise how much I actually enjoying running. Not for the end goal of race day or to lose weight but the freedom of it. I don’t need to hit certain paces for a run to feel good, just need to put one foot in front of the other.

Running is free, despite all the running gear we get told we must have and entries to races. You don’t need jazzy trainers or to run for medals. Free run clubs (We Are Runners), local Parkrun’s and many more you can now find on My Crew app.

I have 4 races this year- only one of which I paid for to encourage a couple friends to run there first half marathon. Other I’m pacing with Xempo and another was a complimentary entry due to volunteering at the Winter event.

I want to bring my running freedom back again. Just stepping off the plane and I can’t wait to get out for a run along with my doggies-headphones or no headphones. Let’s see.