Bonk!

Exciting news!

I only have time for a very quick post...however...

I am very proud and excited to say I am going to be working with Bonk Athletic in the coming months :) 

Stay tuned for an update on my picks from their new athletic clothing collection.

#LiveToTrain 

In the meantime you can check out their very informative website http://bonkathletic.com/ 

P.S Don't forget the shop! 

Golden Mile

Another weekend...another race! 

This time something a bit more local, and a bit more reasonable entry fee wise! The Gosport Golden Mile and Golden 5km are a couple of quite unique races which take place on the same day about 40mins apart (depending on how fast you run the first one!). 

The first race is a point-to-point mile run along the seafront in Gosport. Which would be great in the sunshine....however it was blowing a gale and the headwind was something ridiculous. I went from running 2:50kms out the wind down to 3:45kms in it! 

After that comes the 5km race which is an out an back around a fort on the beach which is quite cool, and removes the freaded 180degree turn around a cone, bleeding off all your speed and providing massive potential to twist your ankles. However, there was a little treat in the name of a couple of sections being over gravel. 

Thank you so much to all the people out in the terrible rain who weren't even able to run to keep warm! 

Check out The GGM on Facebook and their website :) 

Facebook   Golden Mile  Nice Work Events

Fleet Half Marathon

Another year, another Fleet Half Marathon.

I love this race for so many reasons. And I also hate it because it is a painful half marathon. As it is the Inter service and RAF Championship event it is always in my calendar. I think I must always be one of the first people to register in October, and I start planning training. Like all good plans its all about different colours, and highlighters and symbols, I think of all the revision planning I did during my A levels, and how much time I could have actually spend revising! In this case my training plan took a lot of re-writing due to being injured, and not running at all from Aug- early Nov.

Over the winter training dribbled on, and come the beginning of march I was feeling pretty good. I raced a duathlon on the 8th, and then….2 weeks of illness. I got a stomach bug and then a virus which mean almost 0 training for the 2 weeks leading up to the race. So in the lead up to the race I cant say I was in the best frame of mind. I just kept telling myself rest is good, then the over training deamon on my shoulder kept telling me that it was terrible….and I might as well not bother! Common sense won in the end! A great session of yoga the day before really helped, and some wise words resonated in my ears, about accepting my body where and how it is today.

Race day came, which meant big yummy breakfast and being chauffered by my ever supportive other half.

I was very pleased the sun was shining. My warm up went well and I exchanged hello’s with the other RAF runners.

I vowed not to make the mistake I did last year which was to start in my predicted time area. All that happened was I spent the 1st mile weaving in and out of joggers, and

bannas. This time I started more towards the front and had a bit more clear space, which allowed for better pacing in the first few miles. I was pretty happy with the pace and progress was good. I was definitely feeling heavier than I would have liked due to my 2 weeks off, and I was certainly carrying around a couple of extra kg’s I didn’t need.

The first loop was over very quickly which was great, this means running through the town again and seeing the fantastic crowd! The RAF vest always gets lots of attention and cheers which is great to experience and be a part of.

Off into the countryside I was running with a group of Gurkahs who were impeccable at pacing! 6 min miles every mile….perfect! I then got some quite bad stitch and dropped off their pace abit. Come mile 10 I thought “this would be a great place to stop”. I hung on for the last few km. in the final km seeing out TM cheering on her bike was great.

The revised finish lay out was much better, although I totally missed where the clock was! Never mind, I pretty quickly received a text with all the info.

Thanks a million to the organisers, the lovely people of Fleet for cheering, and being patient with the road closures!

The first Multisport race of the season!

As the first ever 'proper' triathlon I did, the Dambuster Triathlon will forever have a special place in my heart (aaaw). However I have never done the duathlon. This was definitely a race of firsts for me, as someone who is still relatively new to the tri/duathlon scene. I had not attempted a standard distance duathlon before, and I had not done a race quite so early in the season

Early March is pretty early and I was expecting it to be very cold! It also crept up on me, and I hadn't been prepared enough to ride my TT bike, I thought the first time on it this year in a race, probably wasn't going to be wise, and it was blooming windy! Hats off to those who braved it! 

As always its a nice early start, register and get everything set up in transition. Duathlon always confuses me a little, as you start with your trainers and race belt on already...sounds simple, but with race brain engaged, anything can happen! 
 The fact it was the beginning of march made me a bit paranoid about the cold, and possibly the addition of a jacket on the bike was too much, but better too hot than so cold you are delirious (which I have experienced before, and it was not pretty) The race itself went OK ish. Unfortunately I was a little worse for wear, which I just thought was general tiredness after a busy week at work, but on Sunday I discovered it was a full blown virus. So after being a little disappointed with my performance on Saturday, and pretty horrified about the standard of my bike effort. When reflecting on Sunday in between vomiting and sleeping, it didn’t seem half bad! 


It was great to see the other RAF athletes out too and as always there was loads of support from the spectators and general public pottering about. One man even shouted Royal RAF Air Force, which made me smile at least! J This was also the first outing for my birthday present to myself, my Garmin 920XT. Since user error and me thinking about racing, rather than my watch, meant I didn’t get any splits or anything, the event is now logged as one giant 55km run, until I can work out how to edit it on Garmin connect….cant be that hard surely! Things I can say about it though are it is beautifully slim compared to the 210 I was using before, which means sleeves on and off are no drama (I can see this being a massive plus when it comes to a wetsuit). The display is beautifully clear too.
 

More rest for me until I'm 100% better, and hopefully a good run in a few weeks!

Racing again...all hope is not lost

Unfortunately I had to make the trip up to Leeds on my own, without mule support. However it gave me a chance to crack on with some Open University work and generally do girl things (a.k.a walk around Leeds shopping and trying a bazillion things on).

I stayed at the Radisson Blu, which is in a perfect location for the Leeds-Abbey dash. You are right by the finish area, and the service teams always congregate on the steps of the town hall. I would definitely recommend staying here. Plus you can use the Virgin Active for a small fee. Which I dutifully did on Saturday afternoon, having a little swim and a long sauna/steam room.

Refreshed I popped out to do some xmas shopping and get some pre-race dinner, another advantage of being on my own meant I could go for sushi! (I have a fish hating boyfriend)

Feeling very chilled out after my pleasant day by myself, chatting to strangers and eating nice things, I got my kit ready for the next day. This felt VERY strange and I had to remind myself what to do! I was sure I had some pre-race rituals, but I wasnt sure what!

Having NO pressure to perform well definitely helped me, and I sort of breezed through the next morning, before I knew it i was on the start line!

Of course the first few km's were waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to fast which I payed for at the end of the race. If it wasn't my lack of run fitness, it definitely was the suicidal starting pace!

Anyway, I finished, much quicker than I had expected. All is not lost! The runner is still lurking inside me somewhere!

Off on a tangent

I have decided after 2 weeks off work, and generally remembering what its like to be me, not some work crazed triathlon crazed work and train-o-holic, that I have been neglecting a lot of my other interests, therefore this blog is soon to contain lots of other stuff that interests me.

Firstly...
I like triathlon - yes, and I am of the female variety. However there seems to be a lack of female friendly tri stuff (although this is getting better). I like to try (try is an understatement) to retain a bit of my femininity when part-taking in sport. So I will be sharing some tips on things such as swim proof nail varnish, how to remove the ever present smell of chlorine from yourself and other useful stuff for us ladies. Plus I am also a lover of exciting colourful tri clothing, swim and gym wear, which I shall share with y'all too. 

Second
Art, photography and generally making stuff. I do it, some of it is going to be coming your way!

Third
Baking!!! This seems to be something shared by my fellow triathletes. Some recipes, good and bad to follow.








Fourth
Cocktails and eating out.









Fifth
Make-up, clothes and beauty.

Sixth
Yoga. ahhhh yoga. I have neglected thee recently. However a new routine and focus means I am back on the namaste-bandwagon and feeling good :) 

Oh yes....and cats. I really like cats :) 

Shift Work & Training

I have been asked by a few people to share my methods/tips/coping strategies for training while doing night shifts and shift work in general...

The Background

Currently I am in a full time job where I work 12 hr shifts in an underground bunker. These are both day and night shifts. There are a lot of problems relating to shift work and lack of exposure to natural light. The first being sleeping and how that effects recovery for an athlete, but also other things like mood, motivation and willingness to train. 

Sleep

There are 3 main functions of sleep. 1 is to repair the body. 2 is to process food and restoration/recovery of the nervous system and 3 is the cognitive function of learning and memory.  Many now argue that sleep is mainly for the brain rather than the body.

"Sleep affects recovery, metabolism, hormonal balance, mood, and athletic performance. During sleep, the body secretes growth hormone, which aids in strength building and recovery from injury by stimulating the healing and growth of muscle and bone as well as the burning of fat. Sleep helps keep athletes mentally sharp, too, and is important for memory, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination as well as for learning and acquiring new skills."

So, all the good advice says get between 8 and 10 hours a night, which just aint gonna happen if your are on the night shift!

 

There is loads and LOADS of stuff on the internet about how bad not getting enough sleep is for you, disturbances in circadian rhythm (your body's natural rhythm)  etc. etc. so I wont go into all that, I am just going to share my tips about getting through it, and especially getting through it while still trying to achieve your athletic goals.

Training

Unfortunately you are going to have to adapt your training, and this might mean having more easy or light training days than you would ideally like. However this is better than trying to train at a really high intensity when you are exhausted, resulting in becoming frustrated and angry because you have had a bad session, or worse becoming injured. 

Day shifts 

These are long and tiring. I normally try and do a light training session before work (horrendously early) or after work. Anything more than that and I would be wasted and unable to do much in the following days.

Night Shifts & The Tips

1. Don't try and skimp on sleep in the day in order to maximise your daylight hours. It is really frustrating to spend the best bits of the day asleep and miss all the sunshine, but you NEED the rest. It is said you need an hour of sleep for every 2 hours awake, therefore after a night shift you have a 'sleep debt' which needs to be repaid. Set an alarm if you need too, but try and wake up naturally so your body had banked the sleep it needs. I have found moderate to hard training sessions achievable on these days in the afternoon.

2. Go to bed as soon as you can after your shift. Try not get distracted by other jobs which need to be done, this will likely wake you up and you will find it hard to sleep.

3. Get some decent black-out curtains, blinds or sleep with an eye mask. Personally I have thick curtains AND use an eye mask which make it really easy to get back to sleep again.

4. If where you are sleeping is noisy, and living communally is I can assure you. You can try ear plugs (the type motorcyclists use, or if you don't like putting things in your ears (I don't) try ear defenders.

5. Put a sign on your door if you can, explaining 'Shift worker sleeping' or something similar. This should dissuade people knocking on your door trying to sell you something, or something else equally unhelpful.

6. Keep your room cool, this makes it easier to get to sleep.

7. Don't get stressed if you cant sleep. Try reading a book, listening to calming music. I like to write a list of what I need to do when I get up, then I can see my goals for the day and allocate my time appropriately.

8. If you are hungry, eat something. It can be hard to not over-eat while on the night shift, but if you are starving when trying to get to sleep, you wont. I sometimes have a small bowl of porridge or a handful of nuts. Walnuts, almonds, cheese, rice, cherry juice and chamomile tea are all know to help stimulate sleeping.

9. Don't under-estimate the power of the afternoon nap! Although you should try to nap for 90 or 45 minutes (or factors of, e.g. 3 hrs). This is one full, or half of a sleep cycle. This will stop you waking up in the 'deep sleep' part of the sleep cycle. That is when you wake up and feel totally awful!

10. After nights I find I am extremely irritable, my mood is very unstable and I can find myself being easily distracted. I am aware of this and that alone has helped to enable me to re-focus on what I need to get accomplished on that day. However I have also learned to LET GO, if I miss a session, it is not the end of the world! This is my hobby, I'm not a professional and it should be enjoyable.

Days off

These might be in the week rather than the weekend, and depending on your family situation this will dictate how much time you can give up to training, but generally I make the most of my days off and get in some big sessions with long periods of rest. I also try to do as much prep as possible for my days at work. Doing things like food prep, washing and getting bags of kit prepared so I don't have to waste time in what can be busy and very long days.

 

Run - walk - shame

Well, it is an improvement at least. I am now doing a progressive run-walk programme but OHEMGEE am I slow?

I know that I can't rush the recovery though, and as a friend put it, I would waste all those hard months of resting, and then be back to square one again.

The injury and lack of racing had lead to a huge decrease in mojo and general willingness to train. Also exacerbated by people (trying to be nice and friendly) saying things like, oh it will be OK, don't worry, you will be back to normal in no time, etc.etc.etc. which seemed to make it worse somehow!? Illogical I know, but they would reel off all these little dits about how it was going to get better, and then jog off into the sunset themselves.

So, what to do?

Well I came up with the ultimate tri to-do list for 2015. But I also used the time to look back on the season past, and it has been pretty incredible. Whatever your situation im sure there have been good and bad bits which have lead you to where you are now. Worrying, or being miserable wont change anything, so reminisce in the good bits, and build on the bad. Acknowledge their presence, and move on! Yes...GET OVER IT!

That's where I am now, slow on 2 feet but getting over it.

Bring on
winter training and feeling smug when you have got out there and trained, while your friends have stayed inside in the warm.

Great hot showers only come after long cold runs! 

So I guess I am a World Champion

What has just happened? 

No really.... What has just happened?

I am sat on the plane now as the World Sprint Duathlon Champion! Pretty cool eh?  I won my AG (20-24) but I was also the first female in the entire field of 175 Age Group athletes from 37 different nations.

Travelling and racing on my own has been a massive learning experience. Not that I am new to either, in fact my first solo flight was when I was 5. Travelling with a bike is not exactly free from drama, especially when it is your pride and joy. I have also realised how travelling to competitions with someone you can offload your stress onto them, even if you or they don't realise it is invaluable. My other half normally acts as mule (carrying all my crap I insist on taking , but often never really need), my conscience (do you need to eat that giant tub of peanut butter - probably not) and general helper. 

Due to work commitments I only had a very brief time in Pontevedra. In fact I would say it is the minimum time you could successfully execute a race in. Fly, a day to build and test bike, compete, and then return.

The atmosphere was amazing, athletes everywhere. The elites raced on the Saturday which certainly got you in the right frame of mind. We had a briefing on the Saturday too and then a team photo (which was huge) I think we had one of the largest teams there.

One thing which wasn't so great was finding the food I wanted/needed. No where sold sandwiches, instead these stodgy pastry meat and cheese things - not ideal. Also all restaurants seemed to sell a lot of meat, and not so much in the way of carbs. I normally take my own race breakfast, but not other foods - lesson learned there! 

Another thing I will do in future is to take my own pillow, the hotel had these strange sausage pillows which were not too comfy.

360 degrees of transition

The Sprint distance athletes were the first to race at 0800 on Sunday, starting with 2 waves of men and then all the women together. 37 Nations were represented in the Womens race, comprising 175 people. I got to transition at 0600 in order to rack my bike and generally get ready. It was still pretty dark at this time, and it was also disconcertingly cold. I realised that I would have to time leaving my bag at the bag drop, followed by warm up and then the start quite carefully. Que the need for my mule :) 

The first run (5km) was two 2.5km laps of the streets of Pontevedra, very twisty with one hill.  

The bike course followed an out-and-back route, over an undulating course. The turn around point at half way provided a valuable opportunity to gauge how far I was in-front of the next competitor. Once I was around the cone at the top of the hill, I counted how many seconds the second woman was behind me. I am not the greatest cyclist, but I can hold my own, so I knew I needed to do some fearless descending in order to stay in the lead. Catching up with the blokes gave little incentives to keep pushing and some shouted words of encouragement to the 'first chica', some also shouted at being 'chicked', but all in good spirit'. 

The crowds were fantastic, lots of GB friends and family, but also other nations were cheering the fact I was the first lady, I almost couldn't believe it and kept pushing the pace all the way to the finish for fear of someone catching me!. Coming into the stadium the announcer missed me and announced the second lady as the winner. I thought that maybe I had incurred a penalty for drafting or something (even though I hadn't) so I didn't want to celebrate too soon, and then have to un-celebrate! After a couple of hours and a few panicked text messages, it was confirmed - I had won, I was now the World Champion!! And not just my Age Group, I had won the whole race!" 

I flew back home the next day and then was back in work bright and early on Tuesday morning - what a weekend! 

Manchester 10k

I vowed that I was going to blog about this race, weather good or bad.  I hadn't raced a 'proper' race for a while where I knew it was going to really hurt for quite a long time,  this added to my pre-race nerves. 

 

I was feeling a bit down the week before, a combination of returning from Mallorca and returning to 12hr days and nights at work. The lack of quality rest I had enjoyed the previous week was kicking me in the ass and my confidence was suffering a bit.

The night before the race I tried all my usual keep calm tactics and enjoyed watching the highlights of the ITU World Triathlon Championships, early to bed!

 

Race morning came all too quickly,  starting with a rude awakening from my alarm! I looked outside,  then at the weather forecast,  it was going to be a hot one!  The weather man was not wrong on this occasion. Warming up pre race at 0930 it was clear the heat was going to be a factor and lots of the elite women were dousing themselves with water in an attempt to keep their body temperature down.  Not helped by the fact the race start was delayed due to some technical issues and it being transmitted live on BBC2.

 

Abi Bagshaw - Elite Athlete?!

The race was fast, and as predicted it hurt. I tried desperately hard to hang onto a group of 3 girls but unfortunately they were just too quick!  I found myself running the next 8km of the race on my own. I suffered between 6 and 8km where there is little crowd support and the course isn't particularly inspiring. 

 

I finished in 36:30, quite a bit outside my PB and was initially quite disappointed, but as I chatted to other runners everyone's times were slower than expected,  due to the combination of the heat and the wind. 

 

 

Combined Service Ladies



This race also incorporates an Inter-Area match between the Combines Services, The North, Wales and the Midlands.

 

You can read the full RAF report here.

 

I really enjoyed the experience in Manchester,  it is incredible to line up against some true legends of women's distance running. Tirunesh Dibaba defended her title, and won, adding this to a huge string of victories including 5 Olympic medals and a world record. I was thrilled to make it to the top 10 GB runners and made it onto the BBC billboard of GB ladies!

Halton Hills

The Halton Hills is an off-road race which takes place in the woods surrounding RAF Halton. Good news for those non-military people in the local area is 99% of the route is on public byways so you can have a go yourself! 

The race was first run in 1979 and its founder was the late WO Don Cobley, an RAF PTI and British Olympian in the Modern Pentathlon in Melbourne (1956) and in Rome (1960). One of the most grueling hills on the course (Cobley’s Rise) bears Don’s name.

The route winds its way through the Wendover Woods for approximately 7.5 miles, and over 7 hills of varying steepness and longness. There is an overall ascent of 1200 ft, which I can assure you is enough!

The first hill ‘The Snake’ is very steep and very long. This is followed by a small period of respite along a gravelly flat before coming to Hill 2 – ‘Boddington Bank’. This is a gentle incline followed by ‘Wimp’s Way’, a gradual incline which merges into hill 4 – ‘Cemetery Hill’. Number 5 – ‘Cobley’s Rise’ is definitely the worst, and this broke me into a walk. At the top of the hill you reach the Wendover Woods 'Go Ape' so it is likely you will surprise a few members of the public with your panting and red face! Last 2, ‘Cardiac Arrest’ – steep, but short. And finally Hill 7 – ‘Legless Last’, to be honest I can't remember what this one was like. I was just glad it was coming to an end!! You can view the full route on Strava here.

I had a really great race, much better than I was expecting on-top of a fairly tough week of training which is always nice. I finished 1st Lady and 3rd overall, which I think is one of the best results I have had, however there was an absence of the usual male racing snakes. Plus the lead man decided 7.5 miles want hard enough and went the wrong way (accidentally) adding a significant amount of time and distance. In the mens race Mike Kallenberg destroyed the field to finish in 45.40, almost 10 mins ahead of his nearest rival. 

Hill Stats

Order run	Ascent	Distance
The Snake	80m	300m
Boddington Bank	35m	350m
Wimp’s Way	55m	250m
Cemetery Hill	45m	200m
Cobley’s Rise	65m	250m
Cardiac Arrest	55m	200m
Legless Last	55m	350m

Thank you's of course must go RAF Halton for organizing the event, the RAF Sports lottery for assisting with the funding and Ultrasport for the T-Shirts! :)

Full results can be found on the RAFAA website and pictures will be added in due course.

Race Report - Fradley 10k

Wakey Wakey legs...its road race time! 

Fradley is not really a very well known 10km, however it should be as it is a pretty quick, slightly undulating course. This year saw it being started by two ambassadors of the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust,  twins Helen and Carol Galashan did the honors, professionals in Diving and Gymnastics. For information on what the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust Fund does and what it supports and funds go to www.dkhlegacytrust.org

Organised by KP events, and apart from the eternal problem of not enough port-a-loos at running races (im sure this is something which subscribes to the n+1=perfect amount of loos equation) it was fairly snag free. Car parking could have been managed a bit better, but the marshaling and support was great. There were LOADS of spectators in the village which was really nice to see.

Sponsored by Florette (not really sure why?) I was a little disappointed there were not free lettuces' post race, however it is probably for the best as it was a pretty hot day. Amazing for March in fact, and a scorching 14 degrees! It makes it hard to dislike anything about it! 

Post race I had some much needed love applied to my calfs' by Lichfields sports medicine partners, and extremely reasonable £5.00 and lots of good information available, including a leaflet to take away with good stretching techniques. 

Goody Bag (the important bit!)
Bottle of water
post race bananas
A Florette patterned head-over
Kellogs cereal bar
Money off Florette coupon
Medal
High5 gel (personal fave) 

2014 Results can be found here;

Park life

Last weekend I went to my second ever parkrun at Wycombe Rye. 

For those of you who have no idea what it is, it is a 5km run held every Saturday starting at 0900. Not just at Wycombe Rye, but all over the UK. These races are free to enter, all you need to do is register and print off a barcode which is unique to you. 

All that is asked in return is that if you have run a number of times, maybe give up some of your time and help out one weekend. The race is run my volunteers and 

All sorts of people attend these runs, from super-duper athletes to beginners. 

What I like most about parkrun is that you get to meet some like minded people in your local area. Admittedly i have only been twice, but both times I have struck up conversations with local people about all things from running, to global warming. 

If you are hesitant about attending for whatever reason I would strongly encourage you to put you inhibitions behind you and go and give it a go. I can assure you, you will not be judged or ridiculed for giving it a go. 

For more information visit  parkrun.org.uk

Happy Running