January.....while most of the world is signing up with enthusiasm to new fitness goals, you find that you've done everything a few weeks earlier.
Running becomes, well...meh. So what? Just miles. The ground is saturated and the "trails" are more muddy furrows. It's cold so the legs stay well and truly undercover. No, even the head and hands stay under cover. The weight creeps up a bit, and remember those niggles you've been ignoring for months, well maybe a couple of them are really "injuries". It's the shoes' fault; it's the snow and mud's fault; it's my dodgy gait cycle; I need to run in zero drop; no, I need "motion control"; I'm compensating for one injury by "favouring" that leg; more hills; less hills.....meh!
It gets light late and dark very early ( I know the days are getting longer, but it never feels that way at 7 am, does it?). Maybe I should try some cycling. Oh, shit, now there's snow and ice everywhere. Another plan needed, but really, why bother as I am injured anyway?
Well, the injuries are 1. persistent achilles tendonosis left side; 2. crunchy knee with sharp occasional pain on right side (runners knee?) and 3. a tight right hamstring.
I think they are all connected to wear and tear, alot of added "vert" offroad in the last 2 months and especially "braking" rather than flowing on downhills. Overuse and poor technique.
I also think now they may just fade away with January. It happens. Once meh has floated away, I have a funny feeling the niggles wont matter so much either
I have been running though, as the stats column shows. Nothing really long but regularly. Offroad conditions around me are really atrocious right now. Wet snow on the ground over waterlogged, muddy uneven pasture and field edges. It really is quite ruinous for the lower legs and I am running at a very cautious slow pace on the offroads. That and an attempt to avoid the hills on the roads makes life a bit tricky, as I live on top of a small hill. every run starts on a downhill.
As per usual in January, I am undergoing a "dietary experiment". Having listened, studied and read quite a bit about energy metabolism, particularly concerning fuelling for endurance, I am 23 days into a month without sucrose. I've been tweeting and re-tweeting lots of information on the possible toxic effects of a high sugar diet in the last few weeks as well. Running the Ridgeway had me downing massive quantities of sports drinks and sweets of various types, and each night I would find my craving for chocolate late at night had gone up. This seemed to be more than just the body's natural refuelling method and there was a definite cognitive shift going on. I had read peripherally about "sugar addiction", but once I started to look at the work of Robert Lustig and watched a couple of youtube videos, the penny dropped about what happened - the more sugar you have, the more you crave. The insulin spikes that this causes are obviously pretty useless for you from a long term health perspective and they are not very helpful if you want to be out on your feet for a few hours either.
So I have been Mr #nosucrose in January. Initially I craved the stuff and had to substitute the snacking with other stuff, but this lasted only about 10 days. Now any fruit tastes incredibly sweet and my appetite has changed. I am not trying to lose any weight this month at all - I think that is unwise when there are so many bugs around that can lay you low and stop you running - but inevitably the components of my daily calorie count have shifted. No "free sugars" will have reduced my total carbs, but I am not really advocating "paleo" or anything like that. Let's just let the experiment run its course and then see.
The longer the month goes on, the more I am adjusting targets. The BQ of 3:40 is less important to me right now. Road marathons are fine, and I will run MK with a view to lifetime PB if my 'leg health' permits, but do I really want to oblige myself to go to Boston next spring?
The Jungfrau marathon is a firm goal, but I really want to stretch some of the endurance boundaries as well. The Ridgeway 4 day was an incredibly fun thing to have done, and I cannot help but feel I will greater sense of achievement and overall satisfaction if I can take to the hills and run something of 50 miles plus. There are many, many temptations out there. I ran a 50k and a multistage in 2012. Maybe it should be a 50 mile, and something a bit more spectacular this year.
One of the highlights of January has been following Jez Bragg's assault on the Te Araroa "long pathway" 3000 km trail in New Zealand, and we have committed to go down there now for 3-4 weeks in November. I wonder if I will be allowed a day on the trail out there?.....
Evolved to run. Born to run. Older, greyer, still running.
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