The Virtual Runner Running Blog

People often start running because they want to lose weight. Running is a great way to lose weight and I’m proof of the fact that you can lose weight through running without actually trying to lose weight.

At the moment, I’m consious of the fact that I am not following a runners diet.  In fact, I seem to be doing the opposite of everything you need to do to eat properly.  I’m taking in more calories then I’m actually burning… not good!

I know I’ll be okay after the holidays, but that is a long way off.  I think I need to sort myself out now for the few weeks up to xmas and then again after xmas.

That means that I go back to attempting to eat more sensibly.  I don’t necessarily stop eating loads, my thing is that I eat too much crap.  I’ve had a thing for sweets a lot lately and that’ll have to be cut way way down and some alternatives found I think.

I suppose I’m making it sound harder for me then it actually is or will be.  I know I can do it if I just put my mind to it.  It’s mind over lots of matter… no problem!

I wonder if there are many other “larger” runners out there like me?  I mean, a lot of the blogs I read (you can find them under the best running blogs in the menu above) are by runners who are all much fitter than I am.  Many have that runners body… you know the one I mean.

It’s a shame the Fat Runner (see the best running blogs) doesn’t post very much because I actually look forward to reading things that I can relate to.  Although, I don’t consider myself fat.  That’s important to point out because I think that word is quite negative and on top of that, I seriously don’t feel fat.  I feel the best I’ve felt my whole life… I just want to feel even better!

I’m really looking forward to pushing the training after xmas and increasing the mileage a bit at a time.  I’m curious as to how I will function on a long run that lasts more that two hours!  Jeez, can I actually do that?  Hell yeah…

food & diet, non running

Front of the cottage

I’m really sorry that I haven’t written in a while.  Juneathon was going so well for me as well!  Oh well, there is always next year.

I’ve had a lot of things going on lately an my focus just hasn’t been on writing.  I’ve managed to keep running though and if you look at my running log for my virtual run across Canada you’ll see all of my runs there.  Because it’s been so long and so many runs I won’t sit here and type them all out for you because it’s boring reading and boring to type all of it.

Moving

We have moved to our new place and it is one of four cottages owned by nearby farm.  Ours is semi-detached (to the another cottage of course) and that means we only have one neighbor.  The new house is near the motorway but we don’t really mind at all.  We’ve been there since 1st July and we’re loving it!  The outside of the cottage (grass, borders, trees, outbuildings etc) were/are pretty run down but we have done a lot to them already in the couple of weeks we’ve been living there. 

It took a couple of days to mow the whole lawn because the mower was cutting the grass so short the bag kept filling quickly (the mower wouldn’t go any higher – it was a gift from friends).  Unfortunately the mower broke before we could even finish the lawn so we decided to go and buy a new one which finished the lawn nicely.  Now it seems like the grass has all grown back already!  If it is nice this weekend I’ll be out mowing again…

Gate & back garden

It took two days to move into our new house and all of our stuff fit perfectly.  We had a clear-out over the few weeks before moving anyway because we went from a four bedroom detached house to a two bedroom semi-detached cottage.  Thankfully the new house has the outbuildings so we had a place to store all of our crap!  Usually that is what people use their garages for in this country.

We rented a nice big VW van for our move and I was looking forward to putting my little boy’s booster seat in the middle and letting him come with Daddy.  He loved driving in the van so high up. 

I’ve put some photos of our new home on Flickr and you can find them by clicking here or by clicking on one of the photos on this post.

Lasers

“You know, I have one simple request…and that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads. Now evidently, my cycloptic colleague informs me that that can’t be done. Ah, can you please remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here…what do we have?” – Dr Evil

Garden facing cottage

We recently got a bit of money and my wife has said that I should consider getting laser eye surgery.  So, I went and booked my “free” consultation for Wednesday, 12 August 2009 in Reading.  To tell you the truth, I’m both excited and scared.  I’m excited about begin able to do things without having to wear glasses all the time!  To wear sunglasses!  To be able to see when I come into a warm building from the cold outside!  To be able to run in the rain without feeling like a blind man!  Oh the joy of it all.  However, I’m scared that I won’t be suitable and I’ll have been excited for nothing.  I’m scared something might go wrong (even though statistically this is slim).

I am interested in hearing from people who have had laser eye surgery or know of those who have had it so please feel free to comment or send me an email [jamie (a) thevirtualrunner dot org].  I’m using Optimax so if you have any information or experiences with them in particular I’ll be even more interested to know.

Stress

With a death in the family, my dad going in and out of the hospital and moving house; I’ve been a bit stressed.  I think this (along with my generaly laziness) has contributed to…

Excess

I’ve been over-eating quite a bit lately.  I think it is mostly comfort eating but it’s certainly making me fat(ter).  I haven’t weighed myself in quite a while because I’m afraid it will just confirm what I already feel.

I mowed the lawn too short.

I’ve decided that I need to have a bit more focus when it comes to running/training because I’m just kind of plodding along on some sort of virtual plateau at the moment and I need to boost things.  I’m thinking that maybe I should register for a half marathon in October somewhere so it will give me something to aim for and will give me a bit more focus.  Training for general fitness just isn’t doing it.

I wish I had the common sense and willpower to stop eating so damn much but I just love food… yummy!

Friends

It has been a good few weeks now since my friend Robby (he’s like my brother) finished his trek across the arctic with a team of dogs and I haven’t really heard from him at all.  Thankfully I got to speak to him a couple of weeks ago when he was at my parents place in Canada and I managed to track him down and speak to him again last night.  I’ve really missed the guy and I’ve been stressing about how he is and why I haven’t heard from him.  Turns out it is a perfectly legitimate reason, however it would have been nice if he had kept me in the picture instead of letting me worry.

He’s talking about setting up a blog himself over the next couple of months and it that actually happens I’ll let you know.  For now, I’m just glad he’s safe and sound and taking care of himself.

food & diet, non running, robby kilborn, training, weight

For those of you outside of the UK, you may want to click here to see what I mean by the title of this post.

Eat eat eat… that’s all I’ve done over this couple of weeks holiday.  Okay, it’s not the ONLY thing I’ve done but I’ve done a hell of a lot of eating!

I’m actually looking forward to going back to work now just because I know when I’m working that I’m not stuffing my face constantly!

The couple of runs I’ve done so far this week were painful because I was getting shin splints!  Shin splints!  What the heck is up with that?  I haven’t had those really that bad since when I first started running I think. 

I decided to do a long run on Tuesday and I did 15.87km (9.86 miles) at a 05:40 min/km (09:08 min/mile) pace.  The first 4 miles were quite hard on ye ole shins but I plowed on and kept running.  I was happy with the run and the pace overall even with having to stop for a minute and stretch.

On Thursday I did 10.52km (6.53 miles) at a 05:41 min/km (09:10 min/mile) pace.  Again my shins were hurting the first few miles but I stretched and kept going.  At the end I felt okay again (although I’m still a bit stiff in the legs today). 

When I finished my run on Thursday Paula Radcliffe came through my headphones and congratulated me on completing my fastest mile yet.  “Hmmm, I wonder if I can do better.” I thought.  I hadn’t even looked at what my best mile was, I just decided to run a mile as fast as I could (even though I already ran 6.53 miles) to see if I could get Paula or Lance Armstrong coming through my headphones and congratulating me again!

I managed 1 mile in 7 min 47 secs (according to my iPod and the Nike+).  That’s a 04:50 min/km pace!  For me that’s not bad for a mile I thought.

I’ve got the Woodley 10k run on Sunday and I think I’m just going to concentrate on getting around in under an hour.  I don’t want to really push it over the next couple of weeks.  I’m doing the runs for the experience and to add the medals to my growing collection!  I love getting the medals!

I think a friend of mine from work might be coming along (he’s naturally fit and whips around in no time).  My other half, son and a friend of ours will be coming along to watch me hobble around.

So, I’ll let you all know how things went on Sunday and I’ll get my photographer (my other half) to take some pics for you.

food & diet, long run, race or event, training

Yesterday we decided we would have takeaway for dinner because we had my daughter and her husband around for a visit. We opted for chinese food from our local takeaway.

I like chinese food; I always have. However, the past year or so (since I’ve started running and I quit smoking) I’ve noticed that I always feel a bit crap the day after I’ve eaten it. I feel more lethargic (than usual) and very dehydrated (obviously the sodium). Today is no different.

My sleep last night was also very restless and I kept waking up throughout the night. I’m normally a very good sleeper so I have also assumed the restlessness was linked to my delicious meal from earlier in the evening.

In the morning I told my fiance about my bad night of sleep and she rolled her eyes. However, she went on to say that she had lots of strange dreams.

I’ve done a bit of research with the help of the ole “inter-web” and there has been a lot of research in to MSG (monosodium glutamate) and it’s effects. I’ve also found many references to “disturbed sleep” and “bad dreams” which matches up to what I was thinking.

This certainly won’t put me off eating chinese food, however it will make me more conscious of when I’m eating it. For example, if I have an event (this Sunday), I won’t be eating the delicious morsels of dehydrating goodness a few days beforehand! Thankfully I’m counteracting the effects of the sodium in the run up to the Princes Trust 10k by taking in lots of fluids over the course of today, tomorrow and Saturday.

As for running, I didn’t do any this morning because I obviously didn’t feel right. I’ll go tomorrow and take Saturday off. Sunday is the Princes Trust 10k in Legoland, Windsor (just down the road from the Queen’s house).

I contacted the Princes Trust 10k organisers yesterday because I haven’t received my race number or timing chip and they said that they had all been sent to runners last week. I’ve been told to wait until Friday (tomorrow) and if I haven’t received my pack by then I am supposed to call them and they will make arrangements for me to get a pack and race number on the day.

I finally got the results from the Mortimer 10k that I did (see My Events) and I completed it in 57 mins 09 secs. Not bad considering I didn’t really prepare for it. I’m hoping that with some more training I’ll get down to about 50 mins by this time next year. It’s all down to me.

I’m contemplating whether to do some sort of 10k run around Christmas time, but that depends on if I can find one near to me. I’ll let you know.

I’ll update my website over the next day or two so I can see if I’ve managed to make it out of New Brunswick and in to the land of the french (Quebec).

The Virtual Runner

food & diet, race or event