Weekends running, fast

So I tried my first fast from Thursday 7:30 pm to Friday 6:30 pm. I didn't feel hungry or any different. It made me realise that most of the time I eat because I'm fed up at work. I also drank a lot of coffee and herbal tea so I didn't loose any weight.  I might do it again next Friday.

The purpose of this, for me, was to help my body to recover from the week’s mini-injuries and joint pain caused by inflammation. Also it gives the digestive systems a rest.
Anyone else tried fasting recently?

I had a good weekend running. A classic five mile Tempo on Saturday on a grass field and then 15miles on Sunday.

Recovery week, NSNG, podcast fame!

This week I've been recovering from the Anglo Celtic Plate 100km. I've done about 40 miles. And 40 on the bike.

My legs are OK to run gently but no speed work, tempo runs or racing; a race would kill me at the moment. Luckily I've got no longer term injuries that can easily be picked up after an Ultra.

This week I got an email from British Athletics with the selection process for the World 100km Championships.  Since they sent it to me and I was 2 mins under the qualifying time I thought it would be rude not to apply. So I've sent them my CV. At least I might get onto the reserve list.

As some of you, as if anyone reads this, might know that in February I decided to cut grains out of my diet. I'd already cut out sugar, apart from whole fruits. It's called the No Sugar No Grain way of eating. I thought I'd give it a go for 10 days but I'm still doing it as I feel better. There are quite a few people in the world eating this way. I think it's just eating more vegetables and healthy foods that works. For me the NSNG gives me focus to eat more vegetables and fruit. For me, at the moment, it works so please don't judge me or call me a hypocrit if I decide to go back to eating grains. I doubt though that I'll ever eat foods with more than 10 percent sugar.

I listen to a few podcasts when running, one of them called Ru El s Running. He's also a NSNG runner and after doing the 100km Anglo Celtic Plate he congratulated me on Facebook so I said I'd go on his show to talk about it. So I did! He chatted / interviewed me Friday night (morning in his time zone). It'll be released soon.

That's all fokes.

Race report, Anglo Celtic Plate 100km

Well I've been building up to this race for a whilst and now here's the obligatory blog. It was an Ultra Race but I'll try to keep the blog Ultra Short as we are now living in a Twitter world (140 characters). 

First thanks to the Welsh Team Manager, Mike Robbins, he doesn't get paid and put's in a lot of work looking after everyone, on the day this mean handing out food and drink each lap for all the Welsh Team (32 laps). 

The race was 62.1 miles (Garmin recorded it longer but that's always the way). It was hard to think of the whole distance so I used as much distraction techniques as possible, the main one being counting the telegraph poles on the course (I think 57). The technique on focussing on something external is great for getting through hard times so keep it in mind the next time it's only 11:30 in work and you're working until 6!

50k to 80k was difficult because I didn't want to focus on pace, distance or anything as it was just too overwhelming. As a result I slowed my pace, if I had someone to run with they could have done the pacing but I didn't' have that luxury. Then at about 85k I started to think about the pace and stopped being reserved. I went for it and picked up the pace. I realised a sub 7:20 was on the cards and so went for it. I got 7h16m and came 5th overall. That's 7mins dead average per mile.

That's all folks, 

Told you it wouldn't be an Ultra blog. I'm happy.

Keep running.