Sunday long run

Just got back from my Sunday long run, the freedom of not worrying about distance and just running for time is amazing. I ran for the best part of 2 hours, would guess I "only" did around 10 miles or so but I don't care. I was out there and enjoying my run. Given the fasting I am doing at the moment it is not surprise that I am finding the easy runs better than the hard runs. I can go and run for 2 hours, enjoy it and feel great but 5 x 3minute hills reps as part of a shorter run is a real killer. 

I honestly have no clue what to expect next week when I do my first 2020 vs 2015 challenge. In 2015 I ran around the 23 minute mark. In my head this is a time I should easily beat now, just 6 months ago I ran a full 2 minute quicker and wasn't much lighter than I am now. At the same time the faster stuff is a struggle, I am hoping that the sort of taper week I have next week will give me a good shot, the last 2 weeks have probably be the hardest, in terms of speed-work, in a long time. 

I am now looking into some interesting topics that resonated with me from a book I am listening to at the moment. A thing called anatomy in motion / Neurokinetic Therapy was mentioned and I feel this can help me to strengthen the area's that make me weaker than I would like. 

I think that my history of Ledderhose Disease / Plantar Fibromatosis is something my body has never fully recovered from and so in the past it is my right side (above was on the left) that I have had the niggles on and honestly when I am running now I don't feel like I am running the same with both sides. 

I will do some more research and check back in, also work on some home python projects and whatever else takes my fancy whilst on lock-down. 

Weight not moving

So I am sticking really closely to my keto fasting plan and in the last week (Thursday to Wednesday) I am net up 1lb. This is slightly annoying as I have been running and fasting. I have had some issues with finding myself eating more than I should on my feeding days, mainly because I have been eating nuts and having lost 20lbs in 5 week feel I deserve the odd semi-treat. 

The other reason I am not too bothered is because of what I just said above, I have lost 20lbs in 5 weeks, I am also not finding fasting hard. This week I had to change my plan as it was my daughters birthday and we all wanted to eat together. 

So to now, I am currently over 50 hours into what will be my longest fast. Honestly I am feeling really good at the moment so who knows how long I will last, the dream is to feel good running and last until the weekend. If I last until the weekend it will take me past the 100 hours mark for the first time, I would probably have to be careful when I start eating again as I don't want to eat too much too fast and may even eat Saturday and Sunday. 

Running Goals to stay motivated during COVID lockdown

With the success that I have had with fasting the weight loss motivation is doing great, 5 weeks in and almost 20lbs down. Fasting itself is getting easier and the introduction of the psyillium (I can't spell it) husk has massively improved the IBS issues I was having after coming out of any sort of fast. It is all well and good saying that I would like to set a 10km PB in December but that is a long way off and I need some shorter terms targets to make sure I am on the right track. 

For a bit of context my 10km PB is, for me a rather poor, 42:50. In one race I was on for sub 40 minutes until 6k when the heat got to me and I staggered home in just under 43. That remains my official PB but if I remember correctly I also took part in a 10k the year and ran 42:45 but this was a low key event and it is not on any of the usual sites. So basically I set my 10k PB in 2015 when I had only been running properly for 10 months but was at the peak of my weight loss. I matched that, as said above in 2016, but 2017 was when it all started to go wrong and I have not yet gotten back into that sort of shape. The closest I have come was February this year, I was at a decent weight and was less than a minute away from my PB and I had a cold. Said cold became a chest infection, 2 months off running and then lock-down started, During that time my body did not react well to reduced running and probably stress eating and put on 30lbs. 

Anyways. I thought I good way to motivate myself was to track some of my progress this year compared to 2015, much like I am with my weight. So below is a table of some of the times as a comparison. 

The top half of the table should be completely irrelevant as I am in much better than 26 minute shape, well I hope so anyway. The bottom half, given where I am with weight, could be interesting. Sure I ran much quicker than 23:04 earlier this year but the rest of the times have been out of each for me since some time in 2016! So I guess, depending on me getting some GPS going, the aim is to try and break the times by the dates listed below. Whether I do this as one effort and see how I go or give myself several changes I am not yet sure. If I make this I will be back running sub 20 by the end of the year.  

Another table showing my parkrun results from that year, some with buggy, pacing or with my wife, if I stick to that I could be on 19:40 by the end of the year! Results above are slightly different as it took into account time to get over the line. Also shows me that the above was showing a time set in the week start the date shown. 

One difference to note between 2015 and 2020 is that I now run in barefoot shoes. This is for injury prevention and works great for me in that respect I am just not 100% convinced they are quite as fast, by then I have not been at my race weight since I started using them! Fingers crossed I can do this. Perhaps my goals now should be to relive past glories, wonder if I can rectify the time I just missed the sub 90 half. 

If nothing else I am hoping that this helps me with motivation of running during whatever is left of the COVID19 lockdown. The above running was mostly done with my wife (minus the racing) as my daughter was small enough t go in a buggy. 

I also want to go through some of my coaching material and see what else I should be doing, I am already doing some mobility work, squats and planks etc. but given my previous with injuries it is better to be safe than sorry.

Week 5

So I have not really been motivated to post on here much, I mean I didn't really expect any views and this is mostly just for me to document my progress so going forwards when I am bound to gain weight again (or maybe not if this works as I hope) I know how to get back to where I want to be. 

This week was another good week, I lost about 2.5lbs and am back on course with where I was in 2015. As I have said before and as the graph below shows (at least at the time of publishing as it should live update), it was around this point in 2015 that the weight loss began to stall. Up to this point I had lost 85lbs, in the next 7 weeks I would lose another 10lbs (under 1.5lbs a week compared to 85lbs in 20 weeks). In the weeks that followed I had a net change of nothing in 9 weeks. Although it is not a race against 2015 I would like to get ahead of it because I am a competitive person. Now the thing is that I am not looking just to be lighter, mostly I am looking to be healthier. 

I am not 100% sure how to judge the healthier, having been keto and sometimes carnivore for 6 years and now with fasting I probably am healthier so I might try and take a look at fitness. In 2015 I ran a 5k (probably 3 miles but not sure) on the 31st May in 23:04. Now to me that seems slow, bearing in mind I have run low 19 minutes (though not sub 20 since 2016). I did run sub 21 last year but at the time was marathon training and running consistently and 10lbs lighter than I am now. Think I will do another post on some running goals for me. 

Still a bit more weight lost this week and runnong on my fasted days has felt good. 

Run after 44 hours fasting

So I am on Wednesday of week 2 of fasting. This morning I woke up and felt like going for a run. As a running coach and as someone with an interest in science etc. I have adopted what I feel is the best training method for health and fitness, although sometimes performance may suffer. All this means is that I generally train at a slow pace, this is meant to encourage fat burning and not trigger too much stress in the body. This type of training is supposed to reduce the risk or injury or burnout, improve the aerobic energy systems and basically allow for consistency which in the long run produces better results. 

I am current at around 44 or so hours or fasting and this is the first time I have been out for a run with this level of fasting. Honestly I felt pretty good and no different to how I normally feel when I am out for a run. I lasted around 50 minutes and stopped when I was feeling good rather than pushing too far. 

The second screenshot fro my phone shows that I lost around 1.6lbs yesterday, slightly disappointed with this as most will be water weight but at the same time I feel good. Given I am fasting and using feeding windows at the moment I think the top graphic basically shows fasting all the time. 

At the moment I am hoping to get to around a 72 hour fast and then have a 4 hour feeding window on the next 2 days to ensure that I get sufficient nutrition and don't get too addicted to fasting. As someone who likely has Aspergers I have a tendency to get addicted and obsessed over things. Given I have started this blog it is clear that Keto Fasting is clearly one of those things at the moment.  

Overall the best thing is that I am feeling good and don't feel the need to eat.