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.

My history - weight and running

I thought that a great place to start would be to go with my background, firstly I will admit that I am, part at least, starting this due to boredom from corona-virus lock down.

Weight Gain: 

So from the age of around 14 until 28 I basically just put on weight, mostly it was a gradual process but it was exacerbated by having a bad foot in the form of Ledderhose disease. Much more information on that can be found on my successful Ledderhose blog. 

By December 2014 I was weighing at 19 to 20 stone and feeling rotten with myself. I was a fairly new parent and not able to do as much as I wanted with my daughter I was almost certainly pre-diabetic and had tried so many weight loss plans that I was at my wits end.

After (December 2015) and before (December 2014).

Keto Weight Loss: 

My wife and I did some research (both previously scientists) and came across the Keto / low carb diet and gave it a go. Fair to say it went amazingly well and we both lost significant amounts of weight in this time. A spreadsheet of our weight loss can be found here.

The graph above shows my weight loss over the course of the first 10 months or so of weight loss.

Running

During 2015 we started running and things continued to go well into 2016, I set a parkrun PB of just over 19 minutes (having previously had a best of 29:29) and also set my half marathon PB of 90:10, so close! In 2017 I started marathon training and this is where things went wrong. Something in my body does not like long runs, it doesn't matter what I do, from carbs, water, electrolytes, outside conditions. I also suffered a knee injury that kept me out of running until the end of 2018. 

Weight gain, loss, gain, loss

After my first taste of injury / illness at the start of 2017 my weight gradually came back on, this was exacerbated by not being able to run and I got up to around 15 stone. During this time I has remained strict Keto and so was disappointed to have seen the scales rise so high. I then went strict on high fat protein shakes and got my weight to within 10lbs of my lowest, then I cycled a little but mostly remained at this frustratingly higher weight that kept me from getting anywhere near personal bests on the running side of things. 

In 2020 I was ill with a bad cough from mid-January to early March and was just getting back into it when corona-virus hit. These things combined, despite basically being zero carb, saw me hit the scales at around 14 stone again. Now I knew I needed to supplement this with something. 

During these few years I noticed I was very sensitive to something that eludes me right now but it is high in some vegetables and nuts etc. this excluded the protein shakes I had used before and others all had sucralose, which for me is a laxative. 

In this time I adapted more evolutionary aspects to fitness, I have use barefoot shoes and train at a very slow pace. Will probably see more on this in some of my posts.

Enter fasting

After some more research and listening to the likes of Jason Fung I decided to give fasting a go. Not sure if it will work, especially with running. Honestly I have not done much running since the lock-down. Saying that I have not been fasting for long. 

Running Coach:

Given my background in science and having become a fully qualified running coach and head coach for a club with 80 or so members I feel well placed to talk about running and fasting. 

The goals:

• Use fasting for weight loss and ideally get down to my lowest ever (adult) weight.
• Hopefully get close to and set personal bests, at least at 10km. 
• Be happy and healthy, the most important rule in any coaching plan. 

My posts will be on all of the above, assuming I remember to post. I hope to at least post a weekly update on weight loss and hopefully one or two posts on some scientific articles I come across on any of these topics. Maybe reviews of audiobooks etc. that are related and who knows what else.