This edition of things I'm loving lately, will probably be highly influenced by my new uni life. The fact I'm living on strict budget, means you definitely appreciate the little things more! 1. Grapes Okay, okay, I know this is a weird one but I treat myself to grapes every week, usually on Monday and they last two days if I'm lucky... but normally its really less than 24 hours. I tend to have half in the evening after dinner and then the other half of the pallet in the morning with my breakfast and they are just great. When I come home, my mum always knows to have some grapes waiting for me! 2. Team Bath Sports Centre A big reason why I chose Bath uni was because of their amazing gym facilities... I mean its pretty impressive. I was pretty quick to buy my gym membership when I got to the uni, which initially I was unsure I was going to do, after the pretty hefty £280 price tag. I am pleased to say this was a well worthy investment. I have made full use of the free yoga, circuits, spin and pilates classes which come free with it. However, I went to one yoga class and it was honestly the most exhausting thing I have ever been too. I came out, not exactly relaxed but so tired I needed to go to bed (it was at 7pm on a Sunday, so kind of justifiable). The swimming pool, is actually a pool of dreams, having a 50m pool on my doorstep is certainly something I am not taking for granted. 3. Running I have such a love for running and over the last 10 months, injuries, exams and stress have really tested my patience. Thankfully my body all seems to be in one piece at the moment and I am enjoying every run. I'm exploring new routes in Bath, but also when I went home it felt so nice to run on my home routes. As many of you will know is that, since being at Bath I have picked up rowing, this is a huge commitments but something I am absolutely loving. The great thing is, running is part of my training for rowing as it is such a great way of keeping fit. This is no means the end of my running, I'm excited to be signed up to a few XC races this season, because nothing can take away my love of running, however much I love rowing too. 4. Uni meals... okay this isn't so much of something I'm loving, but more something I want to discuss. So for my first 6 weeks of uni, I have got through with some fine cooking, nothing great but also nothing bad. Everything I am making is just so bland. So, my challenge for the next few weeks is to try cooking with some more exciting flavours, I am planning on buying some onions and garlic. Plus, I have bought chilli oil, curry paste and hopefully I'll be able to get some teriyaki sauce soon too. I am going to be using some of Jamie Olivers recipes which have only 5 ingredients, to try and keep it simple but add a bit of fun to my meals. Here's a selection of some of my meals so far... which are a little bit boring but healthy (I've been getting my protein, carbs and veg in each meal too).
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This blog post is continuing on from last weeks (4 month injury update part 2), as there was so much to talk about I had to put it in two posts. After this, I had made it to the end of cross country season, but to be honest it should have come to an end a lot sooner. Here I was, with my body in a mess and low positivity at having a horrific end to a season, following the best opening season ever. In the end my hip flexor issue meant I was unable to do pretty much anything for about 6 weeks. Everything I did seemed to hurt it... cycling hurt, swimming hurt, running hurt, gym work hurt... even walking hurt. This was during easter, so I guess it gave me more time to revise, but it did not help me mentally... I felt pretty lost to be honest. Stress levels were pretty high from work and I had no sport to turn to. This was hard. After these hard six weeks, I could slowly start doing some cross training. However if you are wondering about my foot and shin, this was still going on. During the six weeks off I also had my foot scanned because I was pretty sure it was a stress fracture. It turned out to be 'nothing' apparently, however there was certainly something very wrong with my foot at one point... because I couldn't walk on it. At this point I was happy because I could see progress because my shin, foot and hip flexor pain had gone. The next step was returning to running. Running was going great, until on my third run in, my shin started to hurt. At this point, I was pretty fed up. I was about to start my exams so as you can imagine, I probably wasn't the happiest I've ever been. I tried on and off running through exams, having several days between each run and not running for long, but still the pain in my shin wasn't going anywhere. Finally after exams, I sought more help for my shin. This time, I feel like I really got an answer. My physio said, I almost definitely had a stress fracture in my shin back in March... and I really wasn't surprised to hear this. Luckily, my shin in June was not still a stress fracture and the verdict was, it probably just needs a few more weeks rest. I was very happy with this and rested up. A month on, and I'm progressing on my walk/ run programme and I can see hope. I can see a future. Its going to be a slow process, but every step I'm thankful for. The excitement I get before every run is pretty great! My fitness is clearly lacking, but I expected this and I'm hoping when I get back to more structured training, it shouldn't take too long to return.
I hope you have enjoyed this post and I am hoping that others can learn from it. Pushing through my injury, got me nothing. I broke my body more and was rewarded with some shocking race results. G x Nearly four months ago, I was struck with some shin pain. I had been feeling it for the last two weeks, but I had made myself push through because I had just had some of my best cross country races of my life. I was hoping this good form would continue and I was worried some time off would damage my fitness. The pain started just before nationals but I managed to make it to the race, because I had been looking forward to it all year... however this is where more problems started to arise. I had a pretty shocking race at Nationals and as I was running around the course, nothing in my body hurt, my legs just felt dead. However the following day I couldn't walk up the stairs because of my hip flexors. I didn't know at the time, but they just felt really tight are were very very sore. At the same time my shin was also still sore... I mean I couldn't even touch it, without serious pain. I don't know whether I had a bad race because actually my body was falling apart and the adrenaline was hiding the pain or I just had a bad race. Two weeks later I had inter counties, a race I had worked so hard to qualify for at Kent Champs (blog post here). I will say this now... I should NEVER have raced inter counties! My body was not up for it. This was a race I had been so excited for and instead it turned into a race, I hated every second of. The expression on my face in the photos say a thousand words, because at the time, I wanted to be anywhere but that field in Loughborough. Yes this may sound negative, but its the truth. The pain I was in and the lack of running I had done the previous few weeks (because of my injuries), just made me feel pretty rubbish! Again this was another horrific race. However this time when I crossed the line, I discovered yet another pain... this time in my foot. Right so for any of you losing track, yes... I currently have three injuries at this point. My shin, my hip flexors and my foot. So on 17th March, I find myself in Leeds at the English Schools. Right now, you are reading the perfect example of what not to do when you are injured. Again my stubbornness, stopped me from withdrawing from the English Schools... why? Well this was my first and last opportunity to race at the English Schools and was not something I was going to give up lightly. This race wasn't actually too bad... I mean I would have liked a lot more from it but I'll take my result with a bit of a smile (you can read the blog post here).
... Next week, I'll be posting part 2 of this blog, where you'll get to find out more about my injury journey and where I am now. G x Many of you who have been following my Instagram, will have seen I was recently in Spain on a lovely relaxing holiday in the sun. This was my first holiday since finishing my exams and I feel like my body so needed it! Training while on holiday can sometimes be super easy or can actually prove quite challenging. The fortunate thing with running is you can really do it wherever... maybe the exception if you are on a sailing boat or something. I have put together some of my top tips onto how to enjoy your holiday and training. TOP TIPS: - Firstly don't stress if one day you can't squeeze a workout in; a holiday is for enjoying and one extra rest day, isn't going to do much harm, your body might actually even appreciate it. - Personally for me when I am on holiday with my family, the best time for me to workout is in the morning, because they all wake up pretty late. I try and get my workouts done before breakfast, as I don't like missing time with them when they are awake. In addition to this, I also often workout in the midday or afternoon, this is because we usually go on holiday to the middle east which can get pretty flippin' hot at the peak temperatures of the day (I have this to look forwards to in a few weeks time). - Often when you are on a summer holiday, you will have access to the sea or a pool. Make the post of this cross training benefit. If the pool is small, then perhaps swimming lengths isn't the most exciting prospect, but instead maybe try some aqua jogging. A really simple aqua jog session could be; 5 mins warm up 10x 2 minutes hard with 30 seconds rest 5 mins cool down - Open water swimming is also a great solution and this is something I made the most of while in Spain. If you are nervous then you can stick really close to the shore line and can basically never swim in water deeper than you can stand. In Spain the water was so so cold, so I could never go longer than 30 minutes, but I just tried to do little and often. - When it comes to access to gyms, this is when it can become slightly more challenging. In Spain I had no access to a gym which I thought previously was going to be a bit of a disaster, however outdoor gyms are popping up more and more, which are free to use and thankfully we had one right next to our apartment. Also there are lots of exercises which you can do without equipment, heres a circuit session I made which uses no equipment. 10x press ups 10x sit ups 1 minute plank 10x burpees 10x comandos 10x mountain climbers 10x squats This can be repeated 3 or 4 times, depending how much of a workout you want. I have also previously blogged another non equipment workout in CORE WORKOUT which is a non equipment core workout. - If you are staying in an appartment, sometimes there are bikes and fortunately there was one where I was staying, so could ride it around a bit. If you are on a city break and don't have access to the pool or sea, you can often find places to hire a bike, which can be great for sightseeing but also allows you to fit some cross training in. - Last of all, ENJOY. Your on holiday make sure you have fun and you don't worry about training all the time. Have an ice cream and remember to relax! I hope you enjoy this little fitness guide and gives you some ideas of what you can do on holiday. I struggled in Spain because I couldn’t run, but managed to make the most of swimming and cycling fortunately to keep my exercise up!
G x This weekend has been a much anticipate weekend for me, since qualifying back in January. Why...? because this is my first English schools, even though I was running as the older age senior girls, which also makes it my last. I would say my last few weeks have not been ideal in the lead up to this race, having picked up a few niggles. I knew I had to be fit enough to run English schools because I didn't want to hold a place in the team which someone would be able to fill, who was in a fitter position than I. Even though I have had little run training recently, I knew I would be able to run this weekend to a good standard. The journey up to Leeds started on Friday at 10:45 at Tonbridge for me, where I was being picked up by the Kent coach to make our way up to Leeds. It was a long journey following some delays on the motorway but we did finally make it to the hotel at around 6:30. This gave us just enough time to put our stuff in our rooms before heading off for some dinner. Dinner was really good, with a buffet style... perfect for all of us hungry runners. It consisted of some turkey, pasta, veggie lasagna and veg... a bit of a mix but none the less, very tasty. The time seemed to fly and after a team meeting, followed by a shower, I was ready to jump into bed. The hotel was nice, but I always struggle to sleep in another bed so woke up rather tired. I had also managed to pick up a cold over the last few days and waking up to not being able to breath through my nose wasn't ideal. After a quick pack of my bags, I headed down to breakfast. Again breakfast didn't dissapoint and even though there wasn't porridge, this wasn't really a problem as I'm happy to have toast instead. After checking out, we were ready to jump into the coach and head off to the course. Kent arrived pretty early to the course to give the people racing first a good two hours before their race, however it meant the senior girls had got there about 4 hours before their race. After having only arrived for 30 mins, the cold suddenly started to hit me and my toes were feeling it the worst. I was really starting to feel rubbish at this point because I could feel myself slowly freezing. Thankfully Holly (who won the senior girls race) allowed us to jump in her camper van to warm up... honestly I am not sure what I would have done without this. This meant that even though we were unable to support all the races we were keeping warm and stayed in here up until the hour before our race. On my warm up I actually felt like I warmed up... well I never cooled down after getting out the van, so that was good. However in the warm up I could feel my hip flexors tightening, which worried me as this had really stopped me in my tracks at the inter counties the previous weekend. After applying some gel, I was hoping they would hold up for the race, considering it was only 4km but hilly. We were soon waiting just outside the start line and then we were called into our pens. This is when suddenly the weather turned on us... the wind suddenly blew up and the air suddenly turned to ice. Just as the gun went, the sky started to snow... this combined with the winds created a lovely blizzard for us to run in. The first 5 minutes were some seriously tough conditions and my fingers and nose were so cold. The course went by quickly with a short and a long lap, made up of a lot of uphill, then straight back down again. The conditions under foot had turned pretty horrendous by the time it was our race and was fine in some places. However in others, keeping your spikes on your feet was the problems. Coming into the last 100m it was a slight up hill and I really had to dig deep through this and finally crossed the line in 123rd. If you had told me a month ago I had come 123rd out of the over 300 girls in my race, I would have been disappointed. But, with the injury problems I have had and the previous two bad xc races (affecting me mentally), I was actually chuffed to come in where I did. More importantly I had made it to my first and last english schools xc champs and made it to the end of xc season, just about in one piece. Kent just missed out on a team medal, but we had some amazing individual performances within the team, picking up 1st, 9th, 14th and 16th.
It was a long journey home and I finally made it into bed at about 10pm. However as I am writing this now, I am in bed and have been for the last few hours feeling pretty horrendous and just can't really even get out of bed. The long xc season and the stress of being in my final year of school has just all hit me I think. I need some time to chill now, recover and come back strong for track season. G x Over a month ago at Kent Champs (blog post here), where I qualified for the Inter Counties for the first time after missing out on selection last year. This meant I was very excited for this race and well worth the long travel up to Loughborough. On Friday, I did my usual routine with pasta and had my bags all packed for the early morning. I had an early night to prepare myself for the 6:30am start, where my mum and I were travelling up together. On arrival, the realisation of the mud hit me hard. Firstly I had just come in my trail shoes... a big mistake, wellies were a necessity! I was sliding all over the place, there wasn't an inch of grass on the field where the tents were. I arrived slightly late to Loughborough after sitting at stand still on the m25 for about an hour after an accident. I had a quick walk of the course but it didn't take long because you could see most of the course from one spot on the course. Soon enough I had finished my warm up and was making my way to the start line. On the start line we were placed in pens and I was near the back, following my not so great run at Nationals. When the gun went the mass of people was quite overwhelming and I found myself squeezed right in the middle of the crowd and didn't have many directions in which I could go. The course was muddy all over and I struggled to pick up a rhythm because of the tough conditions and felt I couldn't pick up much speed over the course. The mud seemed to suck the energy from my legs along with the hills, this is clearly something I need to improve on next season. I crossed the line in about 120th... so not a great run and was definitely wanting better. I was also disappointed to come in as last Kent, I just wanted a better run and prove to myself I am capable on a tough course. It was great though being part of such a fab team and it was a amazing experience and one I won't forget for a while. I look forward to hopefully being selected again next year to return stronger to this course. I have English schools this weekend, which I am so so excited for. I am travelling up on the Friday and back on Saturday evening after the race so it will be a busy weekend!
G x I am writing this post nearly a week later after my race, tucked up in the warm on my final snow day off school. It hasn't all been fun and games with the snow because I was in the middle of mock exams when the Beast from the East paid a visit. Instead school gave us to the exams to do at home... not much fun when I could be out in the snow. Anyway more back to the topic of my race, I had the national xc champs last weekend at Parliament Hill, it was a tough one for me and I certainly didn't come out of the race with the result I was hoping for. As you might know over the last few weeks I had been struggling with some shin problems and had to take some time off running just before nationals, which wasn't ideal and was upsetting for me because I felt like I was in good shape. By the time Nationals came around, luckily I was back running and had a couple of sessions under my belt going into the race. I knew what the course was like and had prepared myself mentally, for the challenging hills and soft ground. Following a walk of the course I had checked out every single hill I was ready to face the race. I soon found myself on the start line, looking up a the huge hill which faced me in my first 500m of the race. This hill is huge and really challenging... it certainly didn't disappoint and I made it to the top, somewhat tired! The course was 6km and made of two laps of about 2km and 4km, however the marshals sent us the wrong way on the first lap which added 800m. To start with a 6km race was one of my longest race distances, but to have it being nearly 7km on such a tough course was a recipe for disaster. Luckily I only realised the first loop was longer when I had finished so mentally I didn't really notice. I felt I started the race strong, not too quick but was in a good position. However about halfway in, I started to struggle and my legs felt exhausted. Mentally I was ready to hit these hills, but my body couldn't. The last 2km was certainly a mental test as people started to pass me and I knew I was much further back in the field than I should have been. At this point I wanted to just give it my everything and get around the course. I finally crossed the line in 89th place... far, far away from my target, but I had made it around the course. This course seriously challenged me mentally and physically. So, I may not have come out of this race with the result I wanted and it means I have had another bad nationals race, following last years bad race too. I do feel like I learnt a lot from it too, because the more experience I get with the larger fields of athletes the better. This will all help to building me to be a stronger athlete. Looking back now I can take positives from this race, whereas in the initial few days I was only seeing the bad. I have two races coming up in the following weeks English schools and Inter Counties. These are two races I have been looking forward to all season and I am ready to go into them and finish my season with two exciting races.
G x This Wednesday I had a mid week race; the King Henry VIII relays. It is a relay taking place in Coventry, with girls teams of 4 and boys teams of 6. To start off with Coventry is about 2.5 hours away from my school, so I was not looking forward to the travelling, but it is always a fun and exciting race. My journey up consisted of a bit of chatting but also a lot of latin revising for my test the following day (and I am pleased to say that the test went well)! After having driven for a good 2.5 hours we were able to get off the coach and stretch our legs. We quickly registered at the school and then made our way over to the park. The course is an odd one because you spend about 80% on a path but then the other 20% is in a muddy woods... not really ideal when it comes to choosing footwear. I eventually went for my cushioned trainers as I am dealing with a bit of a shin splint problem at the moment, so I wanted something which would cause the least bit of aggravation. I was the third leg which I actually quite liked in the end. When I was handed over the baton we had a big lead, so I set out to keep this gap as big as possible. The course isn't hilly at all, just the odd slight slope, so I was thrilled with this. I felt strong over the first 800m and then I was off into the woods... thankfully because it was pretty chilly the mud was slightly frozen, however there were too patches which were so so muddy. When I got to these points I was so concentrated I just ran straight through the horrible mud. I was very relieved when I finally got out of the woods back onto the path. The boys set off 5 minutes before the girls so by the time my leg came around we had just caught up some of the slower boys and I found this really helpful because it meant I could use someone as a target to chase down. I found the last 200m the hardest as my legs were tired and my shins were sore but I was pleased to hand the baton over, still with a big lead. We finished in 1st place at the end with over a one minute lead, which I was thrilled about and so was the rest of the team! It was a great day out and coming home with the win made it even better. However my shins have been getting sore over the last week so I've decided to just give cross training a go until next week to help this problem settle, I can already feel that they have recovered and I know I'll be back running very shortly.
Grace :) In mid December I went on holiday to Miami to get some much needed vitamin D and it was my first trip away with just my sister, which I was super excited about! I have saved this post until now because as the evenings are starting to get lighter and the small prospect of warm weather is in sight... sort of, okay not really. Anyway I thought I'd do a blog of what I got up to whilst on holiday and some helpful tips for staying motivated when away. America is always hard with jet lag and Miami was a four hour change, my sister and I found ourselves getting pretty exhausted early in the evening and I would be lying if I said we didn't go to bed at like 6pm on the first night. Personally I actually quite enjoyed going to bed early because it meant we woke up super early. When it comes to running whilst away I found it easiest to get my run done in the morning for many reasons. Firstly because it was the coolest part of the day and I am not a fan of running in the peak of the heat as I basically die. Secondly because if I left it until the afternoon then I was exhausted after having lied on a sun bed or walked about 10km around Miami. What I can say for sure about running on holiday is that it great because you can go and explore where you are staying a pass places that you might not have seen otherwise. In Miami it was great because there was a path along the beach for 7km and running along this made for some amazing views. It was great that the hotel I was staying at had a great gym and I was able to give some exercises a go which... well, I had never tried before. Like climbing up a rope. After seeing on Mo Farah's story his young twins doing this with ease, I naively thought it would be easy... however this was not the case. I failed miserable, lets just say I was better at the monkey bars. Even if where you are staying doesn't have a gym, this doesn't need to stop you from still hitting some great workouts which you can do with no equipment. In America I also had the chance to try some new foods and I discovered America have so much more choice. After hunting down a whole foods (my favourite place ever) we came back with some very exciting new goodies... I thought so anyway. I got some cliff bars (flavours you can't get in the UK) and lots of fresh fruit to keep in our room. But, my food discovery which I am still loving now was an acai bowl. I have heard plenty about these but only when I was at a cafe which was selling them, did I branch out and try one. If you haven't had one, I would describe it as a sort of frozen/ smoothie sorbet like thing and then I had lots of blueberries, granola, coconut and almond butter on top. This breakfast was like a dream and I need to find a recipe for it, to make at home! Looking back on photos now makes me seriously crave some sun, especially now as I am back to my usual paleness. There is hope though as we are edging further and further out of winter. The daffodils have started to come out on my road which is always nice to see! I know it has been a busy weekend of racing with BUCs and schools inter counties going on, so I hope everyones went well.
Love G x Kent schools has been an important race in my diary all season because I have had a lot of feelings about doing well in it. Last year (blog post here) I came 10th and I then went on to the schools inter-counties, where I then missed out on English schools selection. Last year I was able to say 'I have next year,' however this year is my last year of school, so it was my last chance. This gave me an element of pressure that I placed onto myself. I didn't want to dwell on this and I felt my nerves didn't really effect me that much. Anyway, moving on from all this chit chat and I'll explain how the actual race went. Setting off in the morning I knew we were going to be in for some pretty poor weather, after the forecast said 100% chance of rain from 7am to 2pm... I wasn't too amused by this. On arrival the rain was on queue and we all sat in the car with not much motivation to get out, it was pretty miserable. I made a dash to the registration to avoid the rain and then I was straight back in the car. Finally there was a point where I needed to get out, I combined my warm up with walking the course to allow for the minimum time in the rain. By the time I found myself walking to the start line, I was pleased to say that the rain had eased off a little. I whipped my water proof off at the last minute as the whistle went for 2 minutes remaining. Standing on the start line I started to focus in on the race and what I needed to do. Senior and inter girls were running together which made it challenging to know where you are amongst your own age group. The gun went and everyone went off extremely fast, I did try to go with it but I knew it was just too fast and unsustainable, so I just focused on getting into my own rhythm. When we reached the first small uphill, I tried to work my way up the field and I continued to do this throughout the race. After the first 2km lap of two was done, I knew I wasn't where I wanted to be in the field, although I didn't have a clue what place I was in the senior girls race. On the last 2km lap I really just tried pushing on and giving it my best shot. The very wet conditions led to really muddy fields and it felt like the mud was sapping all energy from my legs. Coming into the last 200m of the course, I knew someone was coming up behind me. At this point I didn't know what age group they were in so I really pushed right to the end and I found some mental strength here that I've never really used before... I think because the possibility of english schools selection meant so much to me. I crossed the line in 3rd... I actually couldn't believe it. I had been running around the course just hopeful of top 4 in order to gain automatic selection for english schools. To come away with a medal was just out of my dreams, I couldn't believe it, I really couldn't. The race definitely took its toll, as I struggled to stand up and try and catch my breath at the end... at least I knew I had really pushed it. My two big goals of this year was to be selected for inter counties and english schools, both things I had failed to do last year. To know I will be going to both of these now, honestly makes me so happy. I know I will be buzzing for a while after one of my best ever races but training continues and hard work is still to be done to hit the rest of the xc season with purpose.
I hope all those with school xc champs this week have been successful and any other races or training you have been up to. Love G x |
HelloI'm Grace, a 18 year old runner, and fitness fanatic. Join me on my crazy journey through life, squeezing in an adventure in every second of spare time I have. Archives
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