Monday 22 April 2013

The Psychology of Running


"Running isn't just a physical sport. Mental and psychological training is also needed to run your best. There are many aspects of the psychology of running. Your brain is a powerful organ. It is responsible for controlling all of the functions of your body, including muscle movements. You brain even plays an important role in running fatigue. Psychological training involves improving your brains resistance to fatigue as well as motivational techniques such as visualization, positive thinking and disassociation."


Take your pick. I googled the psychology of running and it came up with 29,300,00 results in 0.21 seconds. This was just the first hit. The wonder of the web! Anyway, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Take someone who has always had an interest in psychology, add running, bound to get complicated! 

Take tonight for example. I left my running buddy as she'd already done her long run in preparation for Sunday's half marathon. I realised I hadn't run outside alone for a while, mainly because I wouldn't run straight out of my house as it's in a built up area. I resolved to make an effort to get down to the sea front more. I hit a nice rhythm, not exhausting but making me breath a little harder. Nice endurance pace. I was really enjoying myself. What interested me about this was that at the same time, I wasn't entirely comfortable. I had some burning type of feeling giving me a little bit of discomfort in my abdomen. My head went "Aha! I know why that is" and immediately blamed the naughty and very fatty lunch I had eaten (Ramsden's homemade quiche and chips!) a few hours earlier. This was something manageable. In my experience, eating at the wrong time, or eating the wrong thing, occasionally gave me a bit of belly jip, and it could impact how fast I could run, possibly leading to a stitch (which it did) but it was get-through-able. Like stitches in fact. My running remained the same and my mood was just as good as it had been before. Happy days.

 I had a lovely little nostalgic lift as I plodded round my old stomping ground. I thought about how much the 4 mile loop had given me so much grief and was such a challenge when I started running, but now I had that "infinite plod" feeling that made me feel like I was bounding round it in comparison! And the 4 miles were just a section of my current run. That was a boost!

So everything is going super, and if I had been able to see my face I would probably have been sporting a little smug grin, when DISASTER STRIKES! 5.8 miles in, 'the toe' starts playing up (I need a nickname for it I make reference to it that much). The impact of this on my head state could not be MORE different from that of the food/stitch situation. My head goes back to the last time I had a problem with my toe (my last proper run before this one) where it ended up causing a limp and stopping play. I do what I can with it (basically stop and prat around with re-arranging my sock) then try to continue. A second attempt at sock shifting and it's still there. I'm proper narked. I'm already seeing me having to bail out of the half marathon without even making halfway. Apart from that, I'm still a minimum of two miles from the car and walking all that way (getting cold from clammy sweat) is not an option. I find myself deliberately trying to overpronate to keep the pressure off it. I imagine that I'm making the whole thing worse, it's blistering up again, it might drop off. My head is NOT being my friend! Then I realise my rhythm has gone, the run has become a struggle, a chore. Where are my whales and dolphins?! Heartbroken, mourning the loss of my awesome run, I struggle on. I do have an internal chuckle at the idea that I am running more now so that I have less to walk later. I end up walking the last half mile back to the car. 

Talk about highs and lows! I just wonder how much each problem was aggravated, or not, by how my head dealt with it. We know there is evidence that a person's experience of pain is aggravated by how they choose to approach it. I guess the associations I had with each issue were different and so I was impacted positively for the first (I can deal with this) and negatively for the second (this is a real problem that could get worse and I am powerless to stop it). It was like CBT in action! Physical, thought, mood, behaviour... that order.

NOW, how about the possibility that if I think really positively about it, and visualise a super-healthy toe, perhaps that will make it happen?! Ok, that's a bit outside 'evidence-based' for me, but it's a nice thought! I'd certainly like to investigate the psychology of running more though. I bet there's loads of tips I could use in training.

Til next time!

Sue










Friday 19 April 2013

The sweet smell of... surgical spirit?

In an attempt to sort out my grim feet, and at least try and be able to get a longer run in before Scunthorpe half marathon next sunday, I am under strict instructions from my running buddy to cream and surgical spirit me feet on a daily basis. I am beginning to wonder if I am ever going to get the smell of surgical spirit out of my nostrils! I would like to illustrate if these methods work or not though, so am resigned to continuing, smell or not.

In other news, I am going running with my cousin later, who is new to running (being an amazingly natural swimmer). Coincidentally in a triathlon magazine I bought yesterday are some great running drills that are going to make me look like I work at the Ministry of Silly Walk(er)s, but hopefully she won't mind and it will distract her from feeling massively unfit (let's face it, we all felt like that when we first started running, no matter what other fitness we had done before!).

Anyone reading this who has any tips on foot care, please feel free to let me know!

TTFN,

Sue

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Running updates OR how to ruin your feet

SO, last year I was a bit lame (Lazy, not limping). I did  Southwell sprint triathlon, Foremarke Hall Triathlon and the run section of the Castle Howard olympic distance team relay. Now I'm thinking about it I'm like "Gaa... is this all I did last year?!". I think it is. Massive lame points! Anyway, new year, new start. Lots has been happening. Firstly, you will be pleased to know that my bike and I are reconciled and are good mates again :-) We had to suck it up and get over it for Southwell, and we did:
Cheers to Aidy for the quality photo just after the bike mount. 
FYI, if you don't like pictures of minging feet don't scroll down!
In other news, I have stupidly signed up for The Vitruvian this year, which is half ironman or middle distance. It felt like this was a bit of a leap from sprint distance, so I also signed up for the Dambuster, which is the olympic distance at the same place (the beautiful Rutland Water) a couple of months before. I was caught up in the excitement of my friend doing the Vit last year, which I marshalled for. Amazing atmosphere and good vibes all over the shop. This lead to some serious thought about  how I was going to tackle the open water section (of 1.9km!). There was no dodging it, I had to get my head around front crawl. I'd blagged my way through the indoor pool sprints with breast stroke, but it just wasn't going to cut the mustard for open water. Luckily, winter is a good time to swim seeing as often running and cycling outside become difficult, so I prioritised swimming (getting into a routine of twice or three times a week). I considered a couple of sessions with a swim coach, and got a list of 6 or 7 registered with my local pool. Whilst thinking about this, I ended up speaking to one of the coaches whilst I was in the pool one day. She told me not to pay for any sessions as I could already swim front crawl. I just needed my technique tweaking. She gave me a few different tips, one particularly about breathing, which really helped (thanks Bev!). I went from feeling exhausted, gasping for breath and stopping after two lengths, feeling unable to carry on, to being able to swim in a maintainable rhythm. Credit to Jonny too for being a good swim drill master! I still find it hard to see what I would be able to achieve distance wise, as I have fallen into that black hole of being too fast for the slow lane and a bit slow the fast lane (there are only two lanes!) and swim etiquette dictates I hold off at the end of the length to let the faster person pass. The pool misrepresents open water anyway. Having swum outside in a wetsuit (in the docks!) I'm fully aware it will feel like I may be starting all over again when I start open water practice (starting 1st of May, exciting!). I think I need to get a wetsuit more suited to swimming too, as mine feels too restrictive in the shoulders. But yeah, I need to get some events in, otherwise all that swim practice will have gone to waste! 
Running has been fine, thanks to born-again runner Fran. She's come back from a fractured leg even more eager than she was before! Together we've cracked a half marathon (with another due next weekend) and a sub-hour 10km (in Lincoln, which was one Fran had always had an eye on to do, so it was nice to do it there). We do laugh about her being naturally being suited to running, which she is, and me naturally NOT being, which I'm not! We went for a sports massage where the masseuse found knots in my muscles everywhere, causing me to squeal like a stuck pig, whereas Fran was zen personified, practically glowing (with smugness!) The evidence is also on my feet (see photos! They are grim!) which seem to gradually being worn away/dropping off as demonstrated below (to save Facebook friends from being subjected to it!) The weird thing is looking at these photos and not even thinking about stopping running! This is the new normal for my feet!
So next stop biking (had one bash on the new clip in shoes but since then gale force winds have stopped play!) which is going to involve a new bike as soon as work pulls their finger out on the bike to work scheme ! I'll leave you for now with some revolting toe photos. Please feel free NOT to continue looking :) catch you next time!
Big toe left foot, been black since a blood blister from Lincoln 10km over a week ago. Also showing here how my big toe rubs my second toe (can just see around the nail)

Little toe left foot. Both little toes regularly "shed" usually like a snake, all at once. This uppermost bit of this is quite sore where it tapers back into live skin. Also it looks red in the centre because a new blood blister was popping up after tonights attempt at 13.1 miles (had to be stopped because of this toe)

Right foot, had that black spot for a while. Rubbed a bit on the side of the big toe. Main issue here is big toe rubbing skin off the second toe...

...which can be seen more clearly here.

Little toe on right foot looking close to 'shedding'

little toe and next toe rubbage on right foot.