NUTRITION, TECHNIQUE AND DISCIPLINE (WOULD BE GREAT IF I HAD ANY)

I’ve spent considerable time reading about how good nutrition affects running performance, and how a good diet is the cornerstone of any athletes life. Avoid sweets, fried and processed food, eat lots of fruit and veg. Avoid tea, coffee, don’t eat or drink too many dairy products.  Anyway my discipline sucks, here’s what i ate today.

8am breakfast of 2 x Weetabix, milk and honey (Nutrition Brownie Points – 7/10)

11am elevenses – smoked salmon on a white roll, 2 coffees and white sugar (NBP – 5/10)

2.30pm lunch – fish and chips, tea with milk and honey (NBP – 3/10)

11pm – large bag of smoked bacon crisps, half a bar of chocolate, spoonfuls of honey (NBP- 1/10 may as well have had a beer)

Anyway i’m going to write down what i eat every day now in a little journal - I think by exposing myself and writing down exactly what crap i put in my system every day, then i will force myself to a healthy diet. No, pervert reader,  I didn’t mean that kind of exposing myself.

Tonight, despite still aching legs from Sundays Yoga (I kid you not!) and after my fish and chips digested, i thought i’d do a stint in the freezing rain with a half marathon. I focussed on going slow and getting the technique correct, and although theres a lot of room for improvement, i think it started to work towards the end, or at least it either wasn’t sore or I was through the pain barrier. At this distance though, I could feel I could have done with some sugar to keep my energy levels up but that’s a small issue – I always take a little bottle with water and honey  (a true superfood and something that must make up 80% of my diet) but next time i’ll try adding some jelly babies which I hear are perfect for giving you a boost.

This month I plan to focus on diet, and technique. After this I don’t even know which country I’ll be living in so that will decide if I do this 50miler or just the Las Vegas Marathon in December.

50miles, well it’s easy to talk about when your’ sitting in your living room watching TV, but the reality is, there are all sorts of new issues come out – regulating your temperature, all those niggling pains from bad running technique and of course dehydration, hypothermia, and the other potentially fatal illness that comes from lack of sodium can make these ‘Ultramarathon’ races quite dangerous.  Anyway, now I have a task for the month, watch this space!