Fitting Fitness Around your Life

Some might be more interested in fitting your life around your fitness and there is a valid point to that because we should all keep fit, no matter how busy our lives are. Then again when does a fit lifestyle become an obsession. I like to think I’m fairly balanced, but I know people who think I’m obsessed, probably because, when I’m training, I train hard and I generally train twice a day. Even Carole thought I was a bit obsessed in the early days of our relationship, until she saw me win a race and realised that you have to put in the work if you want success. And that’s true in any aspect of life, if you want success you have to put in a certain amount of work in order to achieve that, and it may well be that some people have to put in a lot more work to gain the same level of success as somebody putting in less work. That’s certainly true in my case, I know I’m not a natural sportsman and I’ve been tested to prove it, but despite that I’ve achieved success through hard work. Admittedly it’s been at a cost, I’ve given up heavy drinking, late nights, other sports and friends who no longer understand me.

But getting back to the real point of this blog, how do you fit exercise around busy lives? Of course everybody is different, some people have families, some very large families, some have demanding jobs with long hours, some people have to travel a lot, some people work unsociable hours and I’m sure there are many other scenarios that get in the way of keeping fit. But keeping fit is all about prioritising and planning your time and effort. The key question you have to ask yourself is do I really want to keep fit, and if the answer is yes then you can find the time. And in real terms you don’t actually have to find a great deal of time just to keep reasonably fit but it helps if you have an understanding with your family/work colleagues that you are going to do something and be explicit as to what is your time. Of course it’s not just about time, it’s about finding the energy too, which is why it’s important to enjoy your fitness regime rather than finding it a chore. Think about what you enjoy and do it well and long enough to retain that enjoyment.

There are various different ideas about how much time you need to spend each day in order to keep fit or how many days you need to work out, but this is always dependent on what level of fitness you want to achieve. It is possible to retain a good level of fitness with less than an hour’s activity a day. As an active athlete I’ve obviously spent a good deal of my time exercising but this has varied depending on what races I’m training for and what’s going on in my life at the time. Not having children has enabled me to be fairly single-minded about my training but being in a relationship can eat away at that single-mindedness. Work has never been a problem, I’ve always been able to broker an arrangement whereby my training fits around my work pattern and my flexibility enables me to train at any time of the day, or night, to fit in with that. But children don’t have to be an excuse for skipping exercise, when I talk to clients who have children I always advise them to spend time playing games with their children; running races, chasing frisbees, catching balls or just going for a cycle. It’s a fun and relaxing way to maintain fitness and also helps towards the development of your children. Plus you’ll have the added bonus that when they grow up they won’t be moaning about how their parents were always too busy to spend any time with them.

Work is a completely different matter, after all, if you don’t work, you don’t earn and then that messes up the everything else. I do understand the stresses that work puts on your life, I’ve worked in extremely stressful situations, I’ve worked in very reasonable places too, I’ve worked long shifts, I’ve worked nights, I’ve been an employee, contractor and self employed and I’ve worked away from home (on two occasions abroad). Plus I’ve also had to cope with London commuting, which can be pretty dire. Having said all that, although I may have missed the odd session due to work commitments, I have never allowed work to get too much in the way of my training. The key is to make it clear to your boss at the start of the relationship, I’m a runner and I train twice a day, if the facilities are available I’d like to use them at lunchtime. Of course work will always come first if there is something pressing but if not I’d appreciate being allowed the time to get out there and run. After all running clears the mind ready for the afternoon’s challenges. Obviously there have been days when I’ve known I would be too busy to take a lunch break so I’ve gone for a run before work. On most occasions I’ve had good bosses who have allowed me the flexibility of working in my run around work and this becomes a two way flexibility. On the odd occasions where this flexibility is not possible I’ve worked around it, when I first started working shifts in Edinburgh there was no way I could take a break during my 12 hour shift so I just worked solid for 12 hours, went home, did my run and then went to bed for a few hours before my next shift. It wasn’t ideal, in fact it was pretty tough but I got through it until things settled down and I was able to go running at some point during the shift, which was still pretty tough during the early hours of the morning. The point however is that it was important for me to train almost everyday, so I compromised in order to achieve my goal.

Being in a relationship can have it’s own issues. I’ve been exercising, properly, for 22 years and in that time I’ve had three serious relationships, each with a different level of understanding of exercise and what it means to me. When I first started running in 1989 I’d been in a relationship for almost 3 years, we’d been living together for 2, and in the early days nothing much changed, I was only training twice a week and that was local so we still spent a lot of time together and our weekends were always spent doing what she wanted to do. So there were no arguments, well none about my running anyway. But as time went on I started realising the benefits of training more and started spending time training at the weekends. By 1992 I was almost up to full training, I no longer enjoyed staying out until the early hours, particularly if I was going for a 10 miler on Sunday morning, I was spending most weekends training or racing and I was excited about the progress I was making. But I made a number of sacrifices to keep that relationship working, in particular, much to my regret at the time, I didn’t do the National 12 Stage because it fell on my partner’s birthday weekend. In 1992 I was asked to make my British League debut for Belgrave, in Edinburgh. For those who don’t know what that means, it’s like the athletics equivalent of being asked to play for a top 5 Premiership Football team, without the big cars, salary and chance to sleep with your best friend’s WAG. Who in their right mind would turn that down? Of course this meant spending the weekend away from the partner, which didn’t go down well and was probably the start of the rot. The rot really set in when Helen joined our training group and we hit it off immediately, I don’t think my partner appreciated my Friday night training sessions with Helen and eventually the relationship came to an end.

Oh well we move on and two weeks later I’d found my next partner. Helen was a runner which meant that training was much more acceptable to her, in fact she was a pretty good runner (36 min for 10k and would do a sub 3 hour marathon) and we often trained together. During our 12 years together I had some of my greatest success and I put this down to being comfortable in my training, i.e. having the full support of my partner. If I hadn’t had that support, particularly during two long periods of injury, I would probably have given up running a long time ago and certainly would never have had the time to devote to marathon training.

When that relationship came to an end all I was left with was my running (thank goodness I wasn’t injured). Ok I had my job but I’d made the mistake of acting on the rebound and took a job that wasn’t suitable for me, and it meant moving away from my friends. For a while I was able to concentrate on me and I achieved a fair amount of success in Scotland. I met Carole by chance in a coffee queue, working the shifts I did allowed no level of regularity so although I knew of Carole I’d never spoken to her before and I was generally too busy to go for coffee, it just so happened that on this one occasion I really needed a coffee at the same time as she needed a tea. I remember turning round in the queue and seeing her there, I made a comment (as one does to someone who is two levels higher up the hierarchy but you don’t appreciate that, how was I to know, I don’t do office politics) and we got chatting. Other than her clear intelligence, interesting conversation, enthusiasm and easy going nature it was probably the fact that she told me she’d just started running that interested me and, to cut a long story short, within a couple of months we were an item.

It probably helped that I was injured at the time we started our relationship, so it meant our first run together happened when we’d established the relationship a little, if I hadn’t been injured I’m not sure we’d have lasted a week. When we did go for our first run together it was an easy 6 mile route around the Braids, well it was easy for me, unfortunately I was used to running with female athletes who could race 10k in under 40 minutes. Thankfully, when the abuse and swearing did start, I was able to up the pace a little and get my ears out of range. We survived that little episode, and a few others, I don’t think Carole appreciated how dedicated I was with my training until she saw my success at races. That success helped her to appreciate my dedication and once we’d established what training we could and couldn’t do together things settled down.

However the point behind all that relationship twaddle is that you just need to communicate your needs with each other and there needs to be a comfortable compromise for both, or all, of you, if it’s not comfortable it’s not a compromise, it’s the start of the end. My current compromises are; I don’t generally do my long run at the weekends and sometimes I’ll skip the run completely in favour of a walk in the hills, If I’m not 100% fit I generally enter races for the benefit of Carole (although I do sometimes benefit too), I reduce my training load on holidays, but not specific warm weather training weeks, Carole gets free PT sessions whenever she wants. You don’t need to train all hours to keep fit but if you have a specific goal in mind get your partner’s buy-in, get them involved too, they may enjoy it.

This last week has been pretty tough training wise, everybody around me seemed to have a cold and I was conscious that it was only a matter of time until I got it. I don’t think I’ve got all the symptoms but there are things telling me that I’m not 100%, the back of my head aches, I’m getting aches in muscles that don’t normally ache, the nose runs on occasions and I’m finding my breathing a bit laboured. Still I managed another hard training week last week and finished the last session with Rich with a flourish, as intended it was the hardest of the 4 sessions and I believe it has set him up to go forward. There is a difference in telling people how to train and actively showing them and I know both Rich and Ray have benefited from running with me. On Saturday Ray and I went along to Pennington Flash for another parkrun. I’m not entirely sure why we decided to go but there was no reason not too. It was a cool and breezy morning but on the start line there was no hint of the strong winds that were awaiting us over the hill. We set off, I’d decided on a steady start this time but I was surprised to hear the patter of feet as someone decided to sit on me. After about 300m I upped the pace a little, then attacked the first hill, still I could hear footsteps with me. Perhaps, I thought, I’d met my match, again. Going downhill we hit the full force of the wind, no problem I train in this all the time, down the Northwich bypass, so I pushed on. Up the next hill there is a tight turn and I decided to take a peek to see who had come with me, unfortunately I didn’t have my glasses on and he’d dropped back somewhat by then so I couldn’t quite see. Surprisingly, going back along the top bit I had the wind in my face again, boy this was a tough one. I’m still having trouble on the grass downhill, I think it’s the uneven surface and the tight turn, Jeff Whittington took a photo of me, published here, and you can see by the lack of grace, how much difficulty I’m having slowing down for the tight turn.

not the most attractive runner at Pennington Flash, and I forgot to wash my hair

Despite hitting the wind twice on each of the 3 laps I kept pushing on and surprised myself with one of my fastest times around the course, it’s such a tough course mentally and physically I’m always thinking I’m going to run slower than 18 minutes but so far I’ve managed to keep the right side of that, 2 minutes and 17 seconds later came the 2^nd placed runner, I’m not sure if he was the one who went with me for the first 500m. There’s a fine line between ambition and over-cooking it but if you don’t try you’ll never succeed, I used to do the same thing when I started and failed on numerous occasions, but eventually I started to win and never looked back, so whoever he was, expect to see him beating me at some time in the future (maybe!).

On Sunday, I compromised, Carole and I went for a long walk in the peak district, in fact we found a really nice one to do so will be taking others on that one. Sadly, before we set off I was watching sport, while eating my breakfast. It was a big day with the final of the Rugby World Cup, but I plumped to video that and watch the Moto GP. It looked like being a good race as so many riders were packed closely together, there was a good tussle taking place between Bautista and Simoncelli, and then all of a sudden it was over, Simoncelli veered into the path of Edwards and Rossi and the next shot showed him lying there without his helmet. That’s when you know it’s bad and a little later Simoncelli succumbed to his injuries. It was a sad day, I’ve been excited by Simoncelli’s riding style, true he’s had a few accidents when he’s over-cooked it but then so did Stoner when he first started and look at what he’s achieved. I feel he was sure to progress but unfortunately it was not his destiny. On a more positive note, it was great to see the All Blacks winning the Rugby and what an exciting match.  

Yesterday, Monday, I ran with Lee Riley. It was an attempt at pace judgement before Lee’s attempt at the Mile World Record on 12 November. However, Lee wasn’t taking any chances, he’d got cameras, video, measuring equipment, various scales and 3 timekeepers. We’d agreed on attempting 5:20, the current record stands at 5:35, but the winds were strong, stronger than at Pennington Flash. Still success is always sweeter when it’s hard fought and we stuck to plan. I was pacing Lee with the hope that I’d also act as a windshield, but I’m not that chunky so I’m not sure how effective a windshield I was. I was checking times every 100m and we were right on target all the way around the first, elongated, lap, 200m into the second lap and we’d slipped a little but still well inside 5:35 pace. Coming onto the home straight we got caught by a big gust of wind and we had to dig deep, it cost us 2 seconds on that 100m. We were slipping but still on target. With 400m to go we were still on target but couldn’t afford to give away any more, I encouraged Lee to pick up the pace slightly and he did, down the back straight he was suffering and I had to back off to try to pick him up again, into the last 100m and I tried to get Lee to sprint for it. I expected Lee to fly past me but he was really hurting, he mustered everything he had and crossed the line, collapsing soon after. All 3 watches confirmed the same time, he hadn’t broken the World Record, but he had equalled it, 5:35. This was 4 seconds quicker than Lee’s previous attempt, so hopefully, without the wind, he should soar under 5:35 on 12^th November. I’ll try to get a link to the video, if you’re interested.     

Finally I’d like to wish good luck to a friend of mine, Dave Gough, who tackles the Snowdon marathon this weekend. As you know I’m not the sort of person to run marathons but it was inevitable I’d do one at one stage in my running life. I was undecided as to go for a time in London or do one of the uphill marathons, taking a more fun related approach. Snowdon was always an option until I decided it was more important for me to set down a decent time, so I plumped for London. But I wonder, if I ever got tempted back into marathon running, would it be London or Snowdon next time. We’ll probably never know, now if they were to do a marathon around Pennington Flash…..