I was close to writing today off as a bad day.

It was just one of those days you have every so often where you have no energy, no inspiration and seemingly little to no control over what is happening.

Serious injury fears

Yesterday wasn’t great either. I spent the majority of the day limping around the house after having a deep pain in the centre of my back.

I think I put a little too much into the 18.1 miler on Monday.

It had been a while since I’d completed a run that had over 300 metres of elevation gain. Monday’s long run consisted of a total gain of 380m over 18 miles.

On the downhill section of the run I thought I was gonna have to stop. I honestly thought it was just trapped wind at the time, but the discomfort grew in intensity the more I slowed down.

I made it home and the pain only seemed to surface whenever I was moving up stairs.

As per usual when I got home I Googled for possible diagnoses and suspected I either had back Cancer or a slipped disc.

This contributed a lot to my general depressive state over the past 2 days.

I woke up this morning and most of the pain was gone.

At 3am in the morning I was jogging and hopping around my room to test to see if the pain was still there or not.

Fortunately there was no sign of it at all.

To run or not to run?

So as I said earlier, I wasn’t gonna go out at all today.

But you know what? I’m not prepared to settle on having a bad day anymore.

I’m not prepared to settle on having an average day either. It just won’t do.

In order for my luck to change and to catch a break, I need to be ready for it. I can’t sit around here feeling sorry for myself. It doesn’t solve any problems.

So you know what I did? I made myself furious.

I sat and watched this clip on Youtube for 4 minutes and whipped myself into a frenzy of hate and spit.

If you aren’t from the UK or Ireland, this is what we call a tool on these shores.

I can’t even remember from what commercial the clip originates from. All I know is that I had an allergic reaction to it today.

At first I was incapacitated with rage and smashed my head into my desk.

That’s not healthy.

I calmed down a little and changed into my running kit.

I conned myself into just going out the door with zero expectations. My goal was to pretend that every inch of road I covered was “Wonga” man’s fat  head and to trample his awful head in.

Stamp, stomp, stamp, stomp.

Yes.

The run was excellent.

I tramped his head in good. Real good. So good that his head would be a paste by now that I could spread thickly onto a sandwich and force-feed to his grieving mother.

I enjoyed every single minute of it. I wanted to cover a 10k at least and stayed out instead for 11.3 miles with an average pace of 9:31 minute/mile. Not a bad speed at all for the distance and I was constantly getting faster mile on mile.

There was no sign of back pain either. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this strong on a run.

So what’s the morale of the story here? I don’t think there is one other than you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to inspire yourself.

I can safely report that today has now been a good day and I’m having a Onken Strawberry Biopot to celebrate.

I’m eating it like this too. Tasty treats.

It nearly ended in disaster too right at the end of the run. I was thinking back to Wonga man again and tried to put one last surge of speed into my legs to record a sub 8 minute last mile.

I ended up tripping up over my own feet and nearly went down on my face.

That would have been embarrassing. Wonga man would’ve won.

I didn’t fall and that’s the important thing.

So I’m now down to 209.7lbs from last week’s 210.7lbs. I’m a little disappointed about the loss in terms of numbers but I can see a positive change in how my clothes are fitting my body.

Apologies for the poor quality of picture. I made a conscious effort this week to cover the ‘Hello Kitty!’ chair that most of you were bitching about in last week’s shot (it’s my nieces chair!)

The good from this week

1. I’ve been eating healthier – I haven’t had any cheese in a week (unless you count cottage cheese which clearly isn’t a real cheese). I’m focusing mostly on crisp bread, cereals, low fat Onken yoghurt and pasta.
2. My running stamina is improving and my confidence has improved because of that – I’ve only ran 3 times this week so far but I’ve covered 40 miles in those runs. An 18 miler plus 2×11.3 milers. I’m gonna go out tomorrow and run at least 15 miles so that I beat last week’s mileage total of 55 miles. I will do this. I don’t care about pace. I’m staying out for as long as I can.
3. I’m comfortably taking on hills at the moment – In the 18 miler I ran up over 350m of elevation gain which is a new record for me. I took them on fearlessly and relaxed into them which is the best thing you can do to make hill running easier for yourself. Once you start panicking on the climb then it’s too easy to lose your breathing and your rhythm.

   I ran around the war memorial on Monday evening without a problem. 

4. My nipples are no longer an issue – I’m wearing the same running clothes outside but I’m not experiencing anything near the levels of chaffing I encountered over Christmas. This is great and makes showering that much easier (no more screaming like I’m Janet Leigh in Psycho)
5. For the first time I’m starting to believe that I can finish the 100k – That’s why it’s important to keep moving forward with my fitness and the weight loss. I can’t let things slow down and grow complacent. I’m meant to be doing all of this full time.  I’ve no excuses.

The bad from this week

1. My sleep is even worse than ever – On Friday I went to bed at 11am and woke up at 5pm. The sleep cycle is really stressing me out and I’m thinking of speaking to the doctor about it.
2. I’ve probably been eating too much cereal – I counted 4 bowls of Frosted Shreddies in 2 hours on Thursday evening. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to ‘carb load’ for runs when ultimately I’m just pigging out. I understand that it’s counterproductive and I’m trying to cut it out.
3. I don’t feel well today – I had a bottle of Wine last night and some pizza and my system seems to be in shock. I don’t understand how I’ve become such a lightweight in such a short period of time. Anyway I’m not drinking tonight but I am having a pot of Ben and Jerry’s Vermonster. I’m totally exhausted and having real trouble writing this post.
4. I experienced back pain after the Monday run – It was centred in my lower back and on Tuesday I could barely walk because of it. Weirdly enough I ran on Wednesday and Thursday without a problem. I’m hoping it isn’t something that will continue to rear it’s head. I can’t afford to be injured.

1. The last 10.3 miles – The tendency is to fear the last x miles that you didn’t cover with your long run. My longest run before the 50k is last Sunday’s 20.7 miles. That’s 10.3 short of the distance. Will adrenaline alone enough to take me through Bangor? My evil Aunt with only one eyebrow lives there, will her far-right politics alone inspire me through the wall? Or will I be forced to listen to her paranoid horseshit?

   Artist’s impression of my Nazi aunt. She’s still wanted and DANGEROUS. 

2. How bad will the pain be the next morning? – I have to go to work on the Monday morning after the race and despite my incessant requests, they’ve yet to put a stair lift in for me. I’ve ran 26.2 miles 4 times now and it’s a bit of a fucking bastard. I caught a 4-hour flight to Greece after the last one and I was only happy as I was full of wine. And going to Greece.
3. New levels of chaffing? – After the Paris Marathon the chafe wounds on the inside of my legs resembled the black sesame seeds you see on fancy muffins. In my hotel room in London, I scratched the marks accidentally whilst sleeping and they all came off at once. My bathroom that night was reminiscent of the opening scene of Carrie if she’d been possessed by the spirit of a Northern Irish Forrest Gump. I won’t let this happen again. I’m gonna butter myself senseless with Bodyglide.

   Post-Paris chafe scabs looked like this. 

4. Will I bring enough fuel for the race with me? – I’m planning on taking at least 12 gels this time and a few extra bottles of Lucozade in my backpack but I still worry that this won’t be enough. Then again, I don’t want to bring too much with me.
5. Will I make an absolute fool of myself by being completely unprepared for the event? – I remember standing at the starting line for my first ever marathon with my little bum bag tied around my waist, feeling completely idiotic compared to the real athletes around me. I’ve never attempted an ultra marathon before. I only decided that I was gonna do this 11 days ago. There’s the very real prospect that I’m in over my head and this is the time the marshals will come to take me away.

   Me in my first ever marathon. With a bumbag on that was trying to escape off my side. 

6. Will this be my last ever race? – I’m frightened that this experience could be so bad that I give up on running out of embarrassment. I was close to doing that after the Larne Half Marathon 2011, but somehow I carried on.
7. Did I taper enough for the race? – My last long run was on Sunday. It was my longest in quite some time. If I’m to believe the tapering marathon hippies, then I won’t be at my peak for the 50K. I will suffer. My legs will break. I will weep out of exhaustion. My balls will go septic and my body will break down organ-by-organ out of toxic shock. To counter this threat, I must stretch, jog on the spot for 12 hours, take an ice bath; before, during and after the 50K and stretch some more!
8. Have I tapered too much? – Yes, I haven’t ran in 5 days. Yes, I’m wondering if I can still run. Yes, I’m a complete idiot for thinking this way. But I cannot help it.
9. I’m worried my pre-race ritual won’t work this time – This ritual involves getting mildly drunk the night before a race, drinking 3 cans of Monster Khaos within 45 minutes of waking and then crapping all of the awkwardness out of me. Since I’ve never ran this distance before I’m terrified that I’ll tense up and run really badly.
10. That I won’t meet my race expectations of a sub 6 hour finish – I don’t understand why I always place time limits on myself. It kills what should be a great day. I’ll finish on Sunday, but if it isn’t under 6 hours then I’ll see it as a defeat as I’m a bit weak.

Hello you!

I didn’t update yesterday I was too busy recovering from my second 18 miler of the week.

I ran it at a 10:37 min/mile pace and it was a perfect run apart from the end where I got caught on a dark stretch of road with narrow pavement.

I was terrified of tripping down the curb and injuring myself so I kept my running slow until cars came to light the way.

Once the car headlights lit a sufficient part of the pavement I sprinted as quickly as possible to try to get back into a well lit area ASAP.

It’s only when I’m completely in the dark that I realise how awful my sense of balance is. I was getting vertigo in the dark and was having to hold my arms out to balance myself.

Thank fuck I didn’t end up in a hedge with all of the angry badgers.

An Irish badger on holiday.

New long run fuelling strategy.

Normally I fuel with gels and sports drink alone, but yesterday I tried something a little different.

I brought along a selection of Haribo inside my marathon race belt.

I started eating them after 90 minutes on my feet and aimed for 2 gummis every 10 minutes. And you know what? I actually wanted to eat them.

I’ve struggled in the past with fuelling on the run. I just don’t like the sickly sensation you feel after chowing down on real food.

Eating Haribo on the move wasn’t a chore. In fact by mile 15 I was completely out of them and wished I’d brought along more.

The best thing is that they worked in keeping my body fuelled. My plan was to stop at 15 miles and then stop. By that point I knew I had more in me so I continued on until 18.3 miles.

I think this is the last time I’m gonna use gels for long runs. I can’t justify the expense at the moment whilst Haribo cost only £1 a bag.

Changing my attitude ahead of the ultramarathon

Yesterday I felt down about ‘only’ running 18 miles and thought about ordering myself in a Domino’s pizza to try to boost my morale.

That’s the problem though, junk food doesn’t help my mood in the long term. After the pizza is finished I feel like shit. I haven’t solved anything. I’ve given in. I’ve fallen back into old habits.

A time to be rational.

Every time I start panicing about the 100k I relax and try to do something practical about it.

Eating pizza now won’t help with the 100k. Eating more healthily and running will however.

Today I went out and ran 9 miles in 89 minutes. It was quite tough maintaining any sort of pace as my legs were heavy and my calves were chaffed from the 3 hour run yesterday.

I had to change the way that I was running to stop my legs rubbing together. It was quite literally agony.

They haven’t been this bad since the Paris Marathon when I was last wearing my plastic trousers that begin melting into my skin after 22 miles.

Tonight they are much better after applying some healing cream to them.

It’s frustrating that my body chaffs so much at the minute but it’s only because I’m carrying some excess weight.

I’m aiming to be down to around 207lbs come Saturday. That will mean I’ve lost 10lbs in under a month.

It’s gonna happen!

This is a follow up to

Hey dickhead! You may have ran a marathon and a half marathon in the last two weeks but your job ain’t done!

You’ve another marathon in two weeks.

You haven’t ran in 4 days and you keep saying you’ll run in the morning but you don’t. You need to run in the evenings and stop making lame fucking excuses.

1. You keep thinking back to this time last year when you did your long runs hungover in Fuengirola, Spain. The pain you felt on those runs won’t be the same now as you aren’t living off a steady diet of Gorgonzola and Euro bottles of Sangria. You are eating better now. You will run strong if you let yourself run strong. Stop reflecting on the past and give yourself a chance at a future as a runner!
2. You also keep thinking back to the near-misses you had after work last April where you nearly got caught short in the local village and were close to calling into the church hall for a shit. Yes, you might eat lots of crap during the day and yes this may unsettle your stomach, but it doesn’t mean you’re gonna shit yourself out on the road. If the worst comes to to the worst you can always clamber into a farmer’s field and shit behind his hedge. Just be sure that the sheep aren’t watching when you drop your pants.
3. Don’t give me that “oh I’ve been at work all day, I’m so tired!” fucking bullshit. You aren’t building Belfast’s answer to the Empire State Building. You sit at your computer all day and do nothing but type, sigh and bitch (and not even at the same time).
4. There was a time when you first started running back in 2011 that you actually enjoyed running at evening. Watching the sun set as you finished your run relaxed you and made you sleep well. This will happen again if you just go out and enjoy your evening runs.
5. Now that you have decided not to run tonight, you’ll spend the rest of the evening on edge thinking about the run at 5am tomorrow. You have failed to wake up twice for this run and the chances are you won’t wake for this either. You will have to live with this. If you’d ran tonight then you could have sat about and watched cat clips on Youtube and stuffed your face and felt at ease.
6. You’ve managed to convince yourself that only rapists, con-men and Communists surface at dusk. Every time you’ve ran in the evening in the past you’ve had next to no trouble from anyone. All of the trouble in your head is imaginary. You’re just making fucking excuses.
7. Running in the evening completely curbs your appetite. This is excellent for you as you tend to eat a lot of junk food at night to curb your frustration at your inability to sleep. If you ran during the evening then you will continue to make progress with your weight loss. If you stay indoors then you’ll just watch Man Vs Food and order yourself a Domino’s. Then to top a miserable night off, in a bout of self loathing you’ll force yourself to masturbate to hour long speeches made by Ann Widdecombe MP.
8. Stop being paranoid about your demeanour. It makes you look even more mentally unstable than you already are. I know you’ve spent the last 6 months grimacing in the dark whilst jogging, but this isn’t an integral part of your running. You can grimace in the daylight too. It will stop old ladies asking you for directions as they’ll think you’ve just farted.
9. You don’t have to run 10 fucking miles every time. You’ve got it into your head at the moment that you have to run this distance for it to be considered a true jog. The nights still aren’t that long enough for it to be practical. A 10k is better than nothing at the moment.
10. Finally you know it’s Thursday and it’s the night where you’ll see the local running club out and about. You do not have to tense up when you see them and try to pick off the slowest members of the group. Wave, say hello and don’t be a fucking dick. Stop using your social awkwardness as an excuse to be a lazy cunt. You’re doing yourself absolutely no favours whatsoever with this attitude.

I’m sitting in silence after a run for the first time in ages and this is great.

I’m not contending with any warring positive and negative thoughts.

I’m not pouring wine over everything to block it out.

I’m not counting calories, tracking points or measuring units of alcohol.

I’m eating salad with honey mustard dressing.

You see, I snapped this week.

My ‘meltdown’ wasn’t dramatic. I didn’t go into Tesco in a cow patterned onesie with a hole cut out where my balls nap.

No….

I’d been battling with a chest infection since Christmas Eve which ruined my ability to sleep.

By the time I had to head to work on Wednesday I really wasn’t in a great place. I was exhausted, still ill and confused.

I’ve struggled for a long time about my direction in life and at the time with no sleep and (ultimately the sense of no hope) I thought I was always gonna feel this way.

I’d had enough and just went into lockdown. For the last 2 days I’ve barely ate, slept or moved.

My only thoughts were negative as hell.

Last night was the worst part really.

I couldn’t relax let alone sleep. From midnight until about dawn I thought something awful was gonna happen but I didn’t know what the fuck it was.

I didn’t have the ‘fortune’ to blame it on a hangover.

This went on until 9am in the morning when I finally managed to get some rest.

I slept until 2pm.

I got up and ran even though I didn’t want to.

You can’t always wait for inspiration to hit you. Sometimes you’ve gotta force yourself out the door and battle through the first few minutes and then let your body do the rest.

That’s what happened today.

I ran 11.3 miles. I didn’t give a shit about pace or splits. I ran to try to make sense of the way I’ve been feeling.

And you know what? I think I have.

Negativity is a choice. I can choose to view myself by how others see me or I can just enjoy my life and be patient with myself.

I’m feeling better today

I’m trying not to worry too much about the future or my career anymore.

I’m still enjoying this salad. I’ve got my Telecaster around my neck. I don’t have to be anyone or anything. I’m turning 30 in a few weeks time and that’s the age where you’re meant to have settled down, but I don’t want any of that just now.

I want peace.

I want to be healthy and live a life that’s fun. I want to kill this 100K.

I’m tired of being down on myself all the time. I want to be excited about life.

And the problem for maybe the last while is that I haven’t and I’ve gotta ask myself why.

That question can wait until way way after this salad. I’ve a Telecaster to play.

If you run and work a full time job during the day then you’ll know how fucking difficult it is to motivate yourself into running in your precious free time.

Here are 10 ideas to help inspire you into running more around your job!

1. Only run or commute to work if you have a shower available in the office – Otherwise you will make your colleagues lives hell and you will be rightly be dismissed for smelling like a funky badger (especially if your groin smells like a stale bag of Corn Flakes after 5 miles).
2. For morning runs wake up half an hour earlier than you plan to start your run – You will need time to wake up properly and to prepare for your exercise. If you wake up and have no time to brace yourself for the run, then you’ll find it easier to put the duvet back over your head.
3. Don’t limit your exercise to just a single time of the work day – In order to give yourself more opportunities to run, you need to identify times where you’re free in your schedule. This might be before work, after work, during lunch or commuting to/from work. It’s easy to fall into the trap of only running in the morning or evening. It’s important to give yourself as many opportunities to run as possible. Some times are better for certain types of running too. I find that the lunch hour is a great time for a short speed run, whereas after work runs are great for distance as a stress reliever. That leads nicely onto the next point.
4. Stressful days in work can be the perfect fodder for evening runs – Instead of opening up a bottle of wine to ease your frustration, put on your running shoes and go outside and pound the pavement.
5. Plan out your work day runs by focusing on what you’ll be able to do on the weekend and working back from there – If you’re aiming for a set weekly mileage, count how much you can realistically run on your day’s off and work back from there. For instance at the moment I’m aiming for 40 miles per week. I can run 20 miles over 2 runs on Saturday & Sunday. This leaves 2 runs of 10 or 3 runs of 7 over the remainder of the week. If I go for the first option I can reward myself with an additional rest day and not wake up for work until around 8am.
6. Don’t force yourself  into running in the morning if you’re exhausted – There’s nothing worse than going into work having had little to no sleep. If you haven’t had any rest and it’s now time for your scheduled run, turn it off and go back to sleep and resolve to run after work or tomorrow. Insomnia and fatigue coupled together will make your work day a living hell.
7. Commute to or from work by running – This is ideal if your office is around the same distance away as your average run distance. Unfortunately I am close to 13 miles from my place of work. Running that distance first thing in the morning would leave me as a zombie. As an alternative I will run to my train after work once a week. It’s only a few miles but it counts.
8. Pack a running bag and bring it with you to work – You never know when the inspiration will hit to run. There have been too many occasions where I’ve suddenly fancied a jog but had no suitable gear with me to go out on one. Now I just leave my kit under my desk until I use it.
9. Go easy on the morning run – In the past 6 months I’ve learned a valuable lesson about pre-work morning runs. Don’t run yourself into the ground otherwise the rest of your day won’t be pretty. The worst time for me is the shower directly after a tough morning run. I leave myself 10 minutes for my shower usually and if I’ve ran quite a distance I’ll end up scrubbing my fucking skin off which will make putting my clothes on agony. I always end up late for work if I put too much into the jog. That’s why I go easier now.
10. Only eat when you’re hungry before/after your run – You don’t have to eat before your morning run, nor do you have to eat anything after an evening run. If I’m up at 5am for my morning run the last thing I want to worry about is getting my nutrition right. It’s just another meaningless thing that makes running more complicated than it needs to be. Eat before your pre-work run or after your post-work run if you’re hungry. There’s plenty of time during the rest of your working day for food.

Today I weighed myself for the first time in a while and I came in at 207.5lbs.

I’m really sick of being overweight as a runner. It seems like my progress is stagnating and it’s all down to me just eating whatever I want and not keeping track.

This is why I’m going back to logging my calories over on MyFitnessPal for the time being.

But first, here are the reasons why I’ve been unable to keep to any kind of calorie counting regime over the past 6 months.

1. I tend to get bored of reducing every single food item into calories – I start tasting food in terms of calories and it just ruins the experience. It’s shitty when you think ‘this food is actually costing me calories!’.
2. I let my food logging slip – I’ll start off by forgetting to add one item into my diary. Then I’ll become flippant about it, insisting that I’ll record everything at the end of the day. By then I’ll struggle to record what exactly I ate and in what order.
3. Imposing too much of a calorie restriction upon myself – If you’re desperate to lose weight then it’s only natural that you’ll try to minimise the time it gets to get down to your ‘ideal weight’. Unfortunately this also means that your daily calorie limit is much restrictive and therefore difficult to adhere too over a period of time.
4. Making poor ‘calorie’ budgeting decisions – The temptation can be to consume 2,500 kcal by dinner time and to then decide to skip on that meal in order to consume a larger lunch. When I do this, I’ll always become really hungry at about 8 or 9pm and go on a fucking binge and everything will be ruined.
5. Drinking too much alcohol – It’s fucking impossible at times to keep track of the amount of calories you consume if you’re overly fond of a night out on town. There’s close to 150 calories in a bottle of Budweiser. Multiple that by 10 and you’re talking about most of your daily limit.
6. Can’t eat in restaurants or delis without feeling guilty – No-one really knows how many calories are in your delicious burger. You Google “how many calories are there in a burger” and the answer is anywhere between 500 to 5,000. It becomes much harder to take calorie counting seriously when you’re making ball-park estimates.
7. Eating into next days calorie allowance – This motherfucker always gets me. If I’ve exceeded my calorie allowance for the day, I’ll begin to eat into tomorrow’s count, leaving me with barely enough to get through the next day. Before I know it I will be back off the wagon again.
8. The upcoming party with friends, relatives or work colleagues – If you’re anything like me, you’ll try to create a vision of the future where you’re consistently adhering to your new diet. Then out of nowhere your Uncle Raymond will announce that he’s having a anniversary party to celebrate acquiring his first ever vibrator you’ll think “fuck the diet, I’ll start back again next week. It’s party time Ray!”.
9. Peer pressure –  You might want try to avoid the bar or the cinema or the shopping mall to stop excess calorie consumption, but this can lead to you becoming isolated. At times like this it can be easy to sway to peer pressure and to just go out for that one drink which turns into 5 drinks and a huge pizza.
10. Not knowing how many calories you really burn on the run – Obviously there are heart rate monitors out there that do an excellent job at estimating how many calories you burn per mile, but you can never be certain that the read-out is 100% correct.

Ultimately I think the key to success with calorie counting is being realistic with your goals.

My short term weight loss goal.

That’s why I’m aiming to intake 3,000 calories a day over the next week for a 2lb weight loss by next Monday.

The breakdown is simple. I need 2,600 calories per day to maintain my weight. I walk 5 miles a day to commute to work which takes my break-even total up to around 3,000 calories per day.

Last week I burned 7,100 calories with 48.1 miles of running. If I repeat this from now until Sunday, then I’ll hit my target easily.

I’ve complained for quite some time about how I’m seemingly unable to record runs long enough to leave me confident on marathon day.

Well I’m done with whining (about my poor long runs anyway)

I’m gonna enter the Titanic Quarter 50k this week. I have 11 days to prepare for it.

My longest run in the past few months has been 18 miles and I’m by no means confident that I’ll be able to run this without dying.

Fuck it though. I’m doing it. Even if it means having to bludgeon mutant death seals to death with my own Presbyterian club chin along the Ards Peninsula.

Without ambition my only direction is down.

I’m tired by my own lack of ambition.

I’ve set my own limits and I live within the parameters of being a slightly overweight runner who can manage between 13-15 miles before dying in the long run.

You live by your standards and strive to achieve what you think is possible.

A few years ago, ‘possible’ involved walking all the way to the Chinese Restaurant 300m down the road without sweating.

In recent months the best ‘possible’ outcome for me as a marathon runner would be to get to 20 miles and walk-run-walk-run until the finish.

Is that really the best I can hope for?

Driving on forward.

The best way to prepare for the Dublin and Las Vegas marathons is to go out there in 11 days time and knock out a 50k. I may well have to walk a lot of it, but I’ll get around and it won’t be a rape like experience.

I’ll defeat it.

The alternative is to stick to the original plan which was to run the 25k and use it as a ‘stepping stone’ onto better runs.

This is a cop out. Running for longer won’t get any easier unless I grab myself by the balls and learn to fuel properly mid-run. It’s not out of reach. I’ve been doing myself a disservice by staying within my comfort zone for too long.

This is the first time in a while that I’ve been truly fearing a challenge. When I was training for my first marathon I remember staring at the ever increasing distances of the long runs on my plan and thinking ‘shit, how am I meant to do this? 8 miles! I can barely run 3! Fuck!’.

Well now I’m thinking, ‘shit, how can I run 31 miles?’

I’ve wanted for a long time to become an ultrarunner but I always assumed it’d be some time in the future. That day been coming for a long time but I’ve never put a definite date on it.

That’s why I’m becoming an ultrarunner in 11 days.  I may fuck it up and look like a complete idiot, but that’s half the fun of running isn’t it? You’ve gotta be brave sometimes.

There’s a fine line between being brave and being a fucking idiot.

Weight loss progress

I’m down to 201.2lbs now. I’ve 6 days to lose 1.25lbs.

I’m gonna fucking do it now so that I’m in the best condition I’ve ever been for this 50k race.

I’ll do as best as I can from here until the end and that’s all that I ask from myself.

Not coming down from this high until I’m punched down from it.

Yesterday for one reason or another I found it extremely difficult to motivate myself to run. I was depressed and I didn’t know why (I had a bit of a hangover but it wasn’t anything apocalyptic).

I was delighted with it as at one point I was just gonna count Sunday as a rest day.

Here are some tips on how to motivate yourself into a running if you’re down in the dumps.

1. Running is an excellent way to curb your appetite if you’re a depressive binge eater – Everyone is different but I find that immediately after a run I am not hungry whatsoever. When I’m depressed I tend to comfort eat quite a bit so running can act as a distraction and a deterrent.
2. Running versus the alternative of giving into something more self destructive – Back when I was a student I’d deal with depression by drinking through it, oblivious to the reality that I was only making things worse for myself. I drank to feel liberation from my reality. Now I run for the same effect. Sometimes I do still get the urge to drink for destructive purposes but now that I have running as an outlet it is the best option. I will continue to choose this whilst I have the strength to run.
3. Running always seems difficult when you’re feeling down (but it really isn’t) – And this mightn’t be the case in reality. Running never changes but our attitude towards it is always in flux. Sometimes it seems easy, other times it can seem almost impossible. The act of putting one foot in front of the other never changes. Getting out the front door or onto the treadmill is always the hardest step and it gets easier from there.
4. Never underestimate the power of a short nap to change your mood for the better – If a run seems impossible now because of you’re mood, try to go to sleep for 15 minutes. I did exactly this before yesterday’s 11 miler and my mind was rejuvenated afterwards and I went straight out there.
5. Don’t underestimate the power of music to rejuvenate you – I can be feeling like shit one moment and then with a click in Spotify I can be up and charged against the World again. I personally hate the cliched motivational music that are packaged on CD compilations and go straight for music I enjoy.
6. Go for the caffeine boost a few hours before a run to brighten your mood – This only works well if I have 2 or 3 cans of Red Bull. If I’m already depressed and have say 5-6 cans then my mood will only worsen and the anxiety will start. I will also need to shit like a trooper which is why I try to drink my caffeinated beverages at least 2 hours before my run. Otherwise I will need to shit all of the badness out of me when I’m out on the run.
7. Understanding your depressed mood and understanding yourself – Yesterday I was down and I didn’t know why. Sometimes a cloud descends and I’m numb to myself and the world. If I start running then my mood will begin to clear and if I’m lucky I’ll understand why I was feeling that way. Either way, I learn more about why I get depressed when I run and find ways to fight those moods.
8. Avoid the dreaded hangover altogether if you wanna run – If you’re gonna drink alcohol the night before a run, stick to your known limits. On Saturday night I had a little too much wine and it dampened my spirits (no pun intended.) the next morning. For me I can drink 14 units of alcohol without feeling a hangover (which is about 8 Whiskeys). Any more than that and I won’t really want to run the next day.
9. Be flexible with your run plans if you’re feeling down – Don’t impose your usual standards upon yourself if you aren’t OK. Sometimes it pays to run purely for the mental rather than the physical benefits it offers. Putting too much pressure on yourself to perform will kill your fun.
10. Running as a way to formulate a path towards a better life – Running can help you escape a place and a situation where you feel trapped and unhappy. You might think that this is just a temporary measure, but it leaves you with the ability to find a way through your problems and ultimately a way out of your situation.