Training Week 0 – Not a lot of training news

Monday 24^th October

I am proclaiming this as week 0 as I can’t do any training this week. My ankle still hurts from last Sunday and I am afraid I will damage it if I run this week. The root of this pain (aside from last Sunday) could be a number of things: when I was a lot younger I used to suffer with weak ankles and about 5 years ago my foot was twisted round and the ligaments around my ankle and foot were damaged. The niggly pain I can feel is quite familiar! It never bothered me when I was training at any point but then I never did 13 miles in my training, I’m sure it will calm down by next Monday.

This is also day 1 of new diet that I haven’t tried before; the Dukan diet. Someone mentioned it to me at work so I looked it up and I’m giving it a go. Not tooooo dissimilar from low carb but more controlled. Getting to your target weight is only half of the process there is a Consolidation and Stabilisation process afterwards which is said to stabilise your weight and prevent you from putting it all back on. I am on phase one which lasts only 5 days but is quite restrictive; I can cope with this if it’s only for 5 days! On Saturday I start phase 2 which will be nice as that is our first wedding anniversary and we intend to go out for a meal. Wouldn’t be possible on phase 1 but I must be careful not to ruin this week’s efforts on Saturday. I also have to make sure I walk for 20 mins a day; this should be ok on my ankle as it is only a short duration and I can do this easily in my walk to and from work. I think the hardest bit is the two litres of water a day, I always struggle with that!

I think this weight loss is going to require every ounce of willpower that I have being that I will be faced with at least 4 events in the next couple of months at which I would normally eat, drink and be merry. As I have mentioned our anniversary is on Saturday, my birthday is November 30^th then there is Christmas and New Year. There is always so much food and drink around it is hard to be good! However I know I have to make this work otherwise before I know it’ll be March and I’ll be struggling my way around another 13 miles wishing I had done better. The four phases of this diet should take almost a year which would take me up to the Bristol Half Marathon next year. I hope to be at my ideal weight by then and I would hope to do Bristol in an hour less than Cardiff!! (Yes I think I’ve talked myself into doing Bristol as well…)

Hopefully yesterday was a good sign; I threw 2 glasses of wine down the sink cos I didn’t want them! That is unheard of for me. It was probably more to do with the fact that I had roast beef for dinner and I really wanted red wine. Faced with a glass of Chardonnay it wasn’t what I wanted! I think if it had been a bottle of Rioja or Reserva it would have been consumed without hesitation…

Friday 28^th October

Well this has been one weird week so far, work has been busy, busy, busy and now it’s dead. I am sooooo bored I typed ‘cat’ into eBay just to see what it would come up with. For the record; mainly junk. I watched the film ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ as it had good reviews; I thought it was rubbish.

On the very big plus side I have stuck to my diet like GLUE and I have lost 5lbs since Monday!! It is my first anniversary on Saturday which is when I can progress to stage 2 and introduce more food. This is handy as going out for a meal is nigh on impossible at stage 1. I have also decided that should I feel like a drink on Saturday I will have one but only low carb drinks. As it will just be me and Adam I think it will only be a couple of glasses of wine over dinner so no big deal. The thing I must ensure is that the next day I am right back on the diet. I may end up doing another week of stage 1 to compensate but we’ll see. I have managed at least 1.5 litres of water a day; this is an achievement for me.

Also another plus, my ankle has been pain-free for about 2 days so I am confident that by Monday I will be ready to commence training for Bath. As I no longer have gym membership it will be in the great outdoors. I cancelled my gym membership and running on a treadmill is quite lazy; it’s easier than running on the road. Now I’ve done the 13 miles once I know what it’s like so I will train outside, hopefully this will result in being better prepared and less injured next time. 

Today is my little brother's birthday ( I should say younger, he is a foot taller than me)

Happy 23rd Birthday Chris!