Keeping motivated all year round

Now is the time many of us start thinking about New Year Resolutions.  According to a Neilson poll, planning fitness or weight related goals are most common ones we made last year and also the ones that we found hardest to keep past January.   

Keeping motivated all year round is not always easy.  A key reason we fail is that we are apparently overly ambitious or unrealistic in what we resolve to change.  I don’t necessarily agree.  For me the best motivator is to always have an ambitious goal committed to and preferably one that scares the pants off me.  The knowledge of needing to prepare and train for weeks in advance or risk failure is enough to get me out of my warm bed on a morning and keep my training plan on track.  I also have a habit of writing my goals somewhere I can see them regularly, it helps keep them at the front of my mind.

Even although I enjoy training, without a goal it lacks focus and becomes far too easy for me to skip a session.   I always set my goals early and next year I have signed up for two long distance triathlons.  As the first is in May I am already working on my base training and have a training plan in place to match my goals.   Committing to meeting up and training with others helps too as it is harder to let someone down, finding a coach that monitors your progress and makes you accountable is also a good way to keep on track.

Making progress can be frustrating at times particularly when gains are small or something does not quite go as planned.  But keep visualising your target, whether that is becoming a faster runner, pulling another notch in on your belt in or finishing a race that you never thought a year ago was possible for you to start, keep that goal in mind and it will keep you moving in the right direction throughout the year and avoid being just another failed January fad.

@lindatodd74

Coping with rude remarks when running

The other morning while out running, I received a few rude remarks from a group of boys.  I shrugged them off and ran on but later it got me thinking about how comments like that could affect people to the extent they may avoid running.  Lets face it being sensitive about our body image is fairly common and for some people so much of an issue, it puts them off exercising in public.  I am a member of a Women only Facebook group where training advice is shared as well as the forum acting as a support network. I asked a question in the Group to find out how many had experienced anything similar.  I got a huge response.  Incidents are occurring regularly and what is more it’s happening globally.  This situation means many women won’t run on their own at all now because of fear of verbal or physical abuse while others admit to always carrying weapons as well as their water bottles.

Researching this further on specific runner forums it is not only women that experience this, men do too and very often it is the men who are on the receiving end of physical abuse.  Since being beeped at, wolf-whistled and jeered at when we run outside is frequent, then we need to be prepared to handle it.  Shouting back or sticking two fingers up only fuels the situation and I found the consensus among runners is to ignore the comments, don’t react or show that it has affected you and try to avoid confrontation.  If you are nervous then run with a friend, join a running group or find running routes where there are likely to be lots of other runners around. 

I usually run on my own and in reasonably quiet areas but I have found that if you smile at people as you run towards them it is usually returned and may help disarm them if they are feeling less than warm towards you.  Granted that tactic would probably not have stopped the group that decided to comment on my Chris Hoy-like thighs the other day, but you can’t win them all.  

@lindatodd74

Focusing on my swimming

I have always loved the water.  Thanks to my mum, I was introduced to swimming lessons when I was 4 years old and I progressed well as a club swimmer.  My 'racing' stroke was breaststroke and I was always a pretty rubbish front crawl swimmer so years later when I took up triathlon and got back in the pool I died off after one length. 

Swimming is all about technique.  You have to get in the pool regularly,  as in a minimum of three times a week, to improve and maintain it.   It has taken hours and hours both in the pool and in open water, and while it has paid off there is always room for improvement.

I had a swim analysis in January in an endless pool which included a video analysis that critiqued my stroke and basically showed that I needed to improve my body position, stop my arms crossing, slow down my arm cadence, improve my kick,...and god so many other things but anyway I took away the report and after a couple of months gradually saw my swimming pace get significantly faster from around 2.15 / 100m to around 2.00/ 100m in the pool and a bit faster in open water when helped by the buoyancy of a wetsuit.  I completed my 3.8k race swim in 1.21 and was really happy with that.  

However, this month I realised despite all my efforts my speed had stopped improving.   My coach Paul offered to get in the pool with me and take a look.  That one hour session was really helpful.  He immediately identified that while my body position was fine in the water I was not getting a good enough catch and pull to my swim.

The catch and pull technique is something that has been explained to me before by swimming coaches but generally quite hard to understand.  That is maybe because they have been explaining it usually while standing above me at the side of the pool and not in it actually demonstrating what they mean.  

Essentially, it is all about getting a good entry point for your hand and keeping a high elbow through the pull phase as well as engaging your lats.  www.swimsmooth.com has a really good explanation of this.

I also found this short film by Olympic Chloe Sutton one of the best ones that explains how to get a good catch and pull https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1OY_yQBiXM&t=452s

Since the session with Paul I have been in the pool working on specific drills that will help my technique and while it still feels a bit unnatural to swim this way I am already seeing improvements in my time.  My lunchtime swim today was 1.56 / 100m.

So my advice for anyone keen to make some improvements would be to find an experienced coach to preferably join you for a swim and look at your swim technique, then get some drills to correct your stroke incorporated into your pool sessions so that you can maximise swimming throughout the off season.

Happy swimming!

Lx

Finding a cycling spirit

A sobering thought for this time of year is that most fatal cycling accidents occur in the dark, with the most dangerous hours for a cyclist reported as between 8.00am-9.00am and 3.00pm-6.00pm.  While these facts are unlikely to inspire more people to ride bikes during the darker months, it raises questions on how we can improve road safety generally. 

Sustrans suggested safety is linked to building more segregated on-road cycle routes when it published a survey this week showing significant public support exists for them.  That is all well and good where there is space to do so, but in Bath and many other towns and cities, there is very little room to change the road infrastructure. Yet cycle friendly cities exist elsewhere, even in densely populated places with busy roads and where they have similar challenges to Bath. Osaka in Japan is an interesting example. It does not have miles of bike lanes, nor does it have a modern infrastructure or a bike sharing system but it is considered to be one of the most bike friendly cities in the world because the Japanese culture has instilled a cycling spirit in its 2.6 million residents. 

This makes me think that simply looking to spend money on cycling infrastructure is approaching the problem the wrong way.  Whatever we introduce to improve cycling safety will only work if we collectively as road users are prepared to change our behaviour.  We need to find a way to shift the “them and us” attitude that exists between cyclists and drivers, we need to make better decisions as road users and we need to rid our roads of rage.  Finding our cycling spirit in Bath is surely worth striving for and investing in. And right now, we need to invest in being visible to one another. Even when there are streetlights cyclists are often not easily seen.  Ride 

with your lights on day and night and wear some bright high visibility gear and drive cautiously and keenly. 

Road safety is the responsibility of both drivers and cyclists and to sensibly adjust to the road conditions, not least at this dark time of year.     

Keeping motivated this winter

With the days getting shorter and chillier I am getting back into the swing of indoor cycle training.  I know many people enjoy cycling outside throughout the winter months but personally I prefer to mainly stay inside.  It’s not that I am averse to training in the cold, in fact I love to run on a bright cold day, but when it comes to cycling I now choose to avoid the roads if there is a chance of ice and slippy conditions. This means I have dusted down the turbo and to keep me motivated I have committed to riding my bike on my turbo for a minimum of 30 mins a day during the month of November.  There are a group of riders taking part and some other aspects to the challenge, but essentially it is free and open for all to take part in, all you need to do is register.  Find out more by using the hashtag #turbovember.

There are lots of challenges designed to help keep you motivated during the winter.  Running Heroes is another free initiative I would recommend you look at.   You simply link up your running app to your personal Running Heroes account which then awards you points for each mile your run.  In doing so you can win entries to various running events as well as other running and fitness products. There is a lot more to this so the website is certainly worth a look.

Exercising with friends and trying new fitness activities are both great ways to keep up the momentum of the fitness you have built from summer training, however, for me by far the best way is to always have a goal and a training plan.    I have already set my two key goals for next year and one of them is early in the season which means I have a great incentive to train over the winter.  I also have new training plan in place designed to help me monitor and hit my targets on a weekly and monthly basis.  It is rewarding to track your progress and by continuing to train through the winter will only make your summer stronger.  Happy training!

@lindatodd74

Kona inspired viewing

On Saturday I spent a few hours glued to my TV watching the Ironman World Championships take place live in Kona, Hawaii.   This year, Bath was represented by Paul Ransome, Head Coach of Team Urban Endurance and former Olympian Heather Fell, who lives, works and trains in the City.  To get an entry to the race is beyond difficult.  To put this in perspective, during the last 12 months 85,000 people have raced Ironman events around the world with only the top age group winners from each race gaining one of 2,400 places at the World Championship. While just making the start line is hard enough, the race itself is brutal.  Conditions are extremely hot and the island is notoriously windy, unsurprisingly it is known to break even the pro athletes.    From my seat on the sofa however, the conditions looked beautiful, the sea blue and clear for the swim, long stretches of empty road for the bike and huge crowds cheering on the run route.  It was an inspiring event to watch, some incredibly fast performances from both Heather and Paul who finished strongly, not to mention GBR’s Lucy Charles and David McNamee being on the finishers podium.

Considering we are a small nation, sport in our country really punches above its weight.  We consistently produce World Champion and Olympian sports men and women, develop professional football, rugby, rowing and cycling teams, and boast some of the best racing car drivers, golfers, cricketers, jockeys and snooker players on the circuit and yet we are massively underinvested in funding athletes and facilities. 

Living in Bath you would not think this is the case, we are extraordinarily lucky to have access to world class facilities at the Uni, a new multi-sports facilities at Odd Down and a Sports centre that, once it’s refurbishment is complete, will give more people access to better facilities.  We also have numerous gyms, fitness classes and plenty free running groups and cycling clubs in the city to pick from.  With so much on the doorstep to take advantage of, it is important we keep on encouraging our young people into sport as well as finding more ways to support and fund our inspiring, professional athletes.

@lindatodd74

Why increasing your distance is all in your mind

Yesterday, endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont completed the challenge of cycling round the world in under 80 days.  In doing so he rode on average 240 miles a day, cycling 7,031 miles in a month.  An incredible challenge which he completed in 78 days and 14 hours.  While many of us can’t comprehend cycling those distances, increasing your distance whether on the road, in the park or in the pool is achievable with a little training and the right mindset.  When I first started cycling I remember thinking 30 miles was a flipping long way and 100 would just blow my mind.   

I find by visualising the distance in small sections, just like you do if you are out of a run or a swim, increasing the mileage becomes a much more manageable and achievable goal.  Also, when I am training I tend to operate in time rather than distance.  For example, if I am going for an ‘out and back’ 30 minute run, I think about it being only 15 mins each way rather than thinking I must run for 30 mins or for a distance of 5k.  When you start to increase the time say to 40 mins and then 50 mins etc the out and back section increases but if you think in time and split it up, then it feels easier than working in kilometres or miles.  It may not work for you but give it a try, I find it really motivating.

Last week, I was forced to ease off my training after picking up a nasty virus from swimming in a river.  I was unlucky but not helped by swimming after heavy rainfall, which is apparently the worst time to do it since all the muck off neighbouring fields and the banks get swept into the river.  It was an organised event and from what I have read since I am not the only one to have suffered so while swimming outdoors is lovely do be careful of dipping in the river after major downpours.  I have to admit I have been very happy to get into a chlorinated pool this week!