Bad food choices equal bad productivity. Silly and obvious, but sometimes we pretend we don’t know that. My performance this week was completely destroyed, smashed and wrecked by my wrong dietary judgment in the last few days.

When I started running my main goal was, undoubtedly, to lose weight. However, when you start training more seriously, your body clearly requires additional energy. And where this energy comes from? Food, delicious food of course.

The trick is to keep your organism fuelled and lose the extra weight simultaneously. It is so damn hard. Especially if you love some treats like I do. You want to have pleasure eating, savour the moment, but at the same time you are conscious you need to make the right choices to be able to keep your running schedule.

Anyway, as I was saying, this week was a shamble. Not to overload my calories allowance, I exchanged dinner for popcorn twice, lunch for banana cake, fruits for “low calorie” crisps. The result? A shit (sorry for that) run on Wednesday and a shameful incomplete 4-mile yesterday.

Not just the total lack of energy, after 3.2km I started felling stomach cramps and finished my supposedly 4 miles on the elliptical. Such a humiliation. Embarrassing because I knew it was totally my own fault.

Low nutritional meals once or twice are not a problem, but when you have them pretty much half of the week, there is no chance you can expect the same performance if you had had full-protein and balanced options. It sucks. It totally sucks, but it was a necessary learning. It is through our mistakes that we improve.

To close with a flourish this amazingly wasted week, yesterday I had tapas (loads of them – and delicious by the way) and half a bottle of wine. Tah-dah!!!! Unable to train today. Of course. Tomorrow I may be able to do my scheduled 11 miles but I am not so confident. That is the second problem: I know I totally screwed up this week, so I don’t feel much positive for my final weekly long run. 17km requires 100% commitment and assurance or your mind will defeat you.

If I want to keep this training serious and committed, if I really want to finish the half-marathon in May without killing myself, I need to be aware that I cannot just eat whatever I want and everything will be fine later. The closer I get to the race, my meal habits will need to be consciously selected and my choices will have to be wise. That is part of the commitment I accepted when I decided to run Milton Keynes.

I kind of feel this weekend is already lost, but tomorrow is a new day and let’s see what it brings. I will keep you all updated :-)

The finally amazing weather outside makes me feel even worse. Meh.

It doesn’t have to be said that everyone has its own way to tolerate and overcome pain. Some can easily endure giving birth, while others cry when bumping the foot into the wall – that is my case by the way if you are wondering :-)

As mentioned in previous posts, I felt a lot of pain on my first trainings. The day after each run it felt like I had fallen from the top of a building and a cement truck passed over my body as an extra. Do you know that sensation you have during a cold when your body feels heavy like a bag of potatoes? Yes, that one! 

Anyway, it was bearable and I knew that it was the result of a very intense and exhausting exercise. I was pushing a lazy and sedentary body to limits until then unknown to him. However, what was worrying me was not the post-workout soreness, it was the pain on my knees.

I began to feel a discomfort on my right knee at the beginning of each run. It was not a horrible ache, but it was big enough to start making me feel concerned. After all, if I ended up injuring myself I would never be able to run Milton Keynes in May.

I started researching. Analyzing. Reading. I wanted to know until which point it was ok to feel some discomfort, after all, when you accept in your mind that you are training for half marathon you know you will have to endure some pain. But until what point?

So I used the power of Google to try to answer this question. I know if you have something serious you need to look for professional’s help, but deep inside I knew it was probably just something I was doing wrong.

After reading blogs, more blogs and specialized portals (Livestrong is a bless! I love this website, recommend to everyone!) I tried a couple of recipes. I don’t know which one was more effective (or the combination of many), but what makes me confident is that it is actually helping. I ran my 3 miles on Tuesday faster than I usually do, 5 miles on Wednesday - the horrible weather day - and 3 miles yesterday and I still can go up and down the stairs like a normal person!

Anyway, I will stop with this gibberish and jump to what I have been doing to improve my knee’s care. First, I found this sketch that differentiates pain zones on the knee. The soreness I feel is exactly on the outside and extends from the knee itself to up and down the lateral of my leg. Bang! It is ITB, or Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITB), that according to Runner’s World (another one of my website saviour’s), is one of the most common overuse injuries among runners. It occurs when the iliotibial band, the ligament that runs down the outside of the thigh from the hip to the shin, is tight or inflamed.

And why does it happen? Many many many factors. The ones I think were relevant to my case were the use of not appropriated shoes when I started training, lack of strength on my hips/legs and, not surprisingly, running TOO SLOW.

The wrong-shoes factor I solved a couple of weeks ago (expensive, irght). The lack of strength I am working on with squats and calf exercises 2 or 3 times a week depending on the load of assignments from school (and patience). Finally, the speed part. That is the hardest one. According to The Thriathlete website, speeding up your cadence to closer to 180 steps per minute, you are more likely to strike under your center of mass and decrease the impact of the exercise on your body.

It is not easy, not at all, increasing my speed. I thought I was already doing my maximum by running the amount of miles I was doing. “OMG, I am a runner now”. Nop, not enough. I have to run FASTER.

Accordingly, I am slowly slowly increasing my speed both on outdoor and treadmill trainnings, and it is actually working. Not only I am shortening my times but I am also feeling less pain. Some days, no pain at all. I was afraid of running faster and injury myself when actually improving my cadence was all I need to decrease my pain. How I was suppose to know??? Living and learning after all.

And the cherry of the cake on my “Super Care Knee Intervention” was the acquisition of a foam roller (Runner’s World was really effective brainwashing me). So beyond the regular stretches I do in the end of every run, a couple of times a week I save a few minutes to massage the most affected areas with the foam roller. It hurts like hell. It hurts to the point you want to cry. Seriously. I am not joking. The videos you see on YouTube when people are doing the roller’s routines with a smile on their faces are all big lies, because if you actually are in need of the exercises is because your muscles are full of knots after the training and to loose them prepare your breath, because it is very painful.

Uft. This post was massive, sorry. But knee pain is a pain in the ass, and being actually able to relief it a little bit is making me a very happy person indeed. If you have it, don’t give up. You will sure find your recipe as well :-)

My new BFF.

Summarizing my ITB attack step-by-step:

1) Do the usual boring stretches you learnt at school;

2) Use right supportive shoes;

3) Run in a minimum of 180 steps per minute cadence (more here);

4) Strength training to stop bobbling my lower body (more here); 

5) FOAM ROLLER TORTURE ROUTINE (more here and here). 

Enjoy :-)

This is not a regular post. It is actually closer to a wrathful comment. I am sorry, I know there are thousands of runners working out even during snow storms. Feeling proud of their ability to overcome natural disasters - and smile at the same time. But how is it possible to do my training (and my supposed 8 km of the day) when the weather outside makes me feel like I am inside a hurricane? And living on the 7^th floor in front of a dock makes the wind even more terrifying and nauseating. Bleh. Just bleh.

Please people that is running outside when is -10^oC, please stop or you will make me feel ever worse about myself. I just can't. It is too rainy, too windy and too depressing.

From the super optimistic http://www.netweather.tv/

Thank you lovely London for ruining my weekly schedule. Humpft.

So this blog is not just about happiness and accomplishments and 'oh my god I love running now'. Sometimes you just can’t. And that is really disappointing. Sometimes procrastination takes over your body like an alien. And you feel like shit (sorry). On Saturdays I am supposed to do my long run. Since the beginning of my training about 5 weeks ago I had never skipped one. Religiously. Disciplined.

But yesterday, due to a series of reasons and personal self-justifications, I couldn't. Ok. I am studying a Masters now. As much as I want to focus on the race, I cannot forget my other priorities. I have classes, I have assignments, and with them, stress and the worst part, an occasional laziness. Why am I talking about this? Because I want to emphasise, primarily to myself, the importance of following a plan and an agenda. 

I have an assignment due to tomorrow. Was it one of my priorities? Yes. So knowing I would have to run 13km yesterday, I should had finished it earlier. Started it earlier to begin with. But I didn't. So in the morning, when I was supposed to be outside doing my training, I was stuck in the computer. I barely slept the night of before of worriedness because as much as I tried, I spent the whole Friday between trying to understand slides and mourning about how impossible they looked like. I complaint too much and did too little.

So it is Sunday again. And I am trying to finish it. And my big toe hurts from Thursday strength workout (or did I knock a wall without realising it?). And the weather outside looks horrible (it was raining a lot for almost the entire day, I swear!). It is the perfect combination for skip my training, but unfortunately I know I will not be mentally able to go outside before submitting this f****** thing. It is all my fault, I know it. I should have started earlier, and I want to commit myself not do it again. No more "oh, I am tired I will watch some TV" and end up watching 5 episodes of random stuff in a row. Commitment is a commitment.

The result for this weekend's procrastination is that tomorrow a new week of training starts, but I haven't even finished the last week's one. Instead of 3/5/3/10 miles I will have to do 3/5/3/8 again - since I haven't done the last 8 yesterday or today. I have a couple of spare weeks in the end of the 16-week training as my half-marathon is just on May, but this not justifies the fact that my discipline was crap for the past few days.

Anyway, no more whining. Tomorrow is the start of a new week and come rain or shine, toe hurting or not, I will be outside for my 3 miles. Fingers crossed.

NEXT MORNING'S UPDATE: I've written the past paragraphs around 3pm yesterday and gave up on posting it because I decided to write on the assignment a little bit more. Anyway, gripped by a sudden force that came from the boredom of being the whole day in front of a computer - plus the suddenly sunshine that decided to show up (London weather is definitely very mentally unstable) -, Andre and I decided to go for a run. My toe was throbbing (again, I have no idea what I did) but I couldn't stay at home longer. The assignment was almost done and I really wanted to feel relieved about completing my weekly training schedule.

I was fine by running less than the intended 13km but after the first 5km, thanks to the fact that my body was getting warmer with the exercise, my toe stopped hurting at all. So we kept going, and going. We started at Royal Victoria and ended up at Victoria Park. And gosh, oh my, it was cold. When we finished running and started looking for a DLR station it was freezing. Our clothes were totally appropriated in case someone is wondering, but when you are in motion your sweat dries and passes through the layers of the thermal and the jacket, but when you finish and start walking if feels like your sweat dries and it gets stuck inside the first layer (sorry for the disgusting description).

Anyway. It was almost 6pm when we got back home and due to the cold and the soreness it was feeling like a truck had passed over my body (and I still had an assignment to finish what made even my brain ache). It was painful, and still is after about 12 hours, but at least I stuck to my schedule and followed my agenda, what gives this incredible feeling of satisfaction and overcoming. Let's prepare ourselves better for the week that is starting today and no more procrastination. Promise :-)

When people say you should buy proper shoes when you start running, listen to them. Please do. That is the best advice I can give based on my such short training experience. Because if you run with the wrong trainers you may screw you up. Badly. Hardly.

My first more considerable run (6 miles) was 2 Saturdays ago. It doesn’t look that big, but when you had never run long distances before in your life, 9.6 km is a lot. I thought I was going to die in the end. I even tried some sprints that of course didn’t work because my body was not answering to my brain anymore. And as I said on the first post, when I finished I had the most incredible feeling of fulfilment taking over me. But emotions aside, the problem was the following day, and the day after that (and the other, and the other).

My knee was killing me. The right one to be more precise. It felt that my leg muscles were all being pulled to the inside, my hamstring, my calf. It was hurting a lot. So I totally gave up the idea of keeping using my gym training shoes. If I was going to take this running story seriously, I would have to invest some money on it soon or later.

My knee-killer Nike.

So I started to do some research. Overpronation, underpronation, curvature. The words were scary and as much I tried to learn by myself, finding a professional would be the wisest thing to do.

At Westfield Stratford there are many sports specialized shops. I went to Nike Store first. The sales associate who helped me was exceptionally nice and helpful. I told him I was just looking around and would not buy straight away because I was just starting my research but he insisted in doing the treadmill test to recommend to me the best options.

Not surprisingly, I have overpronation on both legs: the way my lower legs move when my feet touch the ground makes them roll inwards. Most people have low to medium overpronation because is rare to find someone that runs in an Olympian perfect motion, so it is not like I am a deformed extraterrestrial :-)

Anyway, according to the Nike guy, my pain came after Saturday because regular gym trainers, as good and fancy as they are, don’t offer the right support for runners – overpronators or not. In my case I needed even more cushioning (provided by stability shoes) than basic neutral running trainers.

After filming me running for a couple of seconds in the treadmill (humiliating, I know) wearing 3 different models, he recommended me the Nike Lunareclipse 4 (£110) http://store.nike.com/gb/en_gb/pd/lunareclipse-4-running-shoe/pid-874363/pgid-874362. It felt strange, the sole was thick, solid, but he said that was a normal feeling when you start using cushioned shoes.

As I wanted a second opinion, I went to Sweatshop. And OMG, how amazing is that store? They have absolutely everything for running. Despite the painful prices (even during sale), the selection and variety were overwhelming.

I explained the situation to the sales assistant again and he asked if I could spend around 20 minutes to try some options. He molded a Sweatshop innersole to my foot and started the tests. At Sweatshop they have a lot of equipment to analyze the way you walk. They scan your feet, measure your lower leg, the way you walk, and everything is explained step-by-step. It actually took me more than half an hour for the entire process.

Then he selected some pairs – and yes, my overpronation was confirmed – and I tried 5 different styles. Some of them “solved” my overpronation problem better than others. Unfortunately, in the end the only two that were most adequate to me I totally HATED the colour. It was a Mizuno and a New Balance that, personally, I found horrible. Terrible colours, shape, arght.

I promised myself that I was not going to take a rushed decision and end up with a pair of trainers that I didn’t have any satisfaction in using it. I know it sounds superficial and shallow, but I wouldn’t spend almost £100 in a pair of shoes that I didn’t fully love. It was a massive load of money.

Before leaving, he tried to sell the £45 pair of insoles (What? Are they not for free?), which I liked but considering I still had to buy very expensive trainers, extra £45 were completely out of the table, unfortunately.

I felt really bad about leaving the store with empty hands after spending more than 30 minutes of that guy’s time, but sticking to my budget was a priority. I was frustrated, of course. But when I went home I kept looking, and looking, and looking, until I found heaven.

The chosen one.

Wiggle is a paradise for cyclers and runners. It is a website that has everything you find in the best stores for a third of the price. The same Asics Kayano20 I felt in love at Sweatshop and they didn’t have my size was £140 at the store and £99 at Wiggle. So I went for it. Deep. Happy. I got the trainers, a winter running jacket, leggings – the ones I destroyed at the fence that I mentioned on the first post, a thermal… everything for a little bit more than I would have paid just for the shoes hours before.

I know that when you go to a shop the extra money you pay for a product includes a lot of extras. I would never be able to buy the perfect shoe online if I haven’t done the tests before. You pay for the super trained specialist that helps you to discover how is your running style, you pay for the convenience of leaving with your products on hand… but for students on a short - non-existent - budget, sites like Wiggle are the salvation.

Even paying for free regular delivery my products arrived just 2 days after the order. The feeling of putting my new shoes filled me with joy. That joy you feel when you are certain you bought something really great (at least for you!). Yes, like the sales guy from Nike said, the extra support and cushioning would feel weird for a while and even hurt on the first kilometers, but I ran my 7 miles last weekend and it couldn’t be better.

So if you decide to start running, save some of your pub/beer money and invest in really good quality shoes. Your knees – and Achilles, and calves, and tights, and hamstrings – will be thankful.

P.S.: Pictures all taken from Google because my shoes are already dirty and muddy (damn British weather!).

Sweatshop Westfield Stratford

Groundfloor, E20 1ES

0844 332 5656

Nike Westfield Stratford

Groundfloor, E20 1ES

020 8519 2252

Wiggle.co.uk

www.wiggle.co.uk/

Wi