After a week off running and cycling I ran on Monday. It’s a good thing I wasn’t daft enough to think that I’d run easily, smoothly and strongly as a result of the break – because I didn’t.
I ran in my minimalist shoes for the first time since I hurt my feet running in them on the stoney farm track three weeks ago. I really enjoyed them – except that, to be honest, the ball of my right foot hadn’t quite recovered and hurt a bit.
It felt like very hard work but I did over 10km (6.3 miles) in 58 minutes – 4 hour marathon pace – which was a pleasant surprise.
We walked a 3.5 mile round trip for supper with friends on Monday evening. I wore my Asics running shoes – good shoes but they have a high and snug heel that aggravates my Achilles if I run in them. I now find that they aggravate my Achilles if I walk in them.
The three of us went for a more gentle run on Tuesday morning – about 7km (4.4 miles), ignoring the sore Achilles and the sore soles of the feet, followed by building a brick pier at the end of one of the new walls.
Wednesday was spent on a trip up to London to do some work on our sons’ flat and to pick up post and meter readings from ours – and no time for a run.
On Thursday I went to the gym for the first time since they were allowed to reopen last week – and my first time since early March. It wasn’t busy, the equipment had been well spaced out (taking over a foyer area and a squash court) and was being cleaned very regularly by the staff.
It felt pretty safe (given the circumstances) and I was pleasantly surprised that I could lift the same weights as in March – although I eased off by 5kg here and there to give myself a slightly gentler reintroduction. A very enjoyable hour.
I timed my return home badly. I got back from the gym just as my wife and our younger son were heading out for a run – so I joined them. It was only 5.5km (about 3.4m) and taken gently, but coming straight after the gym it felt as hard as anything I’ve done recently.
A rest day on Friday featuring a long lunch with friends in very hot weather. I planned to run late afternoon on Saturday after a day in the garden, but we were invited out for drinks. Strangely, I opted for the drinks rather than the run, but we all ran on Sunday morning – nearly 9km (5.5miles) with laps around Badbury Clump, minus the bluebells.
Talking to a friend, I’ve realised that – without any conscious decision – I’ve slipped into a regime of 16:8 dieting. I’ve got to this position simply by failing to follow the old ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ adage and rarely eating anything before lunch (and often not eating lunch either).
That gives me at least 16 hours of fasting most days and it seems that the fasting period is said to help in several ways, both for weight and health. Best of all, I appear to be lucky in that it just happens to be the way I tend to eat, rather than being an artificial diet approach. Accordingly, it isn’t very hard to do and nor do I feel very tied to it – if it doesn’t suit me at any time I abandon it without even the merest twinge of guilt. Of course, the ‘no breakfast’ approach completely disappears any time I stay in a hotel.
I’m wondering how long it will be before the wheel turns full circle and breakfast again becomes the most important meal of the day.
Interesting stuff in the news
1. A Canadian brewery has apologised for unwittingly naming one of its beers after a Maori word that is commonly used to mean pubic hair.
2. African proverb: A man who plants grapes by the roadside, and he who marries a pretty woman share the same problem.
My apologies that African proverbs are not always appropriately PC.
The Omil (an Old Man in Lycra) 
That old ‘most important meal of the day’ thing was not coined by Kelloggs but you can see why the myth developed. The problem, as is often the case with food, is not when we eat, or even how much we eat, but what we eat. Breakfast has become either a sugar-soaked bowl of sogginess, or a pig slaughterfest. And I love an ol’ fry! I’d never skip brekkie. It really is quite important. If anyone claims they are too busy for breakfast, they are telling porkies. And not the kind you can throw in a pan!
(But the 10k time is good; doesn’t sound like you’re struggling at all).
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Certainly I find it hard to resist a cooked breakfast (hence any hotel stay being an exception to the no breakfast norm). I guess it also depends on what you need to do in the mornings – mine often involve a run (which I find tends to suppress the appetite) but not too much else requiring any great effort.
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