Category Archives: exercise

Finding Ultra

Finding Ultra

This is an easy read and an inspiring story. I admire him for successfully conquering his alcoholism. The amount of pain this man has gone through is unbelievable. It makes running a marathon look like an easy task in comparison.

Something very interesting I picked up from the book is the Hadd Method of endurance training which, in a nutshell, says you need to run slower (about 70& of your heart rate) to get faster over time.

The only thing that jars is his ‘plant-powered’ diet. He takes all sorts of weird supplements and needs to eat vast quantities of vegan stuff like avocadoes in order to power himself through endurance events. Both of these things seems silly and unnecessary to me.

Two books about running

I got a couple of books on running for my birthday:

Running With the Kenyans

What I talk about when I talk about running


I can’t say that either book made a huge impact on me. But ‘Kenyans’ was interesting in that there isn’t some big secret of the success of the Kenyans; it’s a combination of many factors:-
* tough, active childhood
* barefoot running
* altitude
* diet
* role models
* simple approach to training
* running camps
* focus & dedication
* desire to succeed & change their lives
* mental toughness
* lack of alternatives
* abundance of trails to train on
* time spent resting
* running to school
* all-pervading running culture
* reverence for running

‘Talk’ is more of a series of diary entries. There were lots of bits that I could identify with: his attitude on personal goals, ‘at least he didn’t walk’ and running to fill a void, to name a few. I enjoyed his introspective style. Although he doesn’t seem like he’d be much fun to hang around with, he’s a pretty good writer.

10 miles!

Yeah, I reached my landmark. But it was pretty tough and didn’t feel anywhere near as good as last Sunday’s 14k run. It wasn’t just during the extra 2K either; it felt slow almost all the way through. Actually I haven’t felt on top form since; I ran 6K on Tuesday and that felt hard as well. So I’ve had 2 days off any kind of exercise that uses up my legs and I’ll be trying 10 miles again tomorrow. I really hope that it will be a bit more enjoyable. Mark runs even though he hates it but I don’t see the point in that. I’d rather progress a bit more slowly and enjoy it than push myself so hard that it’s torture every time.

Furthest run so far

Even though I’d only had about 4 hours’ sleep the night before, I plodded through 14K. As usual my calves ached a little during the first 20 minutes or so but after that the run felt really good. Perhaps because the endorphins start to kick in? Anyway, it was fantastic. I’m hoping to do 10 miles (16K) one Sunday before the end of the month. If I manage that I’ll have done Couch to 10 miles in 6 months.

I’ve pledged to do a January Streak with some of my schoolfriends, which means exercising every day of the month but, to be honest, I’m not sure that it’s the way forward for me. I haven’t done very well in my running when my legs have already been working hard the day before. So I think I will do running on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and swim on either Monday or Thursday. On the ‘rest’ days I’ll just do core workouts.