Fitness

Go Long: Portisnever

An 80km loopy ride around Chew Valley Lake and Bath. It took 3 hours 15 minutes at an average heart rate of 121bpm and an average speed of 25 km/h, leaving a 1,205 calorie hole.

‘Go Long’ are short reports from my weekend mini-adventures on bike and foot, as I continue to train for more ultramarathons and Ironman. They are most likely of interest to other endurance masochists, as well as those looking for new running and cycling routes around Bath and Bristol.

I want to be more active, but...

One of my first posts on this blog was Why Fitness Matters. It was a bit of a manifesto that talked about how taking responsibility for your physical well-being is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself.

This post moves from WHY to HOW: how to get started, because that’s the toughest part.

Fortunately, this is a great time to start. Tomorrow is National Fitness Day! There are events and offers being run up and down the country so check out what’s happening in your area.

A whole lot of reasons to try Huel meal replacement

I first tried Huel about 2 years ago. I’d seen that more and more people were experimenting with meal replacements. The simplicity of an all-in-one shake and the idea of engineering a nutritionally complete food appealed to me.

If you want £10 off your first order, keep reading!

But most of the initial offerings seemed pretty unhealthy. After some research, I came across the Huel website and was impressed. Short for “human fuel”, the Huel brand looked professional and clean and the core ingredients seemed much more nutritious: oats, pea protein, flaxseed, brown rice protein, coconut oil, and sunflower oil.

How to Run 50 Miles, Part 2: The Butcombe Trail Ultramarathon

In Part 1, I talked about my inspiration for running 50 miles and the injury-ridden preparation for my first ultramarathon. This is a report of how it went on the day of the Butcombe Trail Ultramarathon 2018, my first ultramarathon.

The Night Before

• Prepared power porridge: 50g oats, 200ml milk, 2 tsp honey, a banana, and some whey protein.
• K-taped my knee, essentially making my quadricep a quinticep. My physio had taught me how to do this a while back, when I got my patellar tendonitis diagnosis. It’s a handy way of distributing some of the load.
• Drank an SIS hydro, to make sure my electrolytes were topped up.
• Checked my GPS app had the map loaded, and printed off some navigation pointers.

Morning registration

My alarm went off at 5 am. I was awake before anyway. Demolished the porridge by 5:30 am, giving it two hours to digest before race start. Necked a small coffee, as I wanted the option to take on some caffeine during the race. Took another SIS hydro to top-up electrolytes, applied Bodyglide to any potential rubbing areas, and headed off into the windy, wet morning. Application of sun cream was not deemed necessary.

How to Run 50 Miles, Part 1: Preparing for an Ultramarathon

How to run 50 miles. It’s probably not a question that keeps most people up a night. But it’s something I’ve wanted to do for the last year.

These two posts are a detailed rundown of my preparation and experience of my first ultramarathon, as well as an informal and hopefully entertaining guide for anyone looking to run 50 miles, or just push their running further.

The Butcombe Trail Ultramarathon (BTU) is a 50-mile loop that visits 6 pubs on the Mendips. It’s mostly off-road and pretty hilly, clocking in at over 1500m of ascent with some very steep climbs. Part 2 covers my experience of the race itself.

Calories count, but you (probably) don’t need to count them

A new weight loss study was released this week, reported by various news outlets with the following headline:

Counting calories not key to weight loss, study finds.

The description went on to explain:

People in the study who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about cutting calories or portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.

Why fitness matters

When most of us think of “fitness”, the images that arise are often not pleasant: sweaty gyms, restrictive diets, and the thought of fitting even more tasks into an already busy day.

If we summon the courage to visit the gym, we get home to catch the latest news about that new thing that causes cancer, and how we all need to eat less, move more, and eat five a day.