Six weeks and counting...

Oh, bumbly, bumbly. bum, bum...6 weeks to go and I´m starting to get nervous. I´m not quite as nervous as last night in rugby training when a huge slab of whale meat decided he was going to run through me rather than around me, but nervous all the same.

I don´t know what to make of my aerobic training. I seem to be stuck at a pace around the 6:15 per km mark at best, but which normally translates to 7:15 because of all the stupid hills in Alicante. A 6:15 pace in the race will bring me in about 4:20 whilst a 7:15 pace will bring me in after everyone has gone home. I know the theory, according to Lord Maffetone is that this training will translate into a much quicker race pace because of my newly-constructed aerobic base, but it´s hard to feel that way when it JUST ISN´T HAPPENING.

And I want my 4-hour time...

The Paleo diet is going well though and I´m beginning to feel pretty good on it. The body is holding up great since I´m running 4 times a week and doing 1 day a week of rugby. My ankle is still niggly but manageable and I think it´s down to 1) eating the right food and 2) getting stronger.

But still...here are some photos from recent runs...

First...Victims of Terrorism Street in San Juan de Alicante. Nice!

Second, has some kind of English religious sect set up in another small Spanish village...?

And some nice countryside...

I did see even more interesting things on my runs but they involved other people so it felt a bit rude to take sneaky pictures of them. I´ve got another 2hr run tomorrow then next week, I´ve got a 3 hour Sunday run after a rugby match the day before...it´s all getting quite intense.

The Caveman Approach

I´ve had to take an injury break for the past week. It´s not ideal but about 12 mins into my mid-week session last week, it was clear that my ankle was giving me big ´no-no´ signs by hurting more with every step I took. I concluded this was more than your normal aches & pains and sensibly stopped. It was very frustrating as I feeling more Mo Farah than Mo Farah himself.

As always I thought a sensible solution was needed so I radically changed my diet, to go along with the standard RICE treatment. Therefore I am now fully paleo! From Saturday onwards I am no longer eating grains, legumes, processed foods, breads, sweets, dairy etc etc. Basically, all I can eat is meat, poultry, lamb, fish, and all the veg and fruit I want, plus most condiments and vinegars. There are many ideas and theories behind this diet, so I won´t go into them now, nor will I advertise any reading I´ve been doing. First, I want to see the (if any) positive effects. To add to my suffering I also gave up caffeine.

It´s been ok. I spent the first day pretty light-headed, which is normal. The second and third days have brought feelings of being rundown, again pretty normal. Then I hurt my back lifting the kids out of bed, so I´ve been distracted by that. However, on Tuesday, just two days into my diet, I went out to run again, with my ankle seemingly well-rested. Interestingly, I set my fastest kilometre within my target heart-rate of 135, completing it in 5:51 running on the flat. This was a total surprise. I can´t honestly say it´s down to changing my diet as I also had a good rest, but it´s certainly encouraging.

So, to spread the word, try this dish:

Ingredients:

Hake fillets, plum tomatoes, garlic, onion, nutmeg powder, black pepper, salt.

Chop the hake up into small chunks. Fry the onion and garlic in butter for a few minutes, then add the hake and fry it until it´s slightly browned, adding some black pepper. Chuck in the tomatoes, nutmeg powder and salt and simmer away to your heart´s content. Optional extra - add some cayenne powder whilst frying the hake to spice the whole thing up.

For those who say paleo is difficult, how easy is that?