blind

Race For Life

simon Fitness, running , Comment

On the hottest day of the year I began the long walk to the start line. My sister was running/walking in the Race For Life 5km. With the closest parking being just over a mile away it was the first test for my ankle. Pain free we arrived at the staging area.

My sister was already in the starting area so we were quickly trying to make our way to the front so her 2 boys could see the start. Hoisted above my head we caught a quick glimpse of my sister as the race began.

Knowing the competitive women would post great a time we made our way over to the finish line. 18 minutes had passed and not a runner in sight, I put this down to the heat and terrain as in local races the competitive women usually post around 16-17 mins.

Around the 23 minute mark the first competitor reached the home straight, with a rouse of applause they crossed the line. It would be another 1 minute 30 before second place. As the time ticked by many of the more athletic women began to collapse and vomit a mere 50m from the finish line. The heat and dehydration seemed to be affecting a number of the female competitors.

Watching the dehydrated women made me wonder how I will complete a 100m race. Will I be this ill? Rather than this being an off putting thought it inspired me to enter some competitive races. I want to push myself to the limit and beyond like these women were.

My sister completed the race with a final sprint and a time of 46 minutes, a great time for my sister as she only began running 2 weeks ago.

The injury is healing quickly thanks to compression and rest, so I am quietly hopeful I may make my race in a couple of weeks. I have revised my target time to a 25 minute for the 5k as this injury has meant no speed work for a month.

Injured

simon Fitness, Life, running , , Comment

On my last run I was nursing a painful foot/ankle. After resting for over a week I was still unable to put my full body weight on my right ankle. Begrudgingly I headed to the Dr’s.

A quick diagnosis of an ankle sprain seemed simple. Thankfully nothing was broken I was happy and assumed I would be back on the road in a matter of days. Turns out I had no idea how serious ankle sprains can be, up to 3 months recovery. Upon hearing the news my heart sank, 18 weeks of training had come to an end. I would miss my first ever race and may even be out the entire summer.

On the way home from the Dr’s I bought a couple of ankle supports and sat down for some internet research. All the information I found confirmed what the Dr had told me, a long recovery time with little chance of a speedy recovery. I did manage to pickup a few tips, so hopefully with the use of the RICE method and a good 1-2 week rest I should be back.

For those interested the RICE method involves:

R- Rest
I – Ice
C – Compression
E – Elevation

My summer workout is going to take some modification as I would like to try and retain my fitness levels during the recovery period. So I will be hitting the weights hard over the next 2 weeks.

Performing as a Blind Runner

simon Fitness, Life, running , 1 Comment

Increasing performance is something that you work on over time. Changing a few methods here, fiddling with the diet there, a change of equipment, a whole host of changes contribute towards increased performance.

For myself it works slightly differently, as my performance is not dictated by my own actions, but by the joint performance of me and my guide runner.

If I feel particularly fresh I cant simply sprint ahead and put in a faster mile or even do a sprint finish. I move along at my guide runners pace. Which of course in turn means my guide runners pace is also dictated by my performance.

This makes for a very interesting and unique relationship, we can only perform better as a unit. This is proving especially difficult as I am currently injured. This was highlighted in our last run where our pace was the slowest to date.

With our performance being so dependant on the other, failure is not an option. Stopping mid run means letting the other person down, not to mention a long walk home. So regardless of pain, exhaustion and dehydration the runs are completed.

Our last run was especially painful as I am currently sporting an ankle injury. For the last 2 miles it was simply a case of pain management, I completed the run with the thought, “Must not stop, I cannot let the team down!”.

Summer Schedule

simon CrossFit, Fitness, running , , , 2 Comments

With the summer in full swing its time to up my workout schedule. Not only will I be increasing the miles but introducing a number of CrossFit workouts and sprints. The schedule is as follows:

Monday – Pull-ups, CrossFit
Tuesday – Run
Wednesday – Pull-ups, CrossFit
Thursday – Run
Friday – Pull-ups, CrossFit
Saturday – Sprints, CrossFit
Sunday – Run

This schedule does seem a little packed but with a lot of sleep and great nutrition I am confident I will see gains.

I will be following a Hal Higdon schedule for my running and aiming to be at half marathon distance in around 6 weeks time.

I will be utilising CrossFit and also a CrossFit playing card deck for the strength training.

For pull-ups I will be following the 20 Pull-Up Challenge.

So thats the schedule I post mainly to open the doors to any friends, friends of friends, random readers of the blog that would like to team up during the summer months. Be it by training in person or simply keeping track of each others progress online.

I am flexible on the times for any of the workouts and will do an AM/PM split. So leave or comment or drop me a line to workout!

Rest and Nutrition

simon Fitness, Life, running , , Comment

The accumulation of 14 weeks of training ended on Sunday with our 10k run. Using the dreadmill and the roads Scott and I had worked up from running an earth shattering 1 min splits all the way to 10k. Our goal began as a simple 5k run, when we achieved this with ease we rose the bar. Our new goal is marathon distance by sep/oct. To aid in this goal we decided to have a rest week.

The rest week didn’t exactly pan out. Instead we racked up our highest mileage in a 7 day period. So with 3 days until our new running schedule begins the rest has officially begun.

With a new schedule comes a new diet, my current diet runs at a negative 5600 cals a week. Far from healthy and explains my fatigue recently. So the new diet is a large calorie increase. The extra cals will be coming mainly from nuts and lean protein sources and maybe a pancake or two!

I will be trotting out FitDay to track calories and if there is any demand at all will post a weekly diet plan.

Yearly Checkup

simon Life , , Comment

For the past 10 years I have been registered blind. I do retain a usable level of vision but this degrades over time. My loss of vision generally goes unnoticed, this is due to the small adaptations I make on a daily basis.

The only time I am presented with a record of how much vision I have lost is the yearly checkup, the routine eye tests highlight the degeneration. Saturday was this years appointment.

Upon entering the examination room I sat down and took my first look at the eye chart. WHAT! I cant even read the top line, this is a notable reduction even for me. After letting my eyes settle to the change in light I could make out the top line and we moved on.

A quick test with the little torch showed I had a prescription change. As the optician adjusted for the change we progressed to the next eye chart.

Again I was struck by my change in vision, I was unable to read anything on the chart. Not due to my prescription but due to contrast and lighting levels. I couldn’t make out the letters as they were simply blending into the background. After a little fiddling we found my new prescription and we had a little chat about the state of my vision.

There has been a substantial pigment change, explaining my loss of contrast and colour definition. I had began to notice this in my day to day life, mainly while using the computer. Around 80% of my computer usage now takes place under inverted colours. This makes a few applications tricky to use but overall allows me to stay proficient.

To date the adaptations I am making seem to be keeping pace with the loss of vision. So I am not too worried about the recent pigment changes. I will keep adapting and moving on.

Good News

simon college, Life , , , , , Comment

After my previous post on the lack of disabled funding I sent an email complain to my local college.

I received a repsonse instantly, “Could you please come into the college so we could discuss this?” So on monday I had a meeting with Mary from the disability department. We discussed what had happened on my previous visit, turns out the finance department were mistaken.

There was indeed funding for accessibility, we discussed my needs and I highlighted I simply needed an iPad. The college had their own idea of some custom Dolphin devices, 2 devices one of which cost £1600. I explained this solution was incredibly expensive and the iPad would achieve everything I needed, at a smaller price point.

After around 30 minutes of negotiation I was left with the answer, “I will speak to my manager”. This morning I received an email giving the OK for an iPad. YAY!!!

The cherry on top? I bought an OpticBook 3600 on eBay for £38! The scanner arrived today, a quick test and it works like a charm.

So the previous cost has been reduced to a acceptable £38. This is far lower than even my dream scenario.

Now time to get back to compiling these post process tools.

My First 10k Run

simon Fitness, running , 2 Comments

I have been looking forward to running my first 10k for around 6 weeks. My guide runner and I have been training hard, determined to put in a good time. So when I awoke this morning and it hurt to stand there was no way I was missing this run.

The pain was mainly on my heels, this makes running slightly easier as my footfall is front/mid so I never strike my heal. So I was quietly confident this wouldnt be an issue. The journey to the drop off point was full of chatter about how the rain may effect us, did I mention it was raining? Boy was it raining.

Exiting the car we began being pelted with rain, no matter it wont get much worse I’m sure of it! We began the run with a steady pace repeating aloud the mantra, “keep it slow, keep it slow”. The first mile was a breeze, then the rain really hit us.

Huge drops of rain that could surely fill a shot glass, instantly our clothes became a chafing second skin. There was nothing else to do but laugh. Why did we think summer clothes would be appropriate for this run?

We crashed into the puddles as they grew in size, trying to dodge the splash or at least get a sneaky hit on each other. By now our shoes were soaked through, but hey at least we were halfway.

Passing the 3 mile marker we both found a second wind, our stride length increased as did our pace. Scott bounded into a swimming pool of a puddle, shooting dirty cold water right up my shorts, great a wet crotch! With our 1.5 mile marker rapidly approaching we decided to head home the back way, a long gradual incline followed by a slight decline.

As we dropped into single file we hit water slightly deeper than anticipated. With the puddles being deeper than our shoes it made running difficult. So we quickly hopped onto the road and ran the white line. My iPhone signalled the final 400m so we up the pace and finish on a high.

A record of 50:37 for our first 10k, injured and in the rain. Proud of that time!

Vibram Pain

simon Life, running , , Comment

Around these parts the temperature rarely breaks the 20 degree barrier. So as soon as the sun is out its time to play outisde.

Scott came around about mid afternoon and after playing with MacSpeech we decided to go feed the ducks at the local pond. Now I live around 500m from the duck pond so I figure it would be around 1.5k round trip. A great distance to use my Vibrams to increase my foot strength a little.

With vibrams on we headed out to feed the ducks, just as we tossed in the last few pieces of bread Scott mentioned checking out the pavement around the back, see if it could be a possible new running route.

We trekked the extra 1km to the pavement, its a beautiful pavement, a real long stretch of fresh new tarmac. No random posts in the middle of the path just a loooooooong stretch of great guide running territory. We decided to walk the opposite way around the path, to see if it continued into a nearby village.

This is where the pain began, with the sweltering heat the beautiful tarmac was baking my feet. Every time we reached a corner in the path we continued, afterall the path must end soon!

The walk continued a little further than anticipated passing the local airport, the school, the wildlife park and the fishing lakes. By now my feet were on fire each step was becoming painful, damn you Vibrams!

We discussed swapping shoes but when Scott realised I had been sweating sock less in the Vibrams he quickly said no. As I began gritting my teeth through the pain Scott suggested we stop off at the nearby pub and call in a lift.

A welcome beer and a chance to rest my feet I rang Sian. The lift home secured I limped to the car complaining the sunday 10k will be difficult.

Running Point

simon Fitness, Life, running , , Comment

Todays run was special for 2 reasons, its my birthday and I had new Nike gear to wear.

Sporting my new Dri Fit Nike short sleeve we headed out on a 2 mile “sprint”. We walked to the edge of my housing estate and began our run, overzealous we began a furious pace.

Being willed on by my new Nike threads we hit the long hill leaving the village. We achieved a mystifying 7:44 pace on an incline. Rounding parrots corner for the next uphill stage we were beginning to lag.

As mentioned numerous times I run shoulder to shoulder with my guide runner. However this particular uphill has a few unique traits which allow me to take point.

The hill is made up of a thin path flanked at both sides by grass. This allows me to correct my position depending on footfall and the feel of the grass. Feeling the long strands of grass on my left leg the next foot strike is a correction to the right. Repeating the process of minor corrections allows me to run point for a .75 mile stretch.

Running point is a great psychological boost, dictating pace and direction for once I am the guide runner.

The pace proved a little adventurous for my guide runner and we decided to take a little breather. I continued to take point which proved a little hazardous as I ran into the road and into oncoming traffic. Undeterred and with a quick correction we were home stretch bound!

Finishing the run we began to dissect our pace. We decided energy conservation is our new mantra. Heading out of the gate too fast always results in poor performance. Start slow finish fast!