Not on the EcoTrail

Today would have been the day of the EcoTrail Wicklow race, had it not been cancelled a few weeks ago. I had actually been reasonably optimistic that they would be able to hold it, since trail running is a socially distanced pursuit even when there's no pandemic spreading through the world, but of course in the end it wasn't to be. Such a shame - it would have been a gorgeous day, with clear skies and views for as far as the horizon stretches out. Just imagine the views from the Sugarloafs, or Djouce! I did get to enjoy a little bit of it as I met a work colleague, who moved here a few months ago, and we went over Bray Head and towards Little Sugarloaf, but had to turn around after an hour. Still, it was a very enjoyable 20k run, and who knows, with the weather about to turn and the days getting significantly shorter, it may have been the last of the nice days of the year.

Covid is of course a worry for all of us. With two kids in school and Niamh being a teacher they are having plenty of unavoidable close contacts, and the numbers in Bray are actually worse than in many parts of Dublin. It feels like it's only a matter of time until one of us tests positive, and my main worry is to spread it to the grandparents, who are in their eighties. Please don't let that happen!

As for running, with everything else cancelled I signed up to another virtual challenge four weeks ago, a last person standing one with the EoI running group. It's not the one where you run 4.5 miles every hour until everyone else has dropped out, it's about running a set amount of distance every day (well, they set it to 5 times a week), until everyone else has dropped out. At the time of writing there are still 9 of us in the running, out of the initial 15. A few years ago I would have declared myself the hot favourite for that kind of challenge, but those days are gone. We'll see how long I can hang on.

Weighty Matters

Just so that this doesn't get misunderstood: I do not believe in dieting. I have never followed a diet and never will. I have never starved myself in order to lose weight (or gorged myself to gain weight, for that matter). I have, however, heard plenty of times that I was too thin, sometimes in slightly less flattering terms. It shouldn't be hard to grasp the basic fact: I am fairly lightweight because I burn a lot of calories exercising, not because I am eating less. In fact, one of my colleagues once nicknamed me "sugar rush", after seeing me tuck into more than my fair share of sweets on more than one occasion. And yes, chocolate is my weakness.

Ever since I started running my weight has always gone up and down with my mileage. When I did 100 mile weeks I found it impossible to eat enough to keep my weight level, and when I was in recovery mode after a race my weight always shot up accordingly.

This was always quite predictable and stable but recently I have noticed that my weight keeps dropping. Undoubtedly it has to do with the fact that I am exercising twice a day, running and cycling once a day each. I used to think of 142 pounds as my optimal race weight, though more often than not I was about 144/145 for my goal races. Still perfectly acceptable, and I never ever got below 142, until now that is. This morning I was 141, and I have weighed myself below 140 at times, though that was caused by being dehydrated after a run, not my real weight.

Anyway, I told Niamh she had to bake more. Surely I won't lose any more weight when I stuff myself with chocolate brownies or similar on a regular basis? She keeps protesting that she is baking plenty anyway. We'll see how this plays out. Having to eat more cake in order to keep the weight stable - I can think of worse!

Last weekend I overdid it a bit. The very hilly 19+ mile course I had plotted had been a couple of miles longer than expected (very sloppy planning by me, this hasn't happened before) and I was rather tired at the end. Oh, and my legs cramped violently an hour later when I put them up - calves, bottom of the feet, around the ankles, any muscle in the lower legs really, until I somehow managed to put my weight on it. Blimey! So much for my attempt to get on top of my cramping issues. I just read an article that cramping is correlated with the muscles not being strong enough and has nothing to do with dehydration, salt levels or magnesium. This matches perfectly what I have observed over the years, my cramping problems were always significantly worse when I wasn't in top, top shape, and I never found any of the other theories even remotely relevant. Still, I took it easier this week. Also, my Garmin said I was overtraining - I wasn't entirely convinced by that, but with my recent history of overtraining it was definitely preferable to err on the side of caution. The watch has me back in green now. Let's keep it that way.