I’m back in the saddle again, up and running and paddling my own canoe. The kayaking injury on Bank Holiday Monday has been brought under control by the healing hands of Caroline Gordon who is amazing. When I heard a crack in my neck as I was being knocked out of my boat by a big Clonea wave I was really worried that my ten weeks of training were about to go up in a puff of smoke. From past experience I knew the worst thing to do was to try to exercise through the pain in my neck and shoulder, but the thoughts of being out of action for weeks while the injury healed was so frustrating. In the end after just two physio sessions with Caroline and I was given the all clear to go back training. I don’t know how she did that because when it happened I was convinced I’d done myself a nasty injury. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was or how thankful I am to Caroline for working her magic on me.
Because of the injury I missed out on quite a bit of training, nearly a week all told. At this point in the programme that is not a positive. However, beggars can’t be choosers and this time last week I thought my race had been run. I’ve been doing mostly leg work since I’ve gone back in a bid to give the neck as much of a chance to get back to full strength as I can. I’m clocking up the miles on the road and really enjoying them, despite the rain. It makes me feel like I’m a real runner when I’m running through the pouring rain soaked to the skin, but loving every second of it. Those endorphins are very addictive.
I mentioned last week that I am also doing interval running. I’m told this is one of the best ways to get fit fast. The principle is quite simple; run a certain distance at a normal pace, then the same distance flat out, then the same distance again at a normal pace, then flat out again. Apparently this shocks the body into working harder by keeping it confused as to what is going to happen next. The logic goes that back in the cave days you were unlikely to get chased by a sabre-toothed tiger five times in a row. Either you got away or your DNA was wiped from the evolutionary chain as the tiger lunched on your remains. So when you continually force your body to sprint then slow down then sprint, it doesn’t know what the hell is happening and burns calories and builds muscle by the new time. Result.
The other big change has been my diet. I’ve always eaten relatively healthily but now rather than eating three meals a day with nothing in between, I’m grazing my way across the day. So I still have the three meals, but I’ll also have a snack of nuts or a banana, or some peanut butter on brown bread with a bit of jam. The little sugar rush from the jam can be lovely after a tough session. The experts tell me that eating this way let’s your body know that food is in plentiful supply, so it will only use what it needs at that point in time and expel the rest as waste as opposed to storing it as fat. Nice one.
What I’m learning from my training for the Waterford Adventure Race is that while we have evolved as a species in so many ways, it’s well worth our while to defer to our cave dwelling ancestors if we want to know how to exercise properly and eat well. You’ve never seen an obese caveman, now have you?
(Ian Noctor presents Noctor ‘til 6 on WLR fm weekdays from 4pm)
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