I have made the decision not to run the Norwich Half this Sunday due to a series of chesty colds and bugs over the last four weeks.
To go effectively from almost no running over the last four months to rockin up for a half in less than a week would be irresponsible, however I will re-start my running this Saturday.
I have one of those rare opportunities to attend a parkrun this Saturday, so now I just need to decide which one I want to do - I have done Old Catton once and Gorleston a few times, so I am thinking I will do Mudbarton.......sorry I meant Mulbarton.
I could do Eaton Park but I want to save that one for when I am back in full fitness, and ready to take on a colleague's PB.
I have been using the last week or so, to tackle other areas of my health, namely cutting back on snacking, and trying to get better quality sleep.
I now need to pick up the mental well-being part, and come Saturday onwards, the exercise aspect.
Expect the posting to start ratcheting up from Saturday onwards.
Monday, 16 November 2015
Sunday, 1 November 2015
The four well-being pillars are out of balance - time to get them under control
Mental, Physical, Sleep, and Nutrition.
There are those who believe that to operate at your best (whatever you are doing) there are four "pillars" that need to be broadly in harmony.
1) Sleep - Seen as the big one, as a decent amount of sleep will provide the right basis for wanting to do well in the other three areas during the day i.e. poor and/or little sleep might reduce your willpower to not eat sugary junk food, or to not do some exercise, or to read/study.
Seven to eight hours sleep per day is seen as optimum but it also need to be quality deep sleep, and mindfulness, which seems to be the in-thing, would be an area to look at to help you de-clutter and slow your mind down prior to going to bed. Going technology-free about an hour before bed apparently also helps.
For me, I probably have had the right amount of sleep but of a poor quality.
In fact having just looked at my garmin data, when I was training for the 100k run, my average sleep was about 7hrs, and since then it has been 8hrs, so I am sleeping more but feel worse for it.
Fundamentally, the sleep is not deep enough making me more prone to wake, and then need the loo (post-cancer treatment made my bladder weaker than it already was), and more recently our new cat wanting to be fed at 6am and hasn't moved on from British Summer Time.......
2) Mental - The brain needs to be fed as much as the body, but with words not food.
Setting time aside to journal, plan ahead, read, listening to relaxing music prior to going to bed etc.
I was very good at this but I have struggled to get back into the swing of things - I take a lot of books out of the library but I rarely read more than two of them.
I also felt like my mindset at work has been quite negative but somehow still getting the work done.
3) Physical - Whilst I was training, I was doing an average of 400k steps a month, now it is just 200k.
Or to put it another way, my average per day now is 6.6k compared to 13k previously.
The amount of running at the moment has dropped to less than one run per week - not necessarily a problem if you are being physically active without running but mine has been little running (not due to injury) and no alternative activities.
4) Nutrition - Eat well and you feel well, you then have the energy to do what needs to be done.
This one out of the four has been terrible for me recently - eating for the sake of it, to excess, lots of crisps, sweets, less fruit and veg and so on.
Ok, a lot of doom and gloom negativity but this is about me being honest with myself and accepting that I need to draw a line on this, and day by day get those pillars back into balance.
Interestingly despite my lack of blogging recently, I have been thinking about creating a second blog, yet to be named, that would focus on healthy eating and home-cooking.
There are those who believe that to operate at your best (whatever you are doing) there are four "pillars" that need to be broadly in harmony.
1) Sleep - Seen as the big one, as a decent amount of sleep will provide the right basis for wanting to do well in the other three areas during the day i.e. poor and/or little sleep might reduce your willpower to not eat sugary junk food, or to not do some exercise, or to read/study.
Seven to eight hours sleep per day is seen as optimum but it also need to be quality deep sleep, and mindfulness, which seems to be the in-thing, would be an area to look at to help you de-clutter and slow your mind down prior to going to bed. Going technology-free about an hour before bed apparently also helps.
For me, I probably have had the right amount of sleep but of a poor quality.
In fact having just looked at my garmin data, when I was training for the 100k run, my average sleep was about 7hrs, and since then it has been 8hrs, so I am sleeping more but feel worse for it.
Fundamentally, the sleep is not deep enough making me more prone to wake, and then need the loo (post-cancer treatment made my bladder weaker than it already was), and more recently our new cat wanting to be fed at 6am and hasn't moved on from British Summer Time.......
2) Mental - The brain needs to be fed as much as the body, but with words not food.
Setting time aside to journal, plan ahead, read, listening to relaxing music prior to going to bed etc.
I was very good at this but I have struggled to get back into the swing of things - I take a lot of books out of the library but I rarely read more than two of them.
I also felt like my mindset at work has been quite negative but somehow still getting the work done.
3) Physical - Whilst I was training, I was doing an average of 400k steps a month, now it is just 200k.
Or to put it another way, my average per day now is 6.6k compared to 13k previously.
The amount of running at the moment has dropped to less than one run per week - not necessarily a problem if you are being physically active without running but mine has been little running (not due to injury) and no alternative activities.
4) Nutrition - Eat well and you feel well, you then have the energy to do what needs to be done.
This one out of the four has been terrible for me recently - eating for the sake of it, to excess, lots of crisps, sweets, less fruit and veg and so on.
Ok, a lot of doom and gloom negativity but this is about me being honest with myself and accepting that I need to draw a line on this, and day by day get those pillars back into balance.
Interestingly despite my lack of blogging recently, I have been thinking about creating a second blog, yet to be named, that would focus on healthy eating and home-cooking.
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