The FastDay Forum

Hello from the sunny North West UK!
I do a 5k three times a week, mostly round parks or on a running track, love to do the 5 and 10k fun runs, plodding along at the back to add to my collection of medals and t shirts!

I started unable to run for more than 20 seconds and used the 'Couch to 5k' programme.

I would reccomend it to almost anyone!

Hello a101325, C25K high-five!

I run in parks as well, but it seems you have to be a member to run on the running track at the stadium here. Pay for running? No way.

I have a few treasured t-shirts from fun runs, but got out of the habit for a while. Now the number of fun run t-shirts I bought at goodwill outnumber the ones I've earned. I hope no one thinks I'm a faker, when they see me out jogging but don't remember seeing me at the race the t-shirt is for.

Thanks Maryann. Good luck with your first half marathon. The atmosphere is amazing.

Have run twice this week. On Tuesday was a test run to see how my hip felt. Not too bad but still a bit achey. Then up bright and early this morning at 5.30. Hip felt great so had a cuppa and went out. One mile on Tuesday. Mile and a half this morning. Woohoo. It was lovely running along the cliff top looking out at the sea. Will see how hip holds out. My thinking was that if it starts hurting all the time again at least when I go see a sports therapist I will know exactly where the pain is.

Creakeypete, you mentioned your hips. Was it running that caused the problems? I've only been running two years and built up from the nhs c25k program to 10k then half marathon, so hadn't thought I had done too much too soon. Always aware of only increasing time or distance by 10% a week. My doctor has only given me arthritis anti inflammatory cream and said it could have been caused just by running on a different surface. Not much else Dr will do so if I want to run I may have to visit physio if it persists. 9 weeks til my half marathon and can run for a mile and a half now

Hips - not sure why they are wearing out, except I am pretty old (62) and did do a lot of running/hillwalking in my thirties & forties. My old running partner who is only 60 has already had one hip replacement, he was always faster and trained more than me so I suppose that is fair enough.
I had a long period with only occasional runs in my fifties and noticed no problems other than unfitness, when I started seriously again 4-5 years ago I did not notice hip problems immediately but was always stiff/creaky after a long run and for the next couple of days.
Physio says to stop running and get a bike - done, and biking does save a lot of pain whilst still providing spells of hard work on the hills. Running has been saved for 6×400 meters intervals on Wednesday evenings and 5k parkrun on Saturdays. Not sure if the rate of decay in hips is increasing or not... I use Ibuprofen to get rid of any inflammation on Fridays before racing the next day but there is some thought that this spoils bone quality eventually if replacement becomes necessary.
Wonder how much of osteoarthritis can be laid at the feet of a vegetarian diet high in grains and carbs for years - too late to reverse the process but not eating grains except rice does seem to help a bit...

Thanks creakypete for your reply. Also vegetarian but that has been for two years in August. hip just aches. Ibuprofen does the trick for a little while and I did find that my hip used to ache for a couple of days after my long run training for my first half in March. Am 44 so only a few years younger than you but definitely not as fast as you. Fastest mile was just under 10mins and half marathon took me 2hrs 34. Don't want to do anything longer than that but would like to be able to run 2 x 3mile runs with a longer weekend run of between 6-10miles again. have got a book on order called chi running by Danny dreyer so maybe I'll have to change my style. Oh, to be a runner! Xx

parkrun 101 today, perfect conditions, feeling OK - surely not another decent run? Amazingly, yes! Another 10 seconds quicker than last week, 22:44, my best time since August 2011 and my second best age-graded performance so far. Chuffed to bits but wife & big son both had disasters (too hot, leg pains etc) so unable to do too much celebrating...
Secret of success? Being 135lbs, target weight now, and not fasting for the last month because I could not halt the gentle weight loss that resulted - in fact, Thursdays & Fridays have become carbo loading days to ensure decent glycogen stores for the race.
Hope to hear from a few more of you this week - where are all the old runners?

Wow, you're fast! Congratulations on your good run, too bad your wife and son had bad luck.

That's fantastic Pete, I bet you're feeling like the million dollar man!

Haven't run in 2 weeks (been walking all round Disneyland Paris, though) - 29.20 today. Was OK, I've lost my iPod shuffle somewhere on my travels, so was improvising with my phone.

Been trying to run four times a week, but most of the time only do it once!

But dragged myself out of bed into this lovely fresh but sunny morning in Melbourne to do my second run of the week. Was hard going at first, but when I hit my target of four miles I actually continued for another mile out of sheer masochistic pleasure!

Next week, four runs without a doubt!... *whispers* I hope!

Not sure if this has been addressed, but do you find your weight loss plateaus or even goes up because of muscle and water retention?

Fantastic time creakypete. Been out this morning. 1.75miles. Hip been iced up and booked in with sports therapist Tuesday. hot morning today. Gonna be another scorcher here in south east kent. X

Vix89: I'm desperately trying to get my weight to plateau - I hit my acceptable minimum a month ago but it still keeps creeping down, even without fasting or 16:8 at the moment. I have been eating according to appetite and have to force myself sometimes to have extra snacks - I suppose this is a good thing and I have been very lucky, I just want to make sure I am not digesting too many of my old muscles in the process! Pushups are certainly hard, although pull ups are still OK...

Good morning Runners, I've just been catching up on all your news

I've been doing Uni Open Day visits with my son and have had to miss a few parkruns, but have joined a running group, and am going out with them this morning (its a shame how few running groups run in the morning). Last week she had us doing Hill Training "pyramids" (I won't explain cos either you know what they are or you don't want to know what they are). We were in Loughborough on saturday so I went for an early run round the campus, which is hillier than it looks on the map, and ran a slowish 4km, partly slowed up by having to stop and look at the "you are here" maps.

Hi SianS, good to see you haven't deserted us (like most of the others!) and good luck with your running group training. Loughborough is about 20 minutes North of me and the scene of my fastest half-marathon, in the late eighties!
The Uni has a great reputation for engineering and sport - which is your son's field?

Is there a plaque at Loughborough to commemrorate your achievement? If so I missed it.
My son wants to study Engineering, and we liked both the campus and the course presentations at Loughborough.
I ran 5.1 miles with my group this morning, its amazing how much difference it makes having others to keep you going

My son checked out Loughborough and Warwick for engineering, chose Warwick but did not enjoy the studying much. Still not got a proper job but enjoys rebuilding cinema organs, Omega watches and recently a Lister diesel engine so I suppose some engineering rubbed off on him...

No, there is no plaque - yet! Braunstone parkrun news page features me this week because it was my 100th run on 29th June - better than a plaque...