Tuesday 23 February 2010

Me v Food


Now I'm not what you would call fat as such, but like a lot of men I do carry a little excess around the middle. This is one of my main reasons for running. I play a little football, I swim once a week and when the weather is more pleasant you can find me cycling to work. As you can see the exercise side of things is coming on nicely, I run 20 miles a week and can be quite disciplined when it comes to getting out there at 6am in the morning or when the heavens have opened.

So far so good you might say but right now my downfall is....Food!!!

I'm quite interested in the nutrition side of things and I know that the handful of nuts I should be snacking on at work is better than the chocolate bar that I'm actually eating.

To be fair to myself, as a family we eat reasonably well and don't have that many takeaways, but when I make that huge homemade lasagne and Garlic bread, I polish of the most!

What made me write this post today was one of two things, firstly the excitement of having a blog (I won't usually write every day!) and secondly what happened this morning at work...

In got in a little latter than usual and I would normally have a bowl of Porridge or Bran Flakes, but did not have time....and then a little later the horn of the snack van outside played his merry tune. Like Tom the Cat from the Tom and Jerry cartoons, I floated down the stairs on the smell of a Cornish Pasty with my name on it!!! I succumbed and sat with the greasy pie seeping oil through the paper bag. But it was heaven and I was going for a run at lunchtime so I'm Ok, right...No I know I'm wrong.


So that sums me up an average runner and an average eater. Some days I run good, some days I run bad. Sometimes I eat good and sometimes.....

I will try and win the battle and find that lost 6 pack in the months to come but until then....."Darling, do you want that last sausage....".

My Top 3 Running Books

My first post and I thought I'd be a bit different and start with my 3 favourite running books:

Number 1: The Looniness of the Long Distance Runner. Russell Taylor



This was my first book I brought after I got into running seriously. It has to be the best I've read to date, humourous and well written. It's quite a short book but one of those you just can't put down. Everyone will relate to this as you follow the author from first steps on a treadmill all the way to the New York Marathon. Brilliant!!!
Number 2: UltraMarathon Man. Dean Karnazes


This is just an unbelievable story. The man cannot be human and he takes human endurance to the ultimate level, A man who will run a marathon just to get to a marathon, and then do a marathon!!! Phew! There is a ultramarathon race where Dean runs himself almost to blindness. Another book you just can't put down.
Number 3: Born To Run. Christopher McDougall

I must admit this is still a book I am currently reading. I first read about this book in a runnersworld article. The amount of positive reviews it gets on Amazon, I had to purchase and so far so good......To be continued.

So there you have it my first posting on my new blog! I think I will usually put down my thoughts of my runs and how they went, but I decided to start this blog on a rest day. Yesterday was my first long run (7.6 miles) since damaging my thigh....on the Wii. I was on Wii fit for the first time and this is what happens. Anyway this was a couple of weeks ago and i'm slowly getting back to where I want to be.