Fast Fuel by Renee McGregor

Author:Renee McGregor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fast Fuel Food for Running Success: Recipes and Nutrition Plans to Help You Achieve Your Goals
ISBN: 9781848993099
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2016-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR RUNNING MOJO?

We know that good nutrition and regular exercise are essential components of a healthy lifestyle. However, what about when we lose sight of why we started running in the first place? Perhaps it was to drop a few kilos or improve cardiovascular health, or maybe it was a bet that you definitely were not going to lose face over? Regardless of why you started, the fact that you have continued means that you gained something from it: a sense of achievement, a better body composition, or maybe more energy. However, perhaps turning up for the weekly ParkRun or taking your place at a half marathon a few times a year just doesn’t feel like enough of a challenge. So you set your sights on something new – getting faster, running further, running in more extreme places. But what does this mean for your body?

In recent years I have had many an athlete, both recreational and elite, walk into my clinic and tell me that they’ve just lost their ‘running mojo’. They keep going out for runs but the motivation to train is poor, energy levels are low and if they try to attack a speed session, the engine, the power that was always present, has just disappeared. They come looking for a magic potion, but what they get instead is a prescription for rest and recovery, and ideas on how to boost their immune system.

We seem to be living in a society where no matter what you succeed in, it is never good enough; there is always more you can achieve. We seem to be losing sight of what is actually humanly possible. With the increase in popularity of ultra-marathons and the rise in the number of running events you can take part in all over the world, over a range of distances, we are spoilt for choice. However, this also means we seem to have lost the ability to pace ourselves. I’m lucky enough that I get to work with elite athletes and, in most cases, they choose one or two races a year – these are the ones they focus on. Anything else will be seen as training. Now let’s compare this with the recreational athlete. No longer is training for one marathon a year enough; some individuals are doing them back to back. It never fails to surprise me, when working with someone new, what they have previously completed and what they plan to do next. A typical example is:

>>> End of Feb – 40-mile trail race

>>> weeks later – marathon

>>> weeks later – 100-mile trail race

>>> 2 weeks later – 50-mile coastal race

What surprises me the most, though, is the lack of recovery after each race. It’s bad enough that the races are so close together, but many competitors take only one day off before returning to normal training. The elite athletes I work with generally take a minimum of between one and two weeks off post-race and then build back slowly so as not to over-reach the body.

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