Big Autumn Exercise Plans, Post-Marathon

Anything but running for a bit… Photo by Heather Longbottom

I have a confession – I’m happily married to marathon training but we’ve been together a long time now and  I have a bit of a roving eye. It’s the Yorkshire Marathon soon (my first ever!) and after months of running day after day, I fantasise about cheating with Zumba… I go into reveries about swimming’s smooth moves. The idea of getting hot and sweaty with Bikram distracts me. With 6 runs a week on my training programme, there’s just no time to commit to anything else at the moment. Cross-training is important, of course. I run to one Yoga class a week, which has helped me remain injury-free, but I can’t wait for the day I can rock out at a kickboxing class or half-drown at aquarobics.

I’ve been following the Bupa Marathon training programme to the letter and it’s all about running. Running, running, running – and then some more running. It’s great for my fitness and I am race-ready (I think!) but I sort of feel like someone on the Atkins diet must feel about baguettes.

So, here is my ‘to-do’ list for the coming months to fill the vacuum left by marathon training.

Spinning
On paper, spinning should be awful – getting horrendously sweaty  on a faintly unhygienic public bike, while being shouted at by a stranger to try harder. But there’s something about it that’s addictive, despite all that. Leaving classes, your flushed face grins from ear to ear. It’s one of the only exercise classes that has a roughly equal gender mix, and often has totally boss music. My favourite ever spinning class track – Tricky by Run DMC.  Try not to move your feet to that. I’m going to try out some classes first to make sure they’re not just playing terrible Euro-pop.

Yoga Workshops
Yoga compliments other exercise, strengthening your ligaments and giving you some space to reflect on “body-sensing” – working out little niggles that might otherwise have been unnoticed. Now that my weekends aren’t taken up with 20 mile runs and recovery, I am going to sign up for a few full-day yoga workshops. These usually have a really hippy-dippy theme like “Consolidating Loving Kindness” or “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction” – which, having grown up on the West Coast of Canada, is right up my alley! There has been twitter talk of a run bloggers’ Yoga Retreat over the winter, which would be incredibly exciting, too. Om, eat, run, {gin?}, Om, run. How good does that sound?

Ballet Pilates
Like many women, my last experience of ballet included the words “Good Toes, Naughty Toes”. This does not stop me imagining myself as an undiscovered Margot Fontaine. I’ve heard great things about Ballet Barre classes, and I like incorporating pilates in here too for extra core conditioning.
I think they’ve missed a trick not making a word salad of this, though. Ballates. Pillé.

Triathalon (Eeep?)
Inspired by the lovely Sophie at Be Pretty Fit,  I’ve feeling tempted by tris for the first time. I like the idea of working more of my body, of seeing some scenery on my bike and the excitement of the event itself. Non Stanford doesn’t need to quake in her boots though – I can’t swim more than 20 metres of front crawl, and I don’t own any bike, never mind a fancy racing bike. Any cycle companies who want to sponsor a total triathlon numpty, you know where I am. Even a super-sprint is probably quite long on an imaginary bicycle.

How are you going to change up your training over the winter? Are you going to try something new?