NO MEAN FEET

Before the pedants start, the spelling the title is intentional. The topic of this post is about possibly the most important bit of kit that you will use for the Parish Walk - your own feet. 

It is so important to keep your feet happy and look after them so as to avoid repeating those horrid photos that pop up on the internet of blisters, toenails and missing skin each year.

I will start with a quick training update.

It has been a really hard couple of weeks for me. There have been some work and home commitments that have meant that I have had to turn my training schedule on its head. 

Rather than evening training, I have had to replace some sessions with very early morning walks - leaving the house at around 3.45am and being home by 5.30am. 

The key for me is to try and not impact on family life too much and by going our super early it means that they really wouldn’t know that I have trained that day.

We are now only a week away from our family skiing holiday and I cannot wait. Although skiing is not a break as such it is different and it is a chance to get away, relax and recharge ready for the work up to the Firefighters’ Memorial Walk in April.

Everything is going well and I am making sure that I train in all weathers. This morning was horrific with the wind and rain but I feel good that I made myself get up and get out!

I have said it before but you cannot guarantee the weather in June and you really do not want to be starting in conditions that you are not used to. Today was a great opportunity to see how my feet cope again in really wet weather and that my socks and trainers are up to the job.

The good news is that everything is going to plan.

The other thing that I am doing, which I am not sure whether I have touched on previously, is stretching. I am making sure that I do my 15 minute stretch routine every night without fail. I find that this makes a massive difference to my recovery and allows me to keep going. Of course, I still get stiff and sore sometimes but there is no doubt that it would be so much worse without the stretching.

I would urge everyone to take the stretching seriously.

OK. The feet!

I have covered some of this at a very high level in other posts but I am including a bit more detail here.

I started with lots of ideas about my feet and how to care for them back in 2013/14. I read various theories and lots of people talked to me about different ideas.

Some people swore by filling their socks with vaseline (yuck) whilst others used women’s pop socks under their walking socks.

I read somewhere that some people had found success with hardening the skin on their feet and had done this by going to the beach each day and dipping their feet into the salty sea water.

I did not have time to do that each day but some internet research showed up that others had used surgical spirit with the same effect. So I decided to go down that route. Every night for 6 months I would wipe surgical spirit across my feet, toes and ankles with cotton wool balls. Madeleine loved this routine (or maybe not) with the bedroom smelling like an operating theatre every night.

I have to say that it did work. The skin hardened in the places where I had previously blistered and that has remained the case to this day. My hobbit feet are something that I am quite proud of.

This did not stop the blisters entirely but it did help a lot.

A friend mentioned that they were taping their feet with zinc oxide tapes for the long walking events and they showed me pictures of how they did it.

I decided to follow suit and copy them. To be honest I have never looked back and I have found that it works so well. So much so that I really have not had a blister from the Parish or the 100 Mile in the last few years.

I soak the tape off in a bath after each walk and there is barely a mark on my feet.

Here are some pictures of how I tape my feet. Apologies for the state of the battle hardened trotters!

I start with taping the balls of my feet...

Then the ankle...

And then the tape is anchored on each side of the foot...

This is what has worked for me but it does feel a bit weird the first time that you try it. You will be convinced that the tape is coming off or moving but it doesn't.  Instead it flexes and creases with your movement.

Now the race routine starts the night before with this ritual:

1. Have a nice long hot shower and try to relax and cope with the inevitable nerves
2. Feet get taped just before bedtime the night before
3. Wear a pair of normal socks for bed to protect the tape - not race socks
4. Try to sleep as best you can
5. After breakfast on the day of the walk put on the race socks - Hilly twin skin for me as nothing else has worked too well. If they feel a bit creased or that they have not gone on correctly then take them off and try again. Do not think that it will do and that it will probably be fine - it probably won’t!
6. Race trainers on. Again, if they feel like they haven’t gone on correctly then sort it out. I mess with my laces probably a dozen times after that to loosen and tighten them when they feel a bit odd. It is probably paranoia but I want it to be comfortable when my feet start to swell up.
7. Do not touch the feet, socks  and trainers again until I am finished walking. I do not change shoes or socks. if I do get a blister then I suck it up and keep going. I have found that moving things around causes a whole world of problems. I used to try and use Compeeds as I went but all that happened was that other blisters formed around the edge of the plaster and then the plaster got buried in my foot and I could never get it off.

I am of the opinion that if you can get to Jurby with your feet in relatively good shape and with no real blisters then it becomes a mental challenge to finish. Physically you are in good shape and so you then just have to get your mind straight - even if blisters start after that you can walk the last part dealing with them.

I hope that people can take something out of my ideas. The only thing that I can say is, as with everything, to test it for yourself on a long training walk and then the Firefighters’ Memorial Walk. Do not go into the Parish Walk with brand new ideas and trying things for the first time.

My plan, as always, is to start the Firefighters’ in a pair of relatively new trainers that have done about 20 or so miles in training. If all goes to plan and they work well then they will be taken and put back in the box with the socks that I have used never to see the light of day until the start of the Parish. By that point they will have done around 60 miles and so will still be quite new and have lots of life left in them. Personally, I do not rely on the good old faithful trainers for the long events as I want my feet to be as cushioned and comfortable as possible.

I will probably post my next entry when we are back from holiday and I am recharged (hopefully not fat on cheese and meat and wine with the Alpine diet).

Keep going, keep focused and happy walking.

WALK, FAT BOY, WALK (Part 2)

I hope that everyone's training is taking shape and settling into a good pattern. 

Putting put the base work into this year's walk now can only help later.

I have been getting out as much as possible, no matter the weather. This morning was absolutely lovely walking across Douglas promenade on a beautifully clear morning as the sun came up. The drawback (there is always one) - ice, frost, bitter cold. I found that I was tiptoeing around for most of the walk as I was petrified of slipping on the ice. Douglas promenade was sheet ice in places!

My mindset has suddenly switched back into full on training mode and I am finding my food routine has settled as a result after Christmas.

This does come with its own problems for me. I am focussed on “the plan” and therefore any deviations really stress me out. I am finding that I am struggling to allow myself to have those odd treats and days off, even though I know that they are needed for my sanity. Again, this is a daily battle but I am mindful of the issue this year and I am getting better at relaxing (I think).

The key for me at the moment is to try and concentrate on my posture. I found in last year’s Parish that I naturally swing my left arm across my body. This meant that I had issues in my shoulder from about 10 miles in and it was not comfortable for the next 75 miles. However, you don’t walk on your arm and shoulder so it was a case of - shut up and get on with it!

So this year I am trying to sort this by relaxing and trying to concentrate on swinging my arms more evenly during training.

This week I also managed to get a horrid blister across the end of one toe from a treadmill session in a hotel in London. I followed my usual pattern with a blister and left it alone. It has now burst of its own accord and healed within a few days so it’s all good again.

Now I will probably keep banging on and on about this, but the entries for the Firefighter's Memorial Walk opened this week. GET YOUR ENTRIES IN!

The walk takes place on Sunday 19 April this year and basically follows the Parish route from Peel to Ramsey. It is 50km (about 31.5 miles) and is a perfect long training walk for the Parish.

1. It lets you become familiar with the route

2. It is a great long training walk - you will not walk this far otherwise I would not think

3. The timing is perfect to put effort in and then have plenty of time to recover for the Parish in June 

4. This is the chance to test trainers, socks, clothes and (most importantly) food in a really decent long walk.

Also, it is a really friendly and sociable event. It is a highlight of my year!

The link to the website is

https://www.firefightersmemorialwalk.com/

Following on from my last post, I thought that I would go into more detail about my nutrition and food - during training, into carb loading and then during the actual big events.

So, what does a typical day of food look like for me during the normal training phase? This the pattern that I basically follow from now until May, unless I am travelling or on holiday.

As I explained in my last post, Angela Clucas of Next Level Nutrition provides me with invaluable nutrition advice. As time goes on I realise how vitally important the food side of things is.

I am currently on around 2,200 calories of intake per day - made up of 200g of protein, 196g of carbs and 70g of fat. 

I have learned that the protein level is the most important element of this mix. This builds lean muscle, repairs the damage from training and fuels you on an on-going basis. The carbs help with fuel but they are not my focus.

The protein amount is a target - I have to hit this each day. The carbs and fats are limits and I try not to stray over these levels unless it is a heavy training day.

By monitoring everything carefully I have found that I end up eating much more than I would have expected whilst being on a “diet” and I really enjoy my food as I think more about what I am going to eat. Whereas previously it was a case of throwing something together with whatever was in the fridge.

At the moment, a usual day of food would be as follows:

Breakfast

• 80g porridge oats - that is a double portion according to the side of the packet!
• 250ml semi-skimmed milk and about 125ml water to cook the porridge
• Then add 120g Fage 0% Greek yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 20g protein powder (MyProtein Cinnamon Danish or German Gingerbread are the current favourites)
• 60g blueberries

That is a massive bowl of food that really sets you up for the day! I find that this keeps me full all through the morning and I that I sometimes have to remind myself to have a snack.

Morning snack

• Lean protein - usually a 120g roast chicken breast

Lunch

• Tortilla wrap
• 120g flavoured chicken from M&S or Tesco
• Salad leaves
• Chopped sweet pepper
• Spring onions

Afternoon snack

- Protein bar - Fulfil or Barebells are the best that I have found, being more like a chocolate bar rather than a polystyrene block - I buy them online from www.proteinpickandmix.co.uk as you can mix and match the flavours rather than buying a whole box of a single flavour

Dinner

• Lean protein focussed but tasty - so chicken curry, sausage casserole, harissa salmon and chicken or prawn stir fry are the current favourites (obviously not all together)
• Piles of green veggies

Supper

• 400g Fage 0% Greek yoghurt
• 65g frozen berries - defrosted in the fridge during the day
• Walden Farms zero calorie blueberry or strawberry syrup

That lot will always come in at or below 2,200 cals. So you can see, there is no starving on this regime and it is a lot of food.

This is what I stick to throughout the year until I get into the days before a big walk - then it is time for carb loading. The fun few days!

I was sceptical about carb loading but with guidance from Angela and my own research I have found that it definitely works.

It is not just a case of eating as much pasta as possible the day before the walk and it does involve quite a bit of planning to try and get the best mix of high carb but low volume foods. 

The last thing you need it to feel too full on the start line and, even worse, you don’t want to be constantly stopping at the delightful port-a-loos at the side of the road!

All of the articles that I have seen note that you should take in around 8-10g or carbs per kg of body weight in the few days leading into an event. So if I am sitting at 85kg of body weight then I want to be getting 680g to 850g of carbs - that is a huge amount, believe me!

My intake in the three days before the 2019 Parish Walk was

• Wednesday - 2,965 cals, 171g protein, 334g carbs, 101g fat
• Thursday - 3,634 cals, 187g protein, 285g carbs, 100g fat
• Friday - 5,374 cals, 223g protein, 711g carbs, 178g fat

The day before the Parish and the 100 mile last year involved eating

• Breakfast - porridge, honey, yoghurt, banana and dried apricots 
• Lunch - double portion of microwave white rice, chicken, sweet chilli sauce
• Dinner - big bowl of pasta and a chicken and chorizo sauce that we have made up over years 
• Supper - more porridge, yoghurt, honey and raisins
• Snacks through the day - blueberry muffin, flapjack, carb drink, chocolate bar, slice of cake

It is crazy and the only time that you can get away with such a “bad” day.

Then on Saturday I had my usual massive bowl of porridge, a pile of toast with jam, marmalade or peanut butter and a massive glass of orange juice.

You cannot get to that start line feeling tired or hungry!

The last bit is food during the walk itself. I have practiced and tried lots of things and I have settled on the following main list.

• Small sandwiches - jam, marmalade, ham
• Crisps - various flavours that are salty
• Chocolate covered pretzels - great mix of sweet and salt
• Small flapjack squares
• Small boiled potatoes - covered with loads of salt
• Watermelon - I hate watermelon but during walks it is the nicest food in the world!
• Muller rice - this is saved for later in the walk (post 45 miles usually) when I do not want to chew food and just need the carbs
• Ice lollies - the best thing on a hot afternoon

The key is that I avoid anything too fatty and energy gels, bars and drinks whilst I am walking. I rely on “proper” food as my body seems to react better to these foods. 

I do not eat sweets or chocolate either as I find that I get a massive sugar high followed by a crash.

Then when it comes to drinks

• Flat coke - masses of sugar and helps keep the stomach settled
• Shots of dioralyte - this coupled with salt sticks fight the cramp and replace the electrolytes lost through sweating
• Loads of water

I eat and drink little and often. Everything is in very small pieces - just a mouthful size. So this basically means eating every 2 miles or so from about 10 miles into the walk. I just want to keep topping up the tanks, although you will never eat as much as you burn across the full course. Last year my watch noted that I had burned 12,000 calories during the 17 hours of walking!

So that is my food regime. Nothing too fancy but just researched and thought out, with a lot of help from Angela.

Having spoken to a few other people now, they were also sceptical on the carb loading theories but they, like me, have tried it and they find it works just as well as I do.

The next few weeks will involve plenty of training for me before we head off on a family ski trip and a week of welcome rest. When we get back the time will slip away quickly and before we know it the Firefighters Memorial Walk will be here.

Hopefully I will be able to post again before the ski trip and that will be some explanation about how I deal with my feet and the taping process that I use. This has seen me get away with no real blisters for the last few years.

As usual, if there are any other bits and pieces that anyone would like me to cover then please let me know.

Happy walking everyone!

WALK, FAT BOY, WALK (Part 1)

Well that’s that! Christmas and New Year are done. Let’s get on with 2020 and working towards the Parish Walk - after all, it is only 24 weeks on Saturday until the big day!

To celebrate the new year and new decade, I have broken out two new pairs of trainers. Wow! I did not realise how worn out the old pairs were. It is like walking on lovely squishy pillows now.

Personally, I am looking forward to getting back into the regular training routine and knowing what day of the week it is.

I have tried to combat the additional calories and the excesses of Christmas by doing some extra training. With that comes additional tiredness and aches and pains. I will just be glad to get back on a predictable pattern.

Hopefully the weather will improve as well. It has been dreadful some days over the holidays. However, you just have to drag your ass out of bed and out of the door. No staying in bed as the easy option. The hardest bit is pulling on the kit and taking the first step out of the front door. I find that once I start and especially once I have finished a training session I feel relaxed, happy and like a million dollars generally.

I find my training is amazingly good for my mental health as well as my physical health. It is a chance to think and put everything in order as there is nothing else to do - apart from putting one foot in front of another.

My training does not really increase from now until late May. I may do a few extra miles here and there but a week generally consists of 2 or 3 mid week walks of around 6 miles and then a long Sunday walk of between 15 and 22 miles.

It is just a case of keeping plodding on, as it were.

I thought that I would use this entry to focus a bit on my nutrition and the position that I came from up until now.

I will be absolutely honest. I have food issues. I am an all or nothing person. I cannot simply have one biscuit or piece of chocolate. It is the whole packet or the whole bar. My capacity to eat without feeling sick absolutely amazes me. So I find it easier to just avoid the junk food completely. I would love to be able to have a few bits here and there but I am not at the point yet. Madeleine is trying to help with rationing some post heavy training treats but we will have to see where that goes.

I also have an obsessive personality in other areas. When I focus on something or get into something it absorbs me completely and I can take it to the extreme end of the scale. That can be great sometimes but also can have problems associated with it too.

It has been a good thing when it has come to changing my lifestyle and losing weight.

When I first finished the Parish Walk in 2014 I would estimate that i weighed in at about 105kg or maybe a little more - around 16.5 stone. Proof that sheer stubbornness can get you round the course rather than being a skinny whippet.

Madeleine was heavily pregnant when she was supporting me that year and did an unbelievable job.

The plan was that I would do the walk again the following year when Elliott had been born as it would be a lot easier for us. We would just ship Elliott off to grandparents and I could walk with Madeleine’s support. Well that never happened!

We soon found that parenting gets in the way of training, eating, sleeping and every other aspect of life.

Instead of trying to finish in 2015 and 2016, I just wandered to Peel and actually quite enjoyed it.

I took a break for 2017 and realised how much I enjoyed and missed being part of the event.

During that time from the 2014 finish to July 2017 I had been spending “quality time” with my newly increased family.

I thought that spending every evening at home constituted quality family time. We had a good diet, or so I thought. We ate very little processed food and would always try to cook from base ingredients.

The problem was that our portion sizes were far far far too big. I was probably having 2 or even 3 times the amount of food that I needed. Also, carbs featured heavily in most days - rice, pasta or potatoes. So heavy on carbs and heavy on volume was a bad combination.

Well something wasn’t right with that idea as by July 2017 I had hit 124kg! I had ballooned - although being a big guy, everyone said that they had not noticed.

I made the decision that I wanted to prove that my 2014 Parish Walk finish was not a fluke and that I wanted to try and finish again. 

That is when Angela Clucas at Next Level Nutrition was recommended to me. I needed help to try and combat the sickness that I suffered with on long walks and a sports nutritionist seemed to be the obvious place to go.

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, Angela was great and managed to get the subject of our first meeting around to losing weight but made it seem like it was my idea. I agreed that I would sign up with her and follow her guidance. I have been working with her ever since and I can honestly say that most of the gains are due to the nutrition work.

So how did it and does it work?

Angela has completely re-educated me and my understanding of food and what my body needs.

Angela sets my macro levels (calories, protein, carbs, fat) week to week based on the past week’s results, training levels and phase of training that I am going through. She never dictates what I eat and I am not following a meal plan. I have my macro targets and how I achieve this is up to me. This is great for flexibility and being able to eat the foods that I like. If I fancy eating the same thing for seven nights running then I can do that.

The mantra is consistency of habits. This is something that Angela instills in me and within her wider client group. If you make consistent poor choices then obviously the results will be poor. However, making consistent considered choices will bring great results.

I try to stay to my targets every day but life gets in the way sometimes and it is not always possible, especially in the last six months when I have been travelling with work a lot. The over arching aim is to stick to the targets for 5 days out of 7 but most of the time I would say that I manage 6 days out of 7. I can still have a pub session if I like but I know that I cannot do that every night, unlike the previous version of me.

I log all of my food into the My Fitness Pal app and I weigh everything. Some people say that this is too anal and too picky but I have recognised that I simply cannot judge weight and volume by eye. The kitchen scales are most used bit of kit in our house now I think.

Every Sunday night/Monday morning I check in to Angela’s online system. This pulls through the macro information from My Fitness Pal. I then add my weight, body measurements (chest, bicep, waist, hips, etc), some progress photos and then I answer a bunch of questions about how things are going and how I feel. None of this is specific to me and all of Angela’s on-going clients follow the same process and answer the same questions, no matter what their goals may be.

Angela then gives feedback and advice during the course of Monday and provides the macro levels for the coming week.

The process works perfectly for me as it keeps me on the right track. I have to justify my choices to someone and explain what happened if I fall off the wagon. If I was left to my own devices then I know it would be a case of - it doesn’t matter today, I will get back to it tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow would never come!

So over the course of the 2 years from July 2017 to June 2019, following this system, I lost about 40kg! I started the 2019 Parish Walk at around 12% body fat, down from 32% when I started. 

All of these changes were gradual over the period. I lost around 1kg-2kg per week and sometimes my weight went up depending on the week and what I have been doing. The key was that Angela monitored the loss carefully and made sure that it was not happening too quickly so as to be unsustainable.

I now appreciate that losing weight in a controlled and maintainable way has to be a combination of nutrition and exercise. They work hand in hand.

Every 3 months I also have a body comp session with Angela. This basically involves her drawing all over me with eye liner, measuring me with a tape measure than then nipping my skin (fat) with callipers!

The body comps allow me to see “real” progress rather than our dodgy weekly tape measure measurements at home. It also shows if I am gaining muscle and losing fat. Weight may not change too much but the underlying composition may be significantly different.

Again, some may say that this is over the top but I have found that I keeps me focussed and pushes me to make improvements.

There is also another huge motivator in all of this.

Whenever I need to remind myself why I do this and why I put myself through the tough training and obsessive food monitoring I always refer back to a couple of pictures. This will always reset my mind and remind me of the promise that I made never to go back to where I was in 2017.

June 2017

May 2018

The massive realisation has been that the “quality family time” is not the time at home every night of the week but instead adding an extra 20 years to my life, not having a heart attack at 50 years old and getting to spend that extra time with Elliott and Madeleine.

I put my family through hell sometimes with my moods when food or training is not going right. I just hope that they realise one day that I am only bothered by it so much as I know that it is so important for my health and psychological well-being.

So that is where I have come from and where I am now. Every day is still a battle with myself over food but I know that I have to keep following the plan to stay fit and healthy. This is worth it. I feel fitter, healthier and overall happier than I have ever been.

There are still demons to be fought but I will overcome them and “Fat Paul” will never return. My relationship with food is still not good but I am determined that this will change as time goes by and I understand nutrition and training cycles more.

In the meantime I really want to string together a good run of Parish Walk finishes. The finish times are never too important to me but rather being able to say that I beat the challenge again!

Hopefully my posts are still vaguely interesting to some people but, as always, please feel free to give me feedback. My next post will be a bit more on the detail of my food during training, carb loading and also during the actual walks.

Happy New Year to everyone and get out there training!