WFC Runners: WFC Runners - Alice hits 50, Adventure racing, parkrun, pbs and sleep

News

This week we had 14 Fit clubbers parkrunning at 3 different venues (Winchester, Kingston and Exmouth). Glenna was at Kingston with her son and granddaughter for a leisurely run along The Thames!

Rachel, Simon and Will were down at Exmouth parkrun. It was a good day for the Mills clan with Rachel and Will both breaking their PBs. Congratulations!!

The rest were all at Winchester with Matthew Parker being the only PB on the day.

In addition this week saw Alice run her 50th parkrun. This is the first of the parkrun milestones and she can now claim her celebratory red 50-tee. Alice has run 36 of her runs at Winchester, 11 at Salisbury, 2 at Bushy park (the home of parkrun) and one at Wolverhampton. Alice also has an impressive PB of 25:49. Congratulations Alice...next step 100!

Here is the consolidated parkrun club report:

http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=26888&eventdate=2018-09-01

Mike, Anna and Sarah all took part in an adventure race on the South Downs. This was a mountain bike ride followed by a kayak and a hilly run.
The race is completely time based with teams deciding how much time they spend on each of the legs. They all completed the race and Mike and Anna managed to get 2nd in their category. Please see Sarah's write-up below!

This week's Thursday session saw the runners focussing on short sprints. In the park at Oram's Arbour the team smashed out 14 x 30 second sprints (7 uphill, 7 downhill). 20 Fit Clubbers were there with 4 new faces!

Read all about it here: http://wfcrunners.blogspot.com/2018/08/wfc-runners-30th-august-session.html

Questars Adventure Challenge - South Downs - 1st Sept - By Sarah Horton

Today, (Saturday 1st September) I took part in the Questars adventure challenge series. I had been persuaded to take part in one a few months ago by Mike and Anna and loved it. So it was my turn to pile on the peer pressure and I managed to convince my friend Katie to join me.

Feeling excited, we set off and arrived at 9am. We had decided to hire mountain bikes which I would thoroughly recommend - no faffing trying to fix the bikes to the car - just a quick and easy pick up! Once we had sorted out our kit, we collected our race pack and began planning our routes on the map.

The race began with a 40 minute cycle to the river for kayaking. Annoyingly, some of the checkpoints that we had planned to visit turned out to be dummies! We got off to a slowish start, as we struggled initially to find the checkpoints, but soon we were into the swing of things. After a few comedy moments on the kayak, and a near capsize, we then returned to our bikes and headed back to the transition area collecting some more checkpoints along the way.

The final part of the race was the run. Everything was going smoothly until we were stopped by about 50 cows walking down the road in front of us. Consequently we had a bit of a delay! Finally, we were moving again on footpaths and trail routes which suited us well. As we returned back to the finish, we debated (for about a second) whether to push for one more checkpoint up the very steep hill. We decided it was better to make it back in time!

With smiles on our faces, we crossed the finish and rewarded ourselves with plenty of food! Our team name was: No pain, no champagne. And we certainly deserved the champagne by the end!

Sleep in relation to exercise

With Bertie and Elsie my sleep has been a little all over the place in the past few weeks. I have found that in training runs I am feeling very leggy and it hard work! I therefore have been looking at why sleep is important. I found the following article on "The Running Bug" which I thought laid it all out fairly well! Enjoy!

Why is sleep so important?

On average people sleep for 6.5 - 7 hours a night. But for most people, around 8 hours is the right amount. Progressively we’ve been getting less sleep as a society. The burden is only just starting to be realised.

All mammals sleep to some degree and it is ubiquitous across all species. In the past, sleep was considered to be for wimps, but it is an essential part of our physiology. We don’t fully understand what sleep is but we know that it is essential for health and wellbeing.

From a medical perspective sleep has an enormous knock-on effect on one’s life and wellbeing. Sleep deprivation can lead to diabetes and heart trouble, problems at work and poor performance. It can also cause depression and social problems. Road traffic accidents are often linked to tiredness.

How important is exercise with regards to sleep?

We recommend exercise as it improves the quality and onset of sleep. However, the timing is important. If you do vigorous exercise late in the day, then it can disrupt your cycle. The cues that tell you when to sleep are your body temperature, as your cortisol levels will be high, so you have to be mindful of exercising just before bedtime.

How important is sleep for recovery?

For recovery – there hasn’t been a huge amount of research and it is quite a topical research area now for elite athletes and how it affects performance. Based on a US study, if you take a number of moderately good athletes, it affects their performance hugely.

If you extend sleep up to 10 hours, it significantly improves performance. Looking at college basketball players, if you increase their sleep, it increases their accuracy by 10-15 per cent. The same study with swimmers, they increased their times, just by increasing their sleep time.

What is slow wave sleep?

Slow wave sleep is the deepest portion, and it is essential for recovery from exercise. If you take someone who has just run a marathon, they have much more slow wave sleep after the marathon. It is essential for recovery, as the growth hormone is released during this time.

If you don’t sleep properly, you get something similar to overtraining syndrome, including a decrease in performance. If you continue to sleep badly you reach ever decreasing performance, as you are not resting and restoring and getting deep sleep.

What is the correct amount of sleep?

There is no right answer on the correct amount to sleep; it is very individual and specific to each person. The thing to take into consideration is an individual’s chronotype. We all have a circadian cycle which is specific to oneself. Built into your body circadian clock is when you should be going to sleep or waking up.

What are the links between nutrition and sleep?

When you are sleep deprived, it affects your metabolism and so you crave sugary foods and carbohydrates. You then become reliant on sugar and caffeine to get you going in the morning and you get stuck in a cycle of overeating. People are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes if they have poor sleep; it’s a vicious cycle.

Craving sugar is a problem, as is caffeine which is hidden in a number of things such as tea, chocolate and energy drinks. People that struggle sleeping, I tell them not to have caffeine until after midday. The level of caffeine in your blood will halve every five hours. If you are topping that up then it will have an impact on your sleep.

Why do we wake up in the night?

People wake up due to their sleep hygiene. Perhaps they need a wee, their phone goes off, or their partner is snoring. There are certain things you can do to adjust your environment. It is best to go back to your relaxation technique and the state where you can drop off to sleep.

Try doing something quiet for 15 minutes until you are tired and sleepy and ready to fall back off to sleep again. For most people it shouldn’t be a regular issue, but if it is then something needs to be addressed.

What is sleep debt?

There is a concept of accumulating sleep debt that you have to repay at some stage. If you have been working to a deadline, it is a very real phenomenon to get your catch up on the weekend. It is not a helpful way, you will be chronically sleep deprived for 5 days out of 7. It is not good for you in the long term.

Do power naps work?

If you have insomnia, it is the wrong thing to do. But for people that have had a disruptive night sleep, a nap has been shown to improve all sorts of things. Similarly, with athletes if you have a race or event in the evening, having a nap will then get you ready. If you’ve woken from slow wave deep sleep, you can feel groggy and terrible. Short naps are refreshing! Check out our tips to help you power nap your way to running success.

Try these sleep tips:

- Sleep hygiene is important, so make sure you are the right temperature and have the right mattress.

- Make sure you are not exposing yourself to blue light, which comes from smart phones.

- Have half an hour before sleep, and have a warm shower, before a drop in temperature which makes your body release melatonin.

- Read a book, something calm and quiet.

- Get out of bed if you’re not asleep within 15-20 minutes. Only go back to the bedroom when you are ready.

- Use the bedroom only for resting and restorative sleep. These techniques are far better than sleeping tablets.

- Try meditation. Even 10 minutes just concentrating on your breathing can really help. Insomnia is a persistent state with multiple awakens, with the inability to fall back asleep. Addressing that is important for people’s quality of life.

General Announcements

WFC parkrun Club

Winchester Fit Club Runners is set-up as a club with parkrun. If you go into your profile (there is a link to it on the parkrun results email and newsletter email) you can select your club. Change yours to Winchester Fit Club Runners and you will appear in the consolidated club report that we get each week.

WFC Runners WhatsApp Group

There is a WFC Runners WhatsApp chat group where we generally just wang on about running, races and cake. If you are not already part of this then please get in contact with Coach James or Coach Mike who will add you.

WFC Runners Strava Club

If you are a Strava user there is a Winchester Fit Club Runners club page. This can be accessed here: https://www.strava.com/clubs/WFC-Runners. Request to join and we will approve!

Booking onto sessions

Booking onto our training sessions enables the coaches to plan the session accordingly. You can book on in the following location: https://winchesterfitclub.simplybook.it/v2/

Winchester Half Marathon - Volunteers needed!

Some of you may have seen the post by Lynn on the WhatsApp group about the Winchester Half Marathon needing volunteers for this year's race. The race is on Sunday 23rd September and needs over 300 volunteers to be successful.

By volunteering you get free entry into next year's race.

If you are interested please follow this link: http://winchesterhalf.co.uk/get-involved/win-city-marshal/

Race Calendar

Here is an updated race calendar. If you have any others that you wish to add, please let me know!

New Forest Half - 9th September

http://southernrunningguide.com/race/new-forest-half-marathon

Baccus Marathon and Half – 9^th September

https://www.209events.com/uk-running-events/surrey_bacchus_marathon_and_half_marathon

Meon Valley Express 5km, 10km and Half - 16th September
https://www.eventrac.co.uk/listed-races/meon-valley-express

Hursley 10km - 16th September
https://www.hursley10k.co.uk

The Lake Run, Andover 10km and 5km – 16^th Septembver

https://www.andover10klakerun.co.uk/

Winchester Half Marathon – 23^rd September