1 year, a 1-year-old & TNF100 – Part 3

I held a farewell dinner in honour of my skin folds this week. It involved lots of brie, creamy pasta, and a (tub) of cookies & cream ice cream. A few strawberries made it into the mix, but apart from that it was a high density calorie fest of deliciousness.

Why the farewell dinner? Up until this week my intention towards training has primarily been to regain some base fitness and structural integrity (dodgy pelvic floor, absent core and all that). However, it doesn’t take a sports scientist to tell me that muscle is going to get me up the grand staircase at the end of the NF better than pud. Hence, its time to think about slowly trimming off a bit of ‘baby weight’ (contrary to all of those celebrity liars it doesn’t just ‘fall off’ after giving birth, those wobbly bits are rather tenacious) and as of this week, I have ditched my once-a-day-banana-bread -and–chai-latte habit. Combined with my gradually increasing mileage and improving speed (which is approaching warp speed of course) my body is changing shape yet again.

To clarify though, I am not interested in turning up to the start line looking like a hollow eyed waif with sticks in place of arms and legs that may snap at any time and spear me in the bum (although I have noticed that a lot of those marathon types are rather skinny). As I have mentioned previously, my running style is modelled on a bovine zombie. Therefore, I already have enough challenges in the efficiency department and the removal of excess baggage is probably going to be easier to change than years of poor running technique. My intention is to maximize muscle and minimize fat to improve my running performance, therefore giving myself the best opportunity possible to enjoy the whole 50km of the NF.

With no scientific basis what so ever, I am going to say that for every 5ml of skin fold lost, I will be taking 30 minutes of my overall time on the NF trail (I am hoping to finish in time for a late lunch so this is important). So, here we go. My current skin folds are……101.4ml. Phwoar! (Those skinny marathon runner types have just dropped the 6 grains of fair-trade-organic-low GI-protein-fortified rice they were having for dinner in shock). That is just over double what my ‘skinnies’ where as a finely tuned Olympian! (I don’t remember eating all the pies?). However, in the realm of the everyday population, 101ml is not too bad, and the good news is I am only about ½ a kilo away from pulling that number back into double rather than triple figures. I think a little trimming of the fat could help me run a long way, a lot faster.

Bron Watson

Olympian, World Champion, Motivational Speaker , New Mum, Aspiring North Face finisher.