Getting Fit: Great North Run training - part two

Sep 13 2008 The Journal

Eat, sleep and move for the run

THERE are many resources across the region for you to tap into with regard to building your training programme for the Great North Run.

Ideally – with a few weeks to go – you are putting the finishing touches to your conditioning. Whether this is the case or you’ve left it a little too late, there are key factors that should be the base of everyone’s conditioning – quality eating, sleeping and movement.

Eat, Sleep and Move

Consideration of these three factors will make sure you are in your best condition to train. This may seem obvious, but I frequently find these areas are drastically underestimated. Do we fully appreciate how important it is that we eat the right foods at the right time of the day, recover correctly and sleep at the right times and have a stable structure and efficient movement patterns?

Emotional Nutrition

Again there is a wealth of information on eating right for sports performance and it would be easy to spend 500 words suggesting an organic, fresh, local, seasonal diet free from processed foods. This is general and good advice, but of course we know all this already. I’m going to take a different tack.

Somehow, socially and culturally we have managed to line up – without exception – all the food groups, in a nutritional ID-parade and demonise them all. Nothing has escaped; Atkins – ‘too much meat’; Vegetarian – ‘not enough meat’; Bread – ‘too many grains’; Chocolate – enough said. What this means is that regardless of the actual nutritional value of the food you eat, any feeling of guilt associated with it will cause your body to treat it with caution. Even if it is ‘good’ for you, you will not digest and assimilate it efficiently because you have informed your body that it is an intruder.

This is in no way discrediting the progress we have made in nutritional science and I am in no way advising a diet of anything and everything. For example, for those of us with intolerance to grains, eating bread may well cause havoc to our system. Yet, in addition to following sound nutritional advice, greater understanding of human function is demonstrating that we are truly emotional beings. The response we have to a nutrient is not as simple as ‘lock and key’. Our emotions vibrate through our cells and influence how they act. The mistake we humans make is that we all to often listen to our central processor – our brain. The information in here is derived from what we see and hear, which may not be accurate or true to our self.

This point ultimately highlights the need for us to find time to source, prepare and enjoy our food. Being in tune with what you eat will educate you on what you do well on and what not so.

:: ‘Functional Trainer’ provides Health and Performance training, 07792 761324 jack@functionaltrainer.co.uk, www.functionaltrainer.co.uk