Tea-tox

If there's one thing I'm addicted to it's definitely tea.  I can't get enough of it.  A cup in the morning before I leave the house, one as soon as I get to work, one with every meeting, one any time I'm stressed.  And if I'm working at the computer for any length of time my favourite way to break things up is regular trips to the kettle to refill my cup.

But I've noticed recently that I'm feeling very, very tired.  Too drained sometimes to even get out for a run.  Being vegetarian, it can be difficult to get enough iron, because the (non-haem) version found in plant foods isn't as easily absorbed by the body as the (haem) version found in meat.  This is compounded by the fact that tea is high in tannin, which binds to non-haem iron and further reduces the amount you absorb.  In contrast, Vitamin C helps your body to absorb non-haem iron, which means that a glass of orange juice or some strawberries are a much better accompaniment to your breakfast than a cup of tea.  But tea tastes so good.  And my cold hands like nothing better than cradling a warm mug.

Buoyed by the fact that I got through a two-week holiday on 3 cups of tea and only suffered one headache as a result (yes, it really does give me withdrawal symptoms), I've made the radical decision to cut it out completely.  My tea-tox begins today.  The teabags have been removed from the tea cupboard and hidden, replaced by iron-friendly peppermint, rose & chamomile and ginger versions.  I might be a bit grumpy for the next couple of days, but at least I can still have warm hands!  Time will tell if this change is enough to give me back my energy. 

Plan B

Most of the last week or so has been a write-off on account of my cold. This got me thinking about my usual approach to a training 'blip'. I realised that I'm a lot better at entering races and designing training plans than I am at actually training. When things go off track I:

1. Get a little bit annoyed at myself for failing to stick to the plan.
2. Make a cup of tea.
3. Crumple up my training plan.
4. Sit down and start concocting a new one.

I'm definitely a natural organiser. When I used to work as a personal trainer, my favourite part was tailoring exercise plans to suit my clients perfectly. I used to spend hours on it. Now that I'm working full time, I'm my own 'project'. I thought about what I would advise someone else to do if they'd missed a week. Just adapt the plan a little bit and move on. So that's what I'll do.
I spent one more evening putting together a proper plan that would see me through my three upcoming races. It's on a spreadsheet so that I can easily tweak it if anything major comes up but I've factored in lots of flexibility and left spaces to log what I've actually done, so I should be able to stick with it as it is. I pinned the finished product on the kitchen wall and vowed not to take it down and crumple it up until at least April.
It goes something like this:

• MONDAY - Exercise DVD or rest
• TUESDAY - An hour on the bike or turbo trainer plus a short run
• WEDNESDAY - Yoga or just a stretch
• THURSDAY - Interval or tempo run
• FRIDAY - Exercise DVD or rest
• SATURDAY - Longish bike ride
• SUNDAY - Long run

Let's see how it goes...