All posts filed under: Active Running

Why I Started Running

Published by Dr Juliet McGrattan

It’s fair to say that running changed my life. It’s not an over exaggeration. I went from someone who thought running wasn’t for her to someone who left her career to spend more time running, writing about running and helping others to find good health through running. I can honestly say when I started out, it was absolutely not my intention that any of that should happen. It wasn’t even on my radar. In trying to understand how to help other people to become active, I’ve been reflecting (as you know, I do a lot of this!) on why I started running twelve years ago. What was it that I was looking for? What did I need that I thought running could give me? And, in turn, how does that influence what I now say to people to encourage them to be active? I wanted to share it with you to see if you identify, if you are a runner or to see if it would encourage you if you were thinking about running. These …

Loving the Long Runs

Published by Dr Juliet McGrattan

Running is a funny old thing isn’t it?! Sometimes you can’t get enough of it and then there are periods where you just can’t seem to motivate yourself to even get out of the door. I’m particularly prone to this see-sawing when it comes to long runs. I started lockdown only doing short runs but I’m doing lots of long ones now and really enjoying them. I began thinking and analysing (as I’m prone to do!) what it is at the moment that means I’m already planning my next long run even though my legs are still sore from yesterday’s one. For me personally, a long run is anything over 10k (around 6 miles). I think the distance is irrelevant because in the past, my long one would have been anything over 5k. It just depends where you are in your running journey. Any run where the focus is on pushing distance rather than pace or speed counts as your long run in my mind. Here’s what I’ve come up with as the factors that …

Running Towards the Future

Published by Dr Juliet McGrattan

‘How are you?’ seems to be the most common way to open a conversation at the moment. For runners this is often followed by, ‘How’s your running?’ Many people have been running more frequently during our time of lockdown, using it to keep their mental health in check and add routine to the days. Others have been running less, either because it feels like one pressure too many or they’re key workers and are just too tired and busy. Whichever it is, lockdown has certainly been a time for us to reflect on our running. Whether it’s how much we love it, why we aren’t enjoying it or how much we miss it. I wrote recently about my lockdown running but this has lead me on to thinking about what I can take forward as a positive to use in my future running. What have I learnt? What have I enjoyed? How is my running going to look in the future? Here are my own personal running reflections and how I intend to use them …

The Rollercoaster of Running

Published by Dr Juliet McGrattan

Is it just me or do you find that your running journey is a bit of a roller coaster? Exhilarating, unpredictable, fun and occasionally nauseating! I’ve been running now for eleven years and there have been many twists and turns, loops and ups and downs but I’m still on that rollercoaster and currently reflecting on my journey and keen to get others to board too.

www.drjulietmcgrattan.com

Running Finds You When You Need It Most

Published by Dr Juliet McGrattan

I have this theory that running finds you when you need it most. Let’s face it, starting to run is really hard. Going from walking to constant running takes time and determination. Pushing your body feels unpleasant. The voices in your head tell you to stop. Feeling out of breath, sweating and a racing heart aren’t always nice sensations. People often start and fail and start again and then every now and then someone keeps going, works through it and running becomes a regular and essential part of their lives. What is it that makes the difference?

www.drjulietmcgrattan.com

Fun at the Malaga Marathon

Published by Dr Juliet McGrattan

I was pretty excited about heading to the Malaga Marathon. In all honesty I was more excited about having four days away in Spain with my girlfriends than I was about putting myself through 26.2 miles! Although in the lead up to the marathon, the weather in Malaga had been cool and wet, we were rewarded with four days of sunshine. Feeling the warm sun on my face in the middle of winter was a wonderful treat. We had a day of acclimatisation when we intended to stay off our feet but ended up shopping and walking miles; we had some great tapas though! We found getting around Malaga on the train and tube system really easy, and cheap too. We’d read that getting to the out of town expo to collect race numbers was harder than the marathon itself but we had no problems whatsoever. We’d been very frustrated that we hadn’t had any pre-race info in English, the marathon guide was in Spanish and despite sending emails (in English and Spanish) we hadn’t …

www.drjulietmcgrattan.com

Change is hard – how to make successful changes.

Published by Dr Juliet McGrattan

Changing your behaviour is a very difficult thing to do. How many times have you set a New Year’s resolution only to break it before the end of January? I’ve done this countless times. You have good intentions and even when you think you’ve set a pretty realistic goal you just don’t seem to be able to sustain it for any length of time.