Jordan & Raymond Update Feb 24

In this podcast episode, the hosts provide updates on their training and health. One host has been feeling great and has been training well, while the other has been dealing with illness and a back injury. They discuss the importance of listening to their bodies and taking recovery seriously. They acknowledge that their preparation for an upcoming event has been challenging, but they are determined to do their best. They highlight the importance of rest and recovery and advise listeners to avoid pushing through injuries close to an event. They also talk about the intensity and physical demands of the event they are training for. Overall, they express gratitude for their progress and a positive mindset towards their training and nutrition. Hello and welcome to the next episode of the private members podcast within the progress project and today we've got an update with myself and Raymond, so we've not done one of these for a couple of months. So in terms of the podcast episode today, we'll just do a wee bit of an update in terms of where me and Raymond are at, where we've been during our own training lifestyle, everything like that, and then we'll just do a few wee updates on the programme itself. So, Raymond, mate, how are we doing? Oh, good, mate. As we spoke about that, I think roles have reversed a wee bit there, so as far as my training and overall health is going, perhaps we'd feel 110 per cent firing on all cylinders, which is a nice wee change, so no, I'm feeling really good, mate. Excellent, and yeah, I'm pretty much in the opposite boat over the last two weeks. Having been unwell, the weekend I was going to be doing my 10k attempt at the Glasgow Winter Warmer, so I had to miss that. Then I had a few days off training because I probably came into it just too quickly again and injured my back, so last week's been no training apart from an easy pace 5k run yesterday, which, touch wood, seemed okay. There's been no real adverse effects, but my back's still not 100 per cent, so it's not ideal, and Raymond's been similar prior to that, so our preparation for High Rocks has been pretty horrendous, hasn't it, mate? Aye, there's definitely a correlation there, though. For me, I got sinusitis over Christmas, and that floored me for 14 days. We were messaging, and I don't know how still, eight weeks, and I said to myself, take it easy, ease yourself back into the gym, and just totally contract to myself. One or two sessions in, I just wanted to push the weight up to a bit more, and then I was putting Raymond in the car, and I just felt my back going a wee bit, and that was me another week back. I think the biggest thing that me and you have learned in the last two months is that you just need to listen to the body, and High Rocks and half marathon, one of the hardest things you'll train for volume-wise, and you're probably on that fine line of over-training most weeks. Then, obviously, you've done the exact same wee bit of illness, and then you try to probably come back too soon, as opposed to giving yourself a wee fewer sessions, and now you've done your back, so we're still learning as well, mate. This High Rocks prep has shown us that we've learned a lot, and if we are going to run it back, then I think that doubles next year. We've learned a lot for this one, I think, mate. Yeah, yeah, exactly, mate. I think there's a good few lessons for this podcast, guys, and it is really just, again, as Raymond says, listening to the body. Also, not diving in too quick, and just really, really focusing a lot with regards to your recovery, your stretching, your mobility work, warming up, and stuff like that, because it is an easy thing to overlook, and we are going really quite big on to that inside the Progress Project. As you know, we've got a monthly yoga session with Flexablow. We've got discounts at Flexablow Yoga. We've partnered with Ross at Fizzy Picks for our massages and stuff like that. We've got a big soul sweets event coming up with Coldwater Therapy, sauna. We are going really big on the recovery side of things, but me and Raymond, we're both human as well, and we know what it's like when your training is going really, really well, and you're enjoying it, and then illness strikes or whatever, and you just want to get back into things really quickly, because naturally, you just want to do that, but it is a case of just making sure that you're feeling up to it, not going too crazy with it, and just because, as I've felt, and Raymond, as me, probably I've seen over two weeks now that I've not really been able to train properly. It's just really, really frustrating. Me and Raymond were meant to be doing a higher-up simulation today, but I'm not going to be able to do it. Raymond's going to do it with Sarah and get a feel for it. You're not meeting any folk doing higher-ups that are wanting to compete for a time as opposed to just finishing, and they haven't trained together for, what, two months? That's a pretty rough go at it. I think the last session we did off memory was the 16th of December, and it's just been not really locked out for us, but ultimately, we spoke about it in length, if we can just get to the starting line. We've both built up a good base. Obviously, my run is not where I'd like it to have been, but ultimately, it's just going to be head down in the day. We've maybe had to move the goalposts a wee bit. We're maybe looking at a sub-one-hour time before this happens, and, to be honest, see if we can get sub-105, sub-108. I think I'll be pretty happy, just given the circumstances. I see your rest and recovery is probably just as important as your big, big sessions of the week. We've lived it the hard way, but it's been necessary, mate. We've learnt a lot from it. Yeah, definitely. Me and Raymond haven't even done a simulation together. We've talked tactics, and we're not going to get a simulation together, because it's just going to be too tight there. There's only two weeks to go. Raymond missed the simulation that we did a few weeks ago with his back, and then I've missed this one that I'm meant to do today. It's just getting too close now. Our aim is just to be fresh, feeling fit for the day. We know that our base is there. Something that me and Raymond are really good at is just digging deep when it matters. I know for a fact that when we're in pain, we'll just be thinking in terms of tiredness pain, not injury pain, but when we're deep in the pain cave, we'll be pushing through, and we both don't want to let each other down. We will get a decent time, I think, as long as we can get on to that start line. You guys are probably listening, going, good to see you. The coaches are crippled, constantly injured. As Raymond said, high rocks prep is new for us as well. I went to a full marathon prep last year, a half marathon prep, not a single injury, not a single niggle. High rocks is new, and it's new for everybody, even the people that have done three, four, five high rocks. It's still in its early stages, and people aren't seeing the optimal way to train for it, the optimal way to recover from it. That's all still being developed at the moment, and the guys training for high rocks will know that it is pretty intense. In terms of a fitness event, it's really a huge test of fitness. It's incredibly, incredibly tough. I've put a lot of strain on the body, so you really need any wee slips in your recovery process and missing your mobility. You just risk that injury. We're learning with regard to the high rocks side of things. We're going to be giving it our best shot. It is both our first high rocks, so it is going to be an experience as well, a learning process. After that, I think we'll learn a lot from this prep and from high rocks itself. The good news is that the physio has said to me that I will be fine in two weeks, so maybe I just do the exercise and don't go in too hard over the next week or so. That's the good news. I just really want to be fighting fit for that, because I think we will put on a good show still. Definitely. As we said yesterday, if anyone is really carrying a mean egg or something and you do get close to an event, you're not going to get any fit in two weeks. You want to just borderline and push back the weights 70 to 60 per cent and incorporate rehab work and just try to get to the starting line. You're not going to lose any fitness or strength or gain, so there's no point in trying to rush back. At this close, this is when you really need to be level-headed and disciplined and just be patient. We'll be fine. We'll have a good bash. That's a great point. Any of the guys listening who, whatever event we're coming up to, or even your training, if you can feel a bit of an ego, there's no point in pushing through it, especially when you get so close to an event. If you're two weeks out, if you're a week or two out, as Ewan said, you're not going to gain or lose any fitness. It's pointless to go and potentially injure yourself. Get to that point where you're one or two weeks out from an event and the main focus there is to get to that event start line. There's no point in pushing through a workout if you're feeling any niggles, because that's just going to set you back and potentially not get you fighting fit for the event. That's what I've been telling myself all last week. Absolutely dying to go out and train again. This has been the longest I've not trained for. I don't know. I can't remember how long, but we'll be giving it a good shot. How's everything else been going, mate, in regards to just general life and everything like that? I'm good. I never really spoke about the sickness and niggles over the Christmas period, because I thought I'd run a little crazy. There we go. Raymond's living back in again, but no, it's been good. It's just been plodding away in the background. I'm just grateful to be in the position I am. I've done 10 push-ups a day in the morning in the gym, and then I went out and did another 8k with Sarah. So I've got a 20k volume day, which is nothing on the grand scale for some of the clients in the programme, going out and doing 24, 30k. It's serious for someone that's just looking to bump back up and obviously put that wee bit of kit out on the roadblock over Christmas. I'm just feeling dead grateful now. I'm not going to look at any long runs or big horrible high rock pieces and go, oh God, I can't be bothered doing that, because a few weeks ago, I'd have been chomping at the bit to go out and just do any sort of physical activity. So I'm just feeling a really good, positive way of my training and nutrition now. I could probably scrub up nutrition a wee bit if I'm being totally honest with you. I've not been doing big meal preps, but I'm definitely going to screw the nut with that. But just in general, I'm just feeling very grateful to be moving and feeling fit, being free. Obviously, with the constant daily reminder of you, messaging, making updates with your back and stuff, it can be taken away from you so quickly. Like you touched on, maybe at night coming off a back shift, like back at 11, the last thing you want to do is do 15 minutes of mobility, but if you're missing that 15-minute stretching, that could be the difference or the catalyst to maybe go out the next day. Or waking up 10 minutes before you're meant to leave for the gym and you're just doing a bit of stretching, see if you missed any sessions out, that could be you. You could go into the gym feeling a bit tight and then before you know it, you're on the sidelines. So yeah, I think in the last few weeks, there's been a lot of takeaways in regards to looking after the body and just listening to it. Yeah, 100 per cent on that. Another lesson there with regards to being grateful for your fitness, if you're feeling good just now, get out and get training and don't miss it, don't snooze an alarm. If you're feeling fresh, think about it, think about the people that are injured just now, think about the people that are dying to train, they don't have that ability to do it because they're injured. And then if you're sitting there feeling good, but you're just patching a workout or sleeping in or snoozing an alarm and you've not got any reason, split that mindset and think, I think all the people, it's a real privilege to be able to get out and exercise and train. And there's loads of people worldwide that can't do that. It's just a stark reminder that you can, you will probably get injured, you will probably get ill at some point, so when you're not, just make the absolute most of it and just be grateful for the training that you can do and get up and smash it as much as possible. So I made lots of lessons there, as we said, over the last few weeks, but I'm very, very confident that we'll be standing at that high-ups start line and we'll surprise ourselves, I think, with how we'll get on on the day. No doubts about it, it's going to be a pretty humbling experience, but I think as long as we are at our start line feeling good, then we'll be good to go and good luck to everybody else inside the programme that's doing it. And that's the kind of next big event. And then in terms of the rest of the guys, we've got, even if you're not training for an event, really, really happy with how everything's going at the moment, guys. And we've got the guys doing the photo shoot and it's eight weeks time now. Then we've got a lot of running events coming up. We've got some guys doing Alba in about four weeks. We've got Inverness half marathon, we've got Edinburgh half marathon, Edinburgh marathon, and then we've got guys running into Cochrane marathons in the summer. So there's so many things coming up and I'm really, really excited for that. Also shared the events in the Facebook group. We've got the Two Soul Sweets events coming up, which will be a really, really good night. It's going to be a really flexible couple of hours. They're just going to let us have it open. Just feel free to drop in, go out, you don't need to come and stay for two hours. You can be dropping in, get a shot in the cold water and the sauna. I think Ross from Physiopix is going to be there doing massage and stuff like that. So it'll just be a really, really good night to come to. And as I said, you don't need to be there for the two hours. It'll be maybe come in half an hour, 40 minutes to do your thing, see everybody, and then head again. There'll be coffee, tea, snacks and stuff like that. So that'll be great. And then we've got the big day out on the 1st of June, which I ran through as well, which is going to be really, really good. And we'll confirm final details for that soon. But we'll see the interest in that, which is great. And this week, sorry, not this week, the week after, I will get the March pipeline out and just going through the challenges for March, meetups, everything like that. So stay tuned because, again, the months just get bigger and bigger. So looking forward to that. And also, I have sent out a feedback form in the Facebook group. Cheers to everybody that's filled it in so we can continue to develop the service and take on any feedback. The feedback form is anonymous, so feel free to just put in whatever you want. We don't know who it is. Whatever you feel, just let us know. That's why I made it anonymous, because I think people are more likely to be more honest with their opinions. But I will share that in your progress chat as well this week, because it's just really beneficial to us to keep improving the service. Yeah, I'm really glad about how everything's going just now. We will come back with another update in the March, hopefully, reporting back a good Hyrox day. Anything else you want to add, Raymond? No, mate, just, like, one thing I want to remind myself during Hyrox, mate, amongst the pain, just to enjoy it. Just smile. Just be grateful, mate. Like, it'll be a good laugh going out to you and giving it a good bash. I know a few folk doing it kind of solo with their partners or siblings and that, but just remember just to enjoy it. And the same with any event we're doing. Just try and take it all in and just smile and just enjoy being fit and able, because it's going to be in a few deep holes during Hyrox, mate. So that's one thing that I'm just going to make sure that I keep reminding myself during the day, just to take it in, soak it in the atmosphere and that, and just have a few moments with you, mate, and that means just what it's all about. Aye, no, definitely. Same here. Just one final point for me as well. Cheers to everybody that came to the meet-up last week. It was excellent. We shared the video in the group there. It was a really good session and actually some of the feedback forms that I've got so far is, do you want more conditioning workouts and stuff like that? So I'll see what I can do with regards to renting out the facility there and just to see if we can get some more, even if it's not just a full afternoon, even if it's just an hour here and there, that we can get more done, because I know you guys absolutely love those and we love them as well. So we'll take that on board and, yeah, it was another good day. What was that, mate? I always get good feedback. It was a great day. I had a good buzz off it, you know. Yeah, no, definitely. A few sore legs and stuff on Monday, Tuesday there, I think, but it was all worth it. It was a great day. But yes, guys, anybody, any questions off the back of this, just, as always, fire into the progress chats and we will speak to you again next month. Bye.