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You are here: Home / Archives for 2015

Archives for 2015

Dear Fat Shamer

Zoey · September 9, 2015 · 8 Comments


Dear Fat Shamer,

I saw your video and I’m not going to link to it because frankly you didn’t say anything that we haven’t all heard a million times before and I’d hate for someone else to see it and have their soul vomit like mine did.

I was that person who you were abusing. Fat and with no medical condition to blame it on. And I am the same person, I just look different now. I pass. So people don’t judge me when I buy McDonalds or cake.

You know you can’t tell how healthy someone is from what they look like? People are quick to talk about the obesity epidemic which is based on the BMI which is a bullshit construct but no one talks about the anorexia or bulimia epidemic, it just passes on by, because they look ok. Until they die. You can’t tell how someone eats by what they look like or how much they exercise or how fit they are. All you can do is distill a really complicated situation into a false black and white one based on your lack of experience.

I hate that it’s people like you that makes people like me afraid to run outside. Or walk in a gym. Or exist. I hate that it’s people like you who are proud of it. Like shame every succeeded at anything. If I look back now at the person I was, people like you are the reason I wanted to disappear into the wallpaper. People like you stopped me in clothing stores and said ‘there’s nothing for you here – you should leave’.

Did you know a slim person can be internally obese and a fat person can be internally fit? Did you know my young children tell me that if you eat too much you will get fat. Do you have any idea how much of my life I spend fighting against that? And you know what I tell them? Being fat isn’t bad. Yeah I own that shit. Because the quality of the human isn’t defined by their size. And I tell them that if they don’t eat enough food they won’t be able to do awesome things like run and jump and play. And I mourn that I even have to have this conversation with them. Because they are four and seven and what the actual fuck?!

And you know what?

I resent that I pass for a stereotypical person now. I resent it when I pass someone who looks like I used to look and I can see that they want to be invisible because I might be judging them. I resent the fact that people judge my choices differently than they used to. Because I am the same person I was back then.

Dear Fat Shamer,

I hate that your video went viral but no one will see me say to them. You matter. You are worth it. Your size doesn’t determine your worth. You are beautiful. You are valued. And you have more strength than anyone else I know. And I am on your side.

Workout of the Week: Wave Tempo

Zoey · September 7, 2015 · Leave a Comment

A tempo run is designed to challenge your threshold and get your body used to sitting on that pace. Technically it should be the pace that your body is creating lactate at the same rate it is able to get rid of it, so it should feel hard but mostly comfortable. The brilliance of a wave tempo is that by moderately overloading your threshold and then only allowing minimal recovery you are going to see some improvements in your threshold that you wouldn’t see in a steady state run.

wave tempo

Ideally you would want your steady pace to be 5% slower than tempo and your fast pace to be 5% faster. This is just a guide:

3:30 Tempo (3:20 min/km fast, 3:41 min/km steady)
4:00 Tempo (3:49 min/km fast, 4:13 min/km steady)
4:30 Tempo (4:17 min/km fast, 4:44 min/km steady)
5:00 Tempo (4:46 min/km fast, 5:16 min/km steady)
5:30 Tempo (5:14 min/km fast, 5:47 min/km steady)
6:00 Tempo (5:43 min/km fast, 6:19 min/km steady)
6:30 Tempo (6:11 min/km fast, 6:51 min/km steady)
7:00 Tempo (6:40 min/km fast, 7:22 min/km steady)
7:30 Tempo (7:09 min/km fast, 7:54 min/km steady)
8:00 Tempo (7:37 min/km fast, 8:25 min/km steady)
8:30 Tempo (8:06 min/km fast, 8:57 min/km steady)
9:00 Tempo (8:34 min/km fast, 9:28 min/km steady)

If you are more comfortable with a 3km distance as opposed to a 6km run – just change the intervals to 500m instead of 1km.

Running coaching is available through our Far and Fast programs, or you can sign up for one of our custom plans.

Workout of the Week: Hammer Intervals

Zoey · August 31, 2015 · Leave a Comment

The key to the hammer intervals is that the fast sections are run at your long interval pace and the hammer intervals are a sprint. So it helps if you have an idea of your paces for different workouts. But the difference is about 90% effort for the fast interval and 100% effort for the hammer interval. The fast interval is faster than tempo, but it’s not an all out sprint. So it is something that you would want to be able to hold for around 1.6km (although here you are only doing it for 300m).

This workout is great for improving your short distance running and mimicking the demands put on your body on race day.

Sign up for Far and Fast
Individual coaching from $99 per month

One month later

Zoey · August 28, 2015 · Leave a Comment

long-run-skeleton-trees

So it’s been just about a month now since I’ve been doing this on my own. You think relationships won’t change, but of course they do. Whether you are ready for them to do that or not. I’ve worried over more things (and more people) than I ever have before. I’ve worried over how I spend my time. I’ve worried over if people are getting enough of what they need. I’ve worried over how to be a coach, a marketer, a strategist and an accountant. And in the end I just kind of winged it to see what would work and what wouldn’t.

I’ve looked with sadness over the instagram feed, which is just me. And I’ve looked with pride where something I’ve done has connected with the community. I tried (badly) to balance marathon training and everything else and I’m counting down the weeks until my running commitment is just a little bit less.

I corrected myself every second sentence where I went to write ‘we’ and I had to change it to ‘I’.

I rediscovered a love of Twitter. I found my camera again too.

I accepted that some relationships couldn’t be saved and some new one’s could be made. I found the weight of responsibility was more of a privilege, than a burden.

I made mistakes and then I corrected course.

My passion is empowerment through movement. If I keep focused on that, everything else will fall into place.

Sign up for Learn to Run in September Now
$199 or 12 weekly payments of $20

When you get too stressed to look after your stress

Zoey · August 26, 2015 · Leave a Comment

For the last few months Katie and I have been testing out a few things from Hivita. I’ve talked to you about my epic winter lurgy avoidance here. Which has worked a charm and I’m only a few days shy of spring. 

https://instagram.com/p/5d-MlBjc0i/

And taking a supplement for stress has got me thinking about stress in general. The truth is, me and stress have had a very close personal relationship for the last year. I’ve had big business changes and online trolling and about five million things outside my comfort zone. And it can become easy to feel like you are on high alert all the time. Which is not the way your body is mean to work at all.

Hivita-Stress-100-152x315The thing about stress is there is good stress and bad stress. Without stress of any kind you would probably never get anything done. A little bit of a deadline goes along way. But too much stress and you get nothing done. It becomes counter-productive and you are too overwhelmed to do anything. One of the great things about taking a supplement is that it’s not overwhelming at all. It’s probably the easiest thing you can do for stress. And it does amazing things to help your body do what it needs to do to cope during times of difficulty. And for someone like me who struggles with a lot of anxiety anyway, it doesn’t really have to be a difficult time for me to benefit from the extra support.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? It’s precisely the little things that can make all the difference in managing stress, nervous tension and little bits of anxiety that tend to pop up just when we don’t need them! So what are the benefits of something like Hivita Stress? There’s great benefit in anything that is going to boost your energy levels, elevate your mood, help you get better sleep and generally support your body to be in a place where you can do things that are going to get you away from bad stress. And once you are there, you can take my advice on some other little things that you can do that will help you as well.
1) Make a list and do the easiest things

Now, I know I’m normally hard things first type of person. But when you are struggling pick things that you know you can do and have the satisfaction of ticking off your list and get them out of your brain

2) Sleep

You aren’t achieving anything by staying up worrying over the things outside of your control. Give yourself permission to go to sleep and wake up ready to tackle the next day.

3) Tune out

If you aren’t going to get anything done anyway, you might as well do something that is going to refill your tank – for me that might be watching some movies and doing some crochet or baking and doing something with my hands.

4) Eat

Food is often the first thing that you leave behind as you dive into the stress potato chips and chocolate, but don’t underestimate how much some balanced nutrition is going to balance yourself and take down your stress levels.

5) Make a plan

Break down the things you need to do into bite size chunks and prioritise your list into things that are necessary, things that you need to do when you can and things that you don’t have to do for now.

6) Focus your attention on your biggest stressors

Working out what they are is the important thing. Once you know what they are, you can focus on putting things in place so they don’t stress you out as much. Sometimes that’s doing them first, or delegating them, or asking for help.

7) Don’t be so busy worrying about the next thing, that you don’t recognise your achievements

You know what can make you feel less stressed? Actually stopping to look at how much you are doing. So do that. Don’t get so focused on forging forward that you don’t recognise your own work.

Exclusive Operation Move Reader offer: 30% of all purchases at Hivita before 30/09/2015 plus free shipping for orders over $50. Just enter code OPERATIONMOVE at checkout.

Hivita is available in all good chemists and health food stores and is also available to buy online at http://hivita.com.au/

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