First run of the year
Last run of the year
Machine
I’ve written before about how well camoflaged our running machine is, such that I hardly notice it despite it being in prime real estate between the open plan sitting & dining rooms.
I wanted a run this morning, but I didn’t feel like going out!
One mile in 9 minutes 39 seconds.
Relucdance
No, that’s not a typo, just poor word play 🙂
One of the challenges of the current remote-working zeitgeist is the potential growth of reluctance to venture out.
This was my feeling ahead of a barn dance last weekend and on one level I would happily have stayed home. However, the draw of seeing my best friends, en masse, won the day and I had a really fun evening.
Randomly flinging myself around is a good description of my normal dancing and it was nice to be on a dance floor where others had little more body control than me… and where that uncoordinated mess of misdirected human limbs was not just accepted, but was also being enjoyed! Oh my!… how we laughed!
A subsequent decrease in resting heart rate suggested that it was generally good for my health, although the exertion could easily have resulted in a heart attack, methinks!
Fast forward to this morning. Although I felt equally reluctant to go for a run, I had cleared the space around the running machine (yes, again, for those of you eagle-eyed readers who know that I did this only recently) and had just enough time to run and cool down before my meetings started at 9am.
A quick mile took just under 9:30 and I felt much better for it 🙂
More cold ears
After a second month of full-time employment (a shock in itself after working for myself for more than 20 years), a particularly busy period of juggling important work priorities and the departure of our amazing house guests who arrived at the start of December, I finally managed to find the head-space to get out for a run this morning.
I feel that running generally results in a lower resting heart rate, better quality of sleep, and clearer thinking, but an absence of running inexorably drives a feeling of lethargy, which makes it progressively harder to find the motivation to run
Add into this that I’ve been suffering a heavy cold for the past week and it’s always tricky to gauge whether the exercise will help or hinder its demise… or my demise!
The run itself was surprising. Despite another month of not running (and lately having been metaphorically tethered, motionless, to my desk for ten hours a day) running felt fairly easy. I started slow and didn’t push myself, but it turned out that I ran slightly quicker than my recent runs since the end of October. I was also faster on the way up the hill than on the way back down… I did notice that my legs ran out of a little steam towards the end.
So just under 2 miles in 19 minutes 21 seconds.
Oh, and I was wearing shorts, t-shirt, hat & gloves and whilst the rest of me was comfortable, oh my did I have cold ears!
The Year of the Water Rabbit
With my recent move to an exciting, daunting and fully immersive role, I didn’t leave myself enough time for my usual Chinese New Year collaboration with Simon at Scoopsweb, so the design above is much more homegrown… certainly free-range 🙂
During this period of relative instability, I hope that we collectively manage to find the patience to think things through, before acting with compassion.
Wishing you good health, peace and prosperity in the Year of the Water Rabbit 🙂
Steadily does it :-)
With three weeks since my last run, I decided that it was more important to take it steady today and enjoy myself… which I did!
Whilst it wasn’t so warm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, a weak sun was pushing through the greyness which, along with a hat and gloves, made the temperature bearable.
I focused on flowing along gently and had none of the heavy footedness that I was experiencing a few months ago. In fact, I could easily have run further… although I can’t deny that it was a relief to get back in the warm 🙂
So, a smidge over 2 miles (I ran to the door and the warmth behind it 🙂 in just under 20 minutes. That’s not as fast as the last couple of runs, but only on the outbound leg, running up the hill… on the way back I actually matched the pace of the last two runs, which is pretty amazing given that I thought I was taking it steady!
Life is about to change here to some extent with both a new role and house guests imminent. New constraints always help to shine a light on the old routines and drive creative thinking about new ways of doing things, making for both exciting and daunting times ahead 🙂
No pictures of the run today, but enclosing one of my Mum’s Jade plant / Money plant, which has suddenly decided to flower. This is a really rare event, so I’ll take it as a good sign 🙂
Flippity floppity does it :-)
It’s been feeling somewhat chilly in the house lately, which has less to do with the weather than because we had reduced the heating from seven to two hours a day… one in the morning & one in the evening.
Er… at least that was what I thought I had done. In fact I just realised it was only coming on for 30 minutes in the morning and given that it’s not been particularly comfortable I’ve just increased it to 1 hour in the morning & 90 minutes in the evening.
Suffice to say that this morning it was definitely warmer outside than inside, so I was still able to do my short run in a t-shirt & shorts.
Recently, after around 20 years of doing short daily Qigong / chi-gung body & breathing exercises, the words of my original tutor (Dan, I think) finally sank in… the movements are supposed to be slow, flowing and soft, such that someone could easily deflect your arm.
At least I think that’s what he meant… it was a long time ago and I won’t bore you with the back-story about why it suddenly came to mind again!
Suffice to say that. as someone who suffers from perpetually taut muscles & tendons, cultivating that flippity-floppiness is actually really useful, even though I don’t find it easy!
Long-story-short, I managed to bring a little of that flippity-floppityness to my run today and it helped me to stretch my stride out a little.
My time was a touch slower on the way up the hill than last time, but still ahead of the recent runs before that… coming back down was an exact match for last time, which I’m really happy with. So, just under 2 miles in 19:21.
Onset of the season of cold ears
My ears are c o l d and I wish that I had worn a hat this morning… to go with my shorts & t-shirt.
The lightweight clothing (apart from the lack of a hat) were perfect by the time I got back, but stepping out was a bit of a shock… even though I had waited until the sun had warmed things up for a couple of hours.
I could feel that I was running more quickly today and that showed up in the slightly improved numbers… from north of 10 minutes per mile for the last few months to 9.37 per mile today, fairly evenly matched across the two halves in spite of the difference in gradient.
So 1.99 miles in 19.10 minutes… and the need to keep at it (whilst wearing a hat methinks)!
Mild day
It’s been getting colder recently, but today was much milder, with cloud cover that threatened rain. It stayed dry, though I had decided to go for a run in any case.
The first half of my current short run is largely uphill and it was hard work, but in a different way to my recent runs. Instead of heavy knees I felt as if I wanted to run a little quicker but simply could not.
Obviously the second half is largely downhill and this made enough of a difference for me to stretch my legs out… seemingly for the first time in an age.
The overall time was the same as recent runs (just under 2 miles in just over 20 minutes), but I felt as if I made good time on the way home.
I meant to take a photo en route but there was so much going on that I kept forgetting until I was back. There seems to be a lot of money being spent on building works, with a number of older houses receiving contemporary makeovers… it’s always lovely to see people taking pride in their environment and even the grass verges looked neat for a change.
