Month: December 2020

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Head-start in a vicarious run with friends

It was the message that I’ve been looking forward to for months… a sociable run with friends on the Downs. However, the decision was more complex.

The plus sides were obvious: running outside on the Downs, with a bunch of people who I like more than most. However, the furthest I’ve run in an age is one mile on the machine, which took around 10 minutes, and Andy was proposing a 75-90 minute run.

If I were to keep up with them across this time, then I would not be able to walk on Christmas Day, for sure, and probably not for several days afterwards. If I were to favour my legs, then I would have to bail out after a couple of miles & run back on my own.

On top of this, the forecast was for heavy rain and (of course) there are always concerns about catching bugs (you know what I mean) when you are desperately gasping for breath in a group of people.

Sadly my risk averseness carried the day.

But it was too good of a call-to-action to ignore, so I felt that I had to at least climb on the machine and show willing. I gave myself a slight head-start on the group and ran for two miles, during which time they would have started and probably caught up with me.

At their allotted start time the sun broke through the clouds to shine on the righteous and the day brightened up… so much for the forecast and I hope that it was the same where they were too!

At the point that they were probably finishing their run, an hour or so later, I was still walking around sweating from my brief run… it would have been a sofa afternoon if I’d joined them!

So 2 miles run in 20 minutes 30 seconds… nothing momentous, but yet another step in the right direction 🙂

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Leaden head

I was up & about, having done my short yoga routine and played my guitar. In fact, I was feeling pretty normal (well, as normal as it’s possible for me to feel :-)) and I thought I would squeeze in a quick run on the machine before breakfast.

There’s a difference running in the morning vs the afternoon, in terms of how warmed up the body is, but I had clearly forgotten this. The run was okay, but it left me feeling leaden legged and then leaden headed.

In fact, my brain has been working on treacle-speed ever since, evidenced by the fact that it’s almost midday and I’m not yet in work mode… in fact I’ve only just finished my first cup of (cold) tea, which is pretty-much unheard-of!

One upside however… my office has felt freezin’ most of the week, even wearing several layers and with the heater on under my desk. But right now there’s no heater on because I’m still feeling centrally heated from my run 🙂

One mile in ten and a half minutes is no news really, but all these little leaden-headed steps are building in a good direction… towards a run outside at some point.

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Zoom-zoom day

I am a passionate advocate of Zoom.

Two years ago I delivered a significant strategic project in Asia (designing a 2,100 sqm regional office, project managing the build-out, overseeing the growth of a team from 11 to 211+ and managing sentiment for the project in the existing, geographically-spread workforce) from a desk in London… using Zoom.

This year almost everyone seems to be working in a similar way and it’s common to have meetings via all the main platforms in any given week… Teams, Skype, Slack, Whatsapp, FaceTime, Google Hangouts and of course, Zoom.

In the first half of the year I was forced to use Teams when teaching or facilitating large groups, but Zoom is my clear preference from a capability perspective as well as clarity, usability etc… not to mention that they acted quickly to extend time limits & make it easy for people to stay in touch with each other using their free option during the lockdown.

However… spending time teaching, facilitating or attending meetings online is really cognitively taxing and today I ran a 2.5 hour Zoom workshop and then went straight into a 90 minute Zoom meeting, with no break between… a total of 4 hours staring at my computer screen. Ugh!

On the plus side, although the rain was literally tipping down outside, I didn’t get soaked through, had no challenges regarding travel, and managed to escape for periodic cups of tea (and a corresponding pee) with ease.

I may not have had to run for a train when I finally turned Zoom off, but I did feel the need for a run… to clear my crowded head and especially to warm up from my chilly office 🙂

One mile on the machine, in just over ten minutes, left me glowing with body heat and with the satisfaction that the running seems to be getting easier.

Not that I don’t have a way to go… Mini-me Mark ran around the short and spectacularly bland Shoreham Basin road for a total of 60 miles last week! Zoom-zooming mad as I am, I’m still not that crazy! 🙂