Morning input

Those of you who know me will know that I like to read, especially in the morning at the start of the day, feeding my mind in the same way that a subsequent breakfast will feed my body.

This habit used to lapse each winter, when I prefer to sit in the emerging gloom rather than put any electric lights on. However, last year I inherited a Kindle and I have found this perfect for providing those few pages of insight in a backlit format. It’s also more discreet than the kind of chunky books I often read and doesn’t stand out in our pleasingly-minimalistic sitting room.

Later this week I’m running a workshop on Change to the wider Sussex Projects team and whilst I’ve already done the heavy lifting of designing the session and the slide deck, I do like to flip through the slides each day, in the run up to workshops, to ensure that I’m really familiar with the flow.

Reading before a run is always helpful to help my mind using the exercise time to assimilate and throw out new ideas, so this morning I chose to read my slide deck rather than the Kindle.

It was only a short 1-mile run on the machine before work, taking just under 9.5 minutes, but mind and body are now both ready for the rigours of the rest of the week 🙂

Hidden in plain sight

We’re lucky enough to have an in-house running machine, which hides in plain sight in the thoroughfare between the open-plan dining and sitting rooms. Regular readers will know that I’ve not used it for a while, but recently it’s been out of bounds and surrounded by the flotsam & jetsam of life and the paraphernalia of our recent house guests.

Last weekend we finally managed to clear enough space for it to emerge from the background of my subconscious as the solution to a short-term problem.: I’ve not been getting enough exercise recently and I know that this eventually results in my brain working more slowly… something that I can’t afford to do right now with the pressures of my exciting new role.

Suffice to say that the machine was fired up early this morning and a short run ensued. Just one mile in just under 10 minutes, but I know that one run of this nature each week would tip the balance in favour of a clearer head. As per usual… watch this space 🙂

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!