I woke up too early this morning, with a head full of work.
Early enough to do my yoga set, then sit in the teahouse with a coffee, reading an old copy of New Scientist, and then sit playing my guitar whilst drinking a second cup.
All of which was a huge diversion tactic to put off going for a run.
Cognitively kicking & screaming, I eventually ventured out of the door.
I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it to be a particularly fulfilling run, so instead it was just hard graft (which you can see from the pic below).
Mind you, I did at least notice that it was a lovely warm day… and that a whole series of people returned my passing greeting 🙂
1.97 miles in 20 minutes (I’m still not sure how the same route can vary in distance by so much from one week to the next!) and still back before 8am.
Sleep better,, lower resting heart rate, more positive, more alert, think both more clearly and more creatively, cognitive input from the local neighbourhood, more to write about, better able to run next time.
Today’s run was slow and hard work, but in a comfortable way… that is, I wasn’t gasping for air at any point!
As normal, the more time that elapses from my previous run, the harder it is to get out to do the next one. But it was a beautiful spring morning and this just tipped the balance 🙂
The grass-cutters have been out (a mix of local authority and locals, I suspect, given the attention to detail) and the area really had that well-heeled look that I remember from the first time I came to look at the house, more than 15 years ago now.
I think that people in government must underestimate the power of the simple things that directly affect the people who they hope will vote for them. Long-term readers will know that grass verges are a subject that I often return to, but potholes are a particular challenge at the moment. There’s nothing quite like a daily commute along a third-world road, dodging potholes that would kill a tyre if you weren’t paying attention, to give people the impression that the quality of local services generally is falling.
Having not run fro four weeks, I took it really gently, especially as my knees were initially a little grumpy. Beyond this though my fitness wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared and I really enjoyed my run in the sun.
So, a little slower, but still okay, with two miles covered in 19.46 and a reasonably even split in the pace, despite the gradient in the first half.
I had put the running machine down, ready for a run this morning, but I woke up super-early to a beautiful sunny day. It was chilly enough for longs and a long-sleeved top, but I only had shorts and t-shirt to hand so I went with that… albeit with hat & gloves!
It was lovely being outside, though there was a point on the hill where I had a slight memory lapse… I didn’t remember it being quite that steep (it’s not!).
The return leg was at that same 9.35 pace that I keep seeing on this stretch, but I must have got up the hill faster than normal (including that steep bit!) because the overall time for the almost 2-mile circuit was 19 minutes & 9 seconds, faster than I’ve completed it in months.
There’s already pervasive cloud cover across the sky so it seems that I really made the most of the sun this morning 🙂
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!
Shortly after my birthday each year there is a slow process by which each of my treasured schoolfriends in turn becomes a year older than me, until I finally catch them all up again… ever the laggard! Actually, whilst it wasn’t always fun being the youngest in the year, now it’s a pretty cool gig!
The Bank Holiday in honour of my friend Squiffee’s birthday today dawned bright & sunny and I felt the need for a celebratory run.
The distance was only a token gesture, using the same circuit as my recent runs, but it was great to be outside (in shorts and a t-shirt) and thinking about my friends.
Bizarrely, whilst I’ve not run for more than a month I was reasonably quick on the outbound leg (for the recent me), whilst the return leg was exactly the same pace as my last three runs.
So 2 miles in 19 minutes 30 seconds and a great start to the New Year 🙂
Sitting in the teahouse this morning, I was immersed in re-reading Susan Cain’s excellent book Quiet. She was pointing to research that suggests that the underlying fears that we’ve experienced don’t ever go away completely. We can work to de-sensitise our reaction to these fears and the pre-frontal cortex can then help to suppress them, but the amygdala faithfully remembers them over time.
In moments of stress, when the pre-frontal cortex is busy on other tasks, our suppressed fears can surface again.
I view stress as an accumulation of too many pressures, like having five juggling balls in the air when you’ve only mastered juggling three… it’s inevitable that they will all end up on the floor. To function effectively, we need to deliberately park a couple of pressures, or juggling balls, when we’re trying to perform at our best.
This is important in our day to day lives, but doubly important for those of us who have experienced, for example, stage fright when faced with a daunting audience. Reducing the non-essential pressures allows the cortex sufficient bandwidth to suppress the underlying fear, which then allows us to excel… in this case in spite of the sea of faces seemingly ready to devour us.
This all seems to make sense from an evolutionary perspective… I’m guessing that it’s the amygdala which alerts us when things are out of the ordinary, like creaky floorboards or alarms of various kinds, irrespective of whether we are totally immersed in some task or even fast asleep.
So immersed was I in this topic that I had run five minutes down the road before I realised that I had forgotten my door key… thank goodness that we’re both homeworkers!
The run itself was similar to all my other recent ones… more adventurous than the running machine, but not by much. This is not to say that it was not enjoyable… I love allowing my mind to roam across the landscape of houses, cars, people etc that I encounter.
I also love it when the amygdala is obvious in kicking in… in this case to duck me underneath a bramble that was hanging across the pavement, unseen until the very last moment because i was so busy thinking about other stuff!
Just under 2 miles in just under 20 minutes & managed to catch Kim between virtual meetings so didn’t have to wait on the doorstep too long.
I’ve been working hard to create a habit around running two times a week and this photo shows another five and a half weeks of success. Each run may be only one mile, but (combined with a small amount of yoga 4-5 times each week) there is no doubt that I feel holistically better as a result.
The other thing that has been on my mind for a while is posture. Those of you who know me will confirm that I’ve been ’round’ in the shoulder department since I was young… despite the number of people who have encouraged me to ‘stand up straight’ over the years. I typically ask for critical feedback at the end of workshops and one group was forthright enough to use those exact words!
When I started teaching presentation skills a few years ago I had to figure out how to explain to other people how to stand up straight (even though I found it difficult)… bizarrely I discovered that this requires only brief focus on your big toes and heels.
Later, when I was trying to sculpt the collar bones on an alabaster figurine (that’s another story, but the photo below shows the drawing on the original block and the finished piece), I discovered a further layer of insight… those people with great posture seem to have collar bones that are almost horizontal.
Put these two insights together and you have a simple recipe for improving posture.
The American organisational theorist, Russel Ackoff, suggested that there are three things that we can do ‘to problems’: we can solve, resolve or dissolve them. Solving is akin to curing a disease; resolving is managing the symptoms (like taking hay fever tablets); and dissolving is changing other factors such that the disease does not manifest (like staying inside to avoid pollen).
My sense is that the insights above are dissolving the postural problem… it doesn’t go away (at least in someone at my age) but by developing new habits elsewhere in the body, there’s a chance that the round shoulders will not manifest. Then the challenge is simply about keeping that basket of habits going until they become second nature.
I’ve been trying for a few months now and can report that its non-linear… nothing seems to happen for ages but the body starts to recognise the movement that is required, the muscles start to develop as they get used a little more often and that means that the desired posture can be held for slightly longer each time before it lapses.
Like my weekly runs, it’s about finding triggers that cause you to act with the least cognitive input, such as running Tuesday and Friday mornings before breakfast, standing up straight whenever I clean my teeth, sitting up straight when I first sit down and smiling each time I remember to do these things as a way to connect them to positive feelings.
Whilst I am eternally grateful for the positive attributes that I have been afforded, I often feel that I have learned way more through working hard to solve, resolve or dissolve one of my (numerous) flaws. One step at a time 🙂
Actually, whilst the run last Friday was slower (and the writing about it clearly yet slower still as I’m only doing it now), this morning’s run was marginally faster… though there’s not enough difference to call either run anything other than 2 miles in 20 minutes.
However, there were two dimensions where there were differences between the runs. Firstly the weather warmed up a little, from frozen-solid puddles last week to the removal of my hat & gloves this morning through being too warm. Secondly, the after-effects of the short runs this year, including last week, had been minimal, but I’ve really crashed today & feel quite tired. Though, of course, it may also have something to do with having to compile my quarter-end VAT return!
I think that my aim in February will be to add a one-mile run on the machine each week… watch this space 🙂
I had a busy day lined up for Friday, but much of the work that I do requires creative problem solving (hence my paper and videos on the subject) so I used a run as a way to think about a new task.
Before the run I spent half an hour immersing myself in the task. This allowed my subconscious to work on the problem in the background whilst I was running. Then later, when I returned to the problem, I was more productive though I ultimately didn’t make as much headway as I would have liked during the day.
The run itself was pretty much a repeat of last week’s 2-miler, with a very similar time of 20 minutes, similarly chilly yet calm conditions and a similar approach to the dirty laundry 🙂
