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Status anxiety

Most excellent blogger and friend Stuppsy has recently been asking where my running mojo had got to.  I’ve looked high, low and even in the pockets of running shorts that have been laundered, but all to no avail.  It’s temporarily absent… though I did find this nice clean ten-pound note.

Yesterday found me enjoying the peace of the tea-house and the moderate discomfort of philosopher Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety.

For an example of the discomfort, he quotes from the mid-nineteenth century psychologist William James:

‘With no attempt there can be no failure and with no failure no humiliation.  So our self- esteem in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.  It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities.  Thus

Self Esteem = Success divided by Pretensions.’

Of course, methinks, if you try to mix in Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s

‘Success = Skill plus Luck’, (and ignoring his real point, which is that great success = a little more skill and a lot more luck)

then, aside from the ensuing headache, you get

Self Esteem = the sum of Skill + Luck divided by (what I think of as) your Aspirations.

It strikes me that self-esteem should probably be at least 1 or above for us to be feeling good about ourselves, which means that if we aspire to greater things then we should be prepared to allocate time and effort to enhancing our skills and improving our nascent luck.

Curiously (for your writer really is making this up as he goes along!), another word for self-esteem is… mojo.

Sooooo…. if my running mojo is absent, then it probably = 0.  Assuming I still have at least some running skill and that luck remains relatively positive (at least I’ve not fallen over or pulled a muscle… lately), then what is missing is actually aspiration.  And as soon as aspiration rises above zero, then my mojo should return.

What all this means, in short, is that I need a new challenge.

Confused?  Hmmm… me too!

With half a book of these kinds of thoughts tying my head in knots yesterday, I retreated to the running machine to at least maintain my current skill level.

I continued the 7mph tempo from last week, noting that it was harder work, probably for the lack of a mid-week run.  What also didn’t help was the stitch I got from gulping down a Lucozade power-bar moments before I climbed aboard the machine… forcing me to focus on breathing rather than just being.

So 7 miles in one hour and apologies for the delayed posting… my office technology lacked mojo this morning and eventually conspired to stop me working altogether (and posting this).  We could choose to see something like this as unlucky, but as Alain de Botton might say (if asked), this is a matter of perspective… not so unlucky from the perspective of my parents, who got a little help in their garden as a result!

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A faster tempo hour

Sitting in the tea-house this morning deep in thought thanks to HBR, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to allocate any time to running.

I was still a little shell-shocked from having watched The Dark Knight Rises, the latest Batman movie, last night.  Whatever my expectations, I was stunned by the scale of this film… if you like fast-paced action films, then this is a must-see.  I really enjoyed it, even though we had somehow managed to miss the film that precedes it in the story… DVD being sought as I write this!

The highlight of my (already interesting) week was attending the Brighton Business School student awards on Friday and presenting Charlotte Horwood with the prize for Best Strategy Student, along with (appropriately) a one-year subscription to Harvard Business Review.  This was especially well deserved as she worked hard enough to graduate with a rare First!

I would encourage other business folk to engage with their local universities (not to mention schools and higher ed colleges)… it really is very inspiring!  Add to this the myriad ways that business and academia can collaborate to drive collective value and I’m surprised that more organisations don’t do it… though the 50 other organisations sponsoring prizes on Friday would seem to agree with me.

Despite the stuff buzzing around in my head this morning, I eventually reasoned that I needed to get on and run, so I climbed aboard the magic carpet with another tempo session in mind.

One of my curiosities at the moment is to what extent the conscious and subconscious can collaborate to good effect, so rather than trying to trick myself into running further that I initially planned, I simply decided to run for one hour at 7mph.

I covered the distance readout with a towel again so that I could focus purely on time-to-go and then set off.  My expectation was that the faster speed would preclude any deep thinking, but this was not the case at all.  In fact, at the end of an hour I had planned out two potentially interesting cognitive experiments.

With just over a minute to go I sneaked a look under the towel to make sure I was ahead of my 7 mile target, but found I was behind, so increased the speed to 9mph to catch up.

Overall, the run was relatively easy (as evidenced by the deep thought) including the short sprint and I could probably have run further if I had been in the mood.  This might well have had something to do with the mid-week run (from which I had tight calves for a couple of days).

Now I’m sitting back in the tea-house with my copy of HBR waiting patiently by my side… while I hurry to finish this post before my lap-top battery runs out!  Have a great week peops!

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A loud out

After more than a month sitting pining by the door following the brilliant Eye to Eye event, my mud-caked runners were finally allowed out to play yesterday.

It was a stunningly beautiful day, made more so by the ensemble which consisted of BIG man Daren, and Dai with Henna the dog.  We met upstairs at Jack & Jill and traced the well-worn path through Pyecombe and Wolstonbury Hill, to Clayton and the Tank Tracks.

The discussion was heavy-going to start with as we unpacked our general frustrations, but this lightened as the 6 miles rolled by.  1.25 of collegial conversation, with the 4.2mph average reflecting the steepness of the hills and the heat of the day!

 

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Tempo hour

My life is fast becoming a series of fascinating cognitive experiments.

In the week leading up to last weekend I spent 53 hours researching an alien (to me) commercial sector, first trying to gain a working understanding of it and later attempting to elicit valuable insights and present them in a coherent narrative.  

My approach to the fascinating project was based on one of my creativity hypotheses and whilst some time needs to elapse for the client to be able to measure the real value of the exercise, one thing was abundantly clear: it left me mentally exhausted!  Such that I wasn’t even able to contemplate a run last Sunday.

A contributory factor might have been a generously hearty dinner at Cliff & Nessie’s… where the combined testosterone from that many serious ultra-runners in one room was probably exhausting in itself!

This week has been fascinating for different reasons.  Tuesday I was a participant in a Phd neuroscience experiment into pain at Kings College.  This involved surprisingly little pain allied to the interesting experience of being scanned in an MRI machine, twice.

As I have aged so the subject of pain has become more interesting.  When I was young I remember my father periodically yelping in agony at various twinges brought on by the gardening which he used as a means to relax.  Now I understand those twinges first hand and the only evolutionary modification is that I try hard not to yelp!

Later in the week I had the privilege of helping Brighton Business School to review their new MBA syllabus.  It seems to be an increasingly common theme for me to help people look at challenges from a different perspective, even when, as in this case, the people concerned are consummate specialists and way more learned than I.

So after another thought-provoking week and with a fresh back-ache to ignore (brought on by gardening yesterday) I decided that I really must get a run in.

My aim today was simply to run for an hour, so I set the speed to 6mph, covered the distance indicator with a towel (and later the clock too) and just got on with it.  6mph is a great speed for thinking, hence the myriad thoughts above, whilst it is also not too draining on such a gloriously warm summers day.

6.07 miles in one hour, 6mph average.

And now on to my next experiment.  My sense is that I either need to strengthen my back by doing more gardening, or avoid aggravating it by doing less… no guesses which one I’ve chosen!

PS congratulations to my niece Kate and her beau Alex, who got married yesterday!

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Thinking

It was a muggy morning after a night FULL of rain (the front lawn was a swimming pool when I went to bed), but it was too lovely to be inside so I opted for a seat in the tea house.  I was particularly glad that I had ignored Mark’s offer of an 8.30am pick-up to go run the Chichester marathon!

I had been sitting and reading for some time, enjoying the smell of the honeysuckle and chuckling at the sound of a bird who seemed intent on waking the neighbourhood, when I had a minor epiphany.  Joseph Jaworski might even class it as a ‘predictable miracle’.

Epiphanies are not actually an uncommon occurrence hereabouts and this one involved a connection between the fields of neurogenesis and change management: it turns out that one of the reasons that scientists have thought until recently that the human brain is unable to produce new neurons is because the primates used in experiments were stressed…. I’ve lost you, I can tell!

Suffice to say that this is a very useful connection to have made and it gave me plenty to think about… so I decided to go for a gentle run.  Gentle is important here, since it gets more difficult to think the more quickly you run.

My aim was 5 miles at an average of 7mph, but after a first half mile warming up at 6mph, I realised that I would need to ramp up the speed to make my intended average.

7.5mph is just too fast to think clearly, but it was necessary so I paused my brain until I reached the half way mark to ensure I was ahead of the game.  Then I dropped back to 7mph for the rest of the way completing the distance in 42.5 minutes.  Average 7.06mph.

I guess that I should also have drawn a connection between muggy morning and running at more than 7mph… I was still dripping with sweat half an hour later, even after a cold shower!

I wonder if Mark managed to stay dry in Chichester?

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Putting my back into it

Those people who have dropped in on us unannounced will testify that we live in a relatively ordered, clutter-free way… down to the showers that get wiped down after each use and our somewhat Zen-like garden.  And yet, with six important visitors expected last Sunday, we still managed to spend most of the Saturday tidying the garden and the Sunday tidying the house.  All of which is a slightly elongated excuse for not running last week.

You will note that my excuse has nothing to do with the Eye-to-Eye odyssey.  I actually had surprisingly few side-effects for my 47-odd miles, although it’s fair to say that mid-way through the following week I suddenly developed a severe case of narcolepsy.

However, mid way through last week (eleven days after the odyssey) I suddenly developed severe back-ache.  This was most likely due to gardening, although by coincidence it occurred around the same time after the Eye-to-Eye as it (or something similar) occured after doing the Tour du Mont Blanc last year, so it might well be a case of over-heavy back-pack syndrome.

Which is my excuse for not joining Mark on the Downs at 8.30am (on a Sunday!!) this morning.

Although I had wimped out of a long run I was still mindful that a short run might indeed loosen my back, so I climbed on the machine this morning safe in the knowledge that I could get off at any point.

I started at 6mph and felt pretty-much-every-other–step jar my back for the whole of the first mile.  Increasing to 6.5mph for the second mile helped a little, as did increasing to 7mph for the third mile.  Some of this was probably due to my back loosening off, but it’s also much easier to skim along at a faster speed… if only I could hold it for extended periods of time!

7.5mph for the fourth mile was as fast as I wanted to go today so for the fifth and final mile I reduced back to 7mph, desperately trying (and failing) to do mental arithmetic to figure out the average minutes-per-mile covered.  As I’ve mentioned before, as the level of exercise increases, so the bandwidth available for processing data in your head decreases.

I completed 5 miles in 44.17, an average of 6.77mph.

I then spent some considerable time stretching-out while my muscles were warm (read HOT!)… in fact the front of my body looked as if it had been glazed, although you only get a sense of how lobster-like it was from the photo below.

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Eye eye

For some reason my weekend seemed to blur into one long day… probably because I didn’t make it to bed on Saturday night.  In fact, with the exception of some short intermissions, I was awake for 36 hours straight.

The reason for this long day started  at 7.30pm on Saturday, after a circuit around the London Eye, when 15 of us started running along the Embankment in the direction of… well, the Brighton Eye.

I have been vehement in my absence at any such Ultra events that the other guys have been competing in over the years, but this one was conceived by Cliff and Andy so it seemed rude not to participate… though only after a considerable battle of willpower with myself!

We had two support cars which carried Andy’s spare shoes and most of his running wardrobe, though, to be fair, most of the others also had large kit bags.  This enabled the ensemble to run with micro-packs holding water and emergency supplies only.

Since I was avidly trying to avoid doing the run in the first place, I had not attended the planning sessions and so pitched up with all my gear in my running pack… which weighed about 7kg including 2 litres of water.  Dai tried to persuade me to decant some weight into the support cars but… well, I didn’t, choosing instead to lighten it slowly by consuming all the edibles!

The support cars met up with us at predetermined locations along the route and provided additional snacks, hot cups of tea and, for those that had them, fresh socks, shirts, trainers, legs etc.  This also meant that we could choose which sections we wanted to run, with some people running only a few sections and others running the whole way.

The general idea seemed to be to walk up any hills and run the rest of the time and I had hoped to complete the whole distance by going more slowly.  It quickly became apparent that this was not going to be possible since, in order to maximise the time spent off-road, the route was torturous.  Map-reading never having been my strong suite, I had to keep with the pace or get lost… although keeping up didn’t prevent the group from getting lost on a number of occasions!

As evening turned into night turned into morning, so the differential between my pace and the others’ slowly widened until I would catch up with them only when they stopped to figure out which way to go or at the next refreshment stop.

Eventually, on reaching the support cars at Weir Wood Reservoir at just after 7am , I decided to hang up my sodden shoes… everyone else  having already taken refreshments and continued on.  I had covered more than 43 miles in just under 12 hours.

My legs were tired and my shoulders ached from the pack but I could probably have continued further… but only at a much slower pace.  My mind was also tired though and the lure of an escape was too appealing so I joined the kit bags riding between check points.

The aim was that everybody would at least complete the first and last sections so I was fortunate to have more than six hours to recover until the last of the others had completed the next 18 miles.

I then rejoined the ensemble as we ran the final four miles into Brighton… though run is not the right word in my case and the others had to wait for me to catch up before we ran the final hundred metres together.

The event, which covered more than 65 miles in about 19.5 hours, was topped off by a ride on the Brighton Eye.

The gang of 16 (including Paula, our one permanent driver) were amazing throughout, though my Top Banana award has to go to Nikki who intended to do half but managed to complete the whole distance… and still managed to disappear off ahead of me in the final section!

I didn’t ask for sponsorship, but if anyone would like to donate a little money to charity in recognition of my efforts, then please go to my Just Giving site.  The charity, set up 20 years ago in memory of Big Man Daren’s brother Clive Packham, encourages Scouts to participate in adventurous activities by offsetting some of the costs of travel or training.  I particularly like it because they insist that the Scouts themselves present a formal case for the money they need and then make a final presentation of the event to the Trustees.

Even small donations will be very welcome!

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More magic machining

Since I will now be participating in the Eye to Eye run next weekend (rats!) I thought I should keep up the mileage, though how exactly you train for a 64 mile run I have no idea.  In 1976, as my brother and his friend Geoff prepared to kayak the 1,500 miles circumnavigation of Iceland, a local reporter asked how they had been preparing.  His answer was something along the lines of beer and large meals, which I think was lost on the reporter.  My best preparation is probably to get some pounds on too.

In the meantime though I went for another run on the machine.

Eager to find a way to make use of the Kindle I decided to listen to the book again, though since the earphones were a pain last week I just put it on speaker.  Unfortunately the volume doesn’t extend far and the magic machine drones at an equivalent level, but I found that I could read the text and listen so could get a sense of what’s going on… I know the book quite well anyway!

As part of my experimentation last weekend I went to sleep wearing the (uncomfortable) headphones to continue to listen to the book, though the scientific evidence is stacked against it being likely to make a difference to my understanding.  You have to give these things a try though, especially on a long bank holiday weekend.

I’m on firmer ground in my understanding that the mind takes in less information as the intensity of exercise increases and I demonstrated this effect to myself today.  I had started at 6mph for a mile and increased the speed by 0.2 each mile until I reached 7mph.

My intention then was to reduce back to 6mph and increase the gradient from it’s normal 2 to a more hilly 4.  Instead, however, I only reduced the speed to 6.8 and within half a mile I had realised my error.  My concentration suddenly lapsed on the book and despite reducing the gradient to 3, I still struggled to complete that mile at 6.8mph.  My subconscious also threw me a curve-ball by giving me motion sickness, presumably based on the fact that I was looking down whilst running rather than at the wall.

Either way I stopped reading and when I completed that mile I dropped the speed to 6.2mph for the final three miles.

The final result was 10 miles in 93 minutes, 6.45mph average.  I could have increased the speed at the end to keep the time to 90 minutes, but the aim for next weekend is to keep moving at a walking pace (even if I end up doing only a couple of the legs) so there is no point in exciting the fast-twitch muscles!

 

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New mind games

Anyone who has a Kindle will know that there’s a lady who lives inside it who can read your book to you, should you be otherwise engaged or too lazy to do it yourself.  They too might have tried this feature and will have also probably have chosen to leave the lady to twiddle her thumbs, on account of her intonation.  Or rather, relative lack of it.

But this gave me an idea.

We don’t necessarily have to be fully focused listening to something for the sub-conscious to take the information in, so an automaton voice could be quite useful for its monotonous clarity, even if the audible structure of the sentences don’t always make sense.

And since what I had in mind was a boring tempo run, I wondered if it might be an interesting way to inculcate myself with the contents of the book… rather appropriately a book on the subconscious.

Unfortunately the volume would not go high enough for me to be able to hear the words over the rumble of the running machine so I had to don earphones.  Kim was delighted!

This in itself had two side-effects.  Firstly I had to wear a t-shirt to clip the lead on to.  Secondly I had to hold the lead to stop it jumping around and being caught by my hands as I ran… the result of which would presumably be bye-bye Kindle lady as she jumped off the running machine console to land under my feet.

After a few dry runs and thus entangled I started to run and to listen.

I know that as we try to maintain a faster speed, so any surplus conscious processing reduces, so I had the perfect excuse to run slowly and I started out at 6mph and although I tried to go faster, settled on 6.5mph.  Around the five mile mark I realised I was going too slowly to meet my internal goal so I increased first to 6.6, then 6.7 and eventually 6.8mph.  With half a mile to go I increased again to 7.5mph in order to neatly complete 10 miles a few seconds under 90 minutes.  Average 6.67mph.

I have no way of measuring the results of the experiment, but it was certainly more of a positive distraction than the radio station I used to listen to when I’ve done longer distances on the machine in the past.

Why the longer distance?  I may or may not be running a leg or two in the Dargonne overnight Eye to Eye run in a few weeks time… it’s a 64-mile question that I don’t yet have the answer to.  I’ve said I will run if Cliff bought me a ticket to ride (on the London and Brighton Eyes) but only he knows the answer to that at the moment.

But I thought it was worth getting ready just in case!

Of course, I suppose I could be persuaded to do more than a token amount of it if there were a few leveraged monetary pledges for my favourite charity to encourage me and I will take any comments below into consideration…. though hopefully no-one will read this far through the post to take me up on the offer!

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Hot banana

It was HOT today!  Even with a breeze blowing through the house the temperature was still in excess of 80 degrees.  Outside it was way hotter still, so it was going to be a hot run whatever.

I opted to run inside and decided that there should be no mind-tricks today: I would be happy with five miles.  Sticking with the intervals of late I started with 6, 6, 7, 8, 6 to warm up (huh?) before repeating 7, 8, 9, 6 four times.  This was definitely exertion, but not by comparison with some of the recent sessions in view of the heat.

A hastily eaten banana ahead of the start of the session thankfully caused me no discomfort and having completed 5.25 miles in 44 minutes  (7.16mph average) I went for a very long, cold shower!