I was determined to keep up the recent positive momentum and get out for a run this morning, so it was fortunate that we woke up early and to a beautiful morning. We were due to be at a celebratory lunch with friends for midday, but I still had time to sup a quadspresso, read a little more of Clayton Christensen’s fascinating book Innovative University and get in a leisurely run.
Thanks to Christensen, whose thinking I have always found particularly engaging, I spent most of the run deep in thought about new ways that I might be able to inspire my Brighton students in the autumn.
I was curious to know the extent to which my fast midweek run with the Bok would impact on my pace this weekend, so I deliberately took the same route as last Sunday… though it’s fair to mention that I had the benefit of some Jelly Babies that my Mum had given me.
I’ve been harping on about our narrow management (or cognitive) bandwidth for years… something that is really noticeable on the running machine where it’s difficult to think about anything much as the speed increases above 7 mph. Today the run passed in a blur and there were one or two occasions where I realised that I had done something completely without thinking about it… fortunately with no adverse consequences.
As I neared home I had a sudden realisation that, if I hurried down the final road, I might beat the time that the Bok set this week (only because I forgot to tell him until we’d almost reached the end of it). I did and I did… in fact I was only a second off my PB for this short section, despite the fact that I was only ‘hurrying’.
I’m not sure why, but having taken exactly the same route as last weekend, Strava calculated the distance at 6.9 rather than 7 miles… hey ho! So 6.9 miles in 67 minutes, an average of 6.18 mph (against only 5.75 mph last week)… I clearly need to run more than bi-weekly!
I casually wandered in and started to think about a leisurely breakfast before realising that I had about 30 minutes to get ready to go out. I rushed around and we then spent an extremely enjoyable afternoon celebrating an Emerald wedding anniversary and 80th birthday with 40 or so other lovely folk. The quantity of food I consumed more than made up for my skimpy breakfast!
