FosterRuns – Page 19

December 1, 2013

Fast tempo

I remember being in Mrs Simpson’s class at Woodingdean Primary School, which would make it the early seventies, when I first tasted a Kiwi fruit. The combination of this memory and the fact that I’m a Chinese Wood Dragon meant that Waitrose had a pretty much guaranteed sale when I saw this Pitahaya or Dragonfruit on the shelf. It’s actually the fruit of a cactus called Hylocereus and it was such a new line that the staff hadn’t even had a chance to try it, so we had to look on-line to see how to prepare and eat it.

It is full of vitamin C, antioxidants etc (that is, it’s healthy, so long as you don’t eat the pink outer skin) and is a little like a Kiwi in both taste and texture… close enough in many regards to make the less expensive Kiwi a more appealing prospect. Nice to try though.

I’ve had a couple of manic weeks and didn’t get around to writing last weekend… more specifically as a result of having to mark twenty 3,000 word essays on different aspects of entrepreneurship. I used the same excuse for not running last Sunday, but that didn’t mean that I had no exercise… in fact, I had really stiff legs for most of last week!

The reason for this was Clive’s 50th birthday party on Saturday night. There must have been 200 people there, of all ages, but it was the Falmer class of 1982 who dominated the dance floor with their totally weird gyrations. Still young enough to have the stamina to dance all night, old enough to be really embarrassing to anyone under 30!

It probably counts as the most fun I’ve had all year!

This week I’ve had the first normal weekend since July. Weekends in August & September consisted of recovering from heavy weeks in Cambridge, finalising modules for my Brighton Business School course and then driving off on a Sunday evening. Those in October and November have consisted of reading and preparing for Brighton, UCL or Terbell lectures.

Aside from catching up on sleep, my ‘normal’ weekend has consisted of minor chores such as cleaning the windows with Kim, washing the cars, stretching out a painful shoulder from these activities etc and more enjoyable things like reading, playing guitar and so on.

This morning’s run fell in between these two categories. To build on my good work two weekend’s ago I decided to attempt a tempo run at 8 mph… that is, running at the same speed for the whole duration.

The machine needs a little time to get up to speed, so despite running at 8 for the first two miles I was about 12 seconds behind at the halfway mark. As a result I ran the next mile at 8.1 and the final one at 8.2 for good measure, clearing 4 miles with seconds to go.

It was hard going, but at least the discomfort was balanced in all areas, with nothing standing out to put a stop to proceedings. Whether this training regime will result in a faster latent running speed outside is yet to be seen, but it’s an interesting (if not wholly enjoyable) exercise.

4 miles in 30 minutes, 8mph average.

Next week is looking a little quieter at the moment and although this is ot good, there is still time for new challenges to arise! Have a great week peops!

November 17, 2013

Stretch goal

I’ve had yet another hectic week: bearing in mind that we tend to evaluate things based on the high point and the ending, this was a GREAT week. I had a series of interesting conversations: with students at UCL; with employees during a change management intervention; and with the engaging children of the client concerned. I also managed to save a client a steep fee through bootstrapped recruiting. The week then ended on a real high, teaching twenty extremely hard-working Terbell PostGrad students… thank you for leaving me with a really BIG smile on my face at the end of the day guys!

One of the concepts that I teach (and utilise) on my Team Dynamics module for Terbell is Matthew Syed’s Purposeful Practice. Syed’s concept, drawn from his experience of becoming a Commonwealth Table Tennis champion, involves constantly seeking to fail at what you’re doing during your practice sessions. His model asserts that by constantly pushing the limits of our mental and physical boundaries, we slowly increase the envelope of our abilities.

Two Sundays ago, whilst thinking about hypothermia and other stuff during my run, I was also pondering whether it would be possible for me to run four miles in 30 minutes… I had managed 3.77 miles, but I recognised that the gap was not insignificant.

My run in Brighton last week, where I maintained an average of 7 mph for 35 minutes, made me realise that my recent focus on speed over distance was actually paying off… even though it was time constraints (and laziness) rather than a training focus that had driven my choice of machine over muddy track!

So my goal, as I climbed onto the machine this morning, was to push the current limits in order to see whether this translates into an overall ability to run yet faster… Syed’s hypothesis is that it will.

I warmed up for half a mile at 7 mph before increasing the speed to 8.1 mph and settled into running at this increased tempo. I quickly realised that the fan was not blowing the air at me and that I had left my water bottle in the kitchen but, whilst not ideal, I did not let these irritations distract me from my task.

I consciously leveraged two insights: one from my childhood, where a Scoutmaster (who was a Police Diver) taught us to expel the lactic acid build-up in our lungs, by huffing out all the air between breaths, to prevent the stitch; the other from The Bok (Nick Broom’s appropriate pseudonym), who taught me to relax my hands, arms and upper body (and even my jaw) when running fast, in order to allow more energy to go to my legs.

I could see that I was adrift of my target after 3 miles so I started increasing the speed by 0.1 each minute to close the gap… I really started to feel the impact of the extra speed above 8.5 mph.

Still clearly adrift with a minute to go I ramped up to 10 mph, sprinting through the discomfort to hit my goal… but had I done enough?

I had! 4 miles in 30 minutes and an average of 8 mph… well done Foster!

Of course the irritating thing about Syed’s approach is that you can’t rest on your laurels, so I’m sure that next week will involve yet harder work! At least there’s a whole week to enjoy in the meantime!

November 16, 2013

Skating on thin ice

Last time I went skating was courtesy of Martin F in Sweden, where the ice was probably half a metre thick… except at the edge where we later went skinny dipping!

On Thursday evening my very good friend Jo invited me to a lovely event run by Venue Masters London which included skating on the newly opened Somerset House ice rink.

We had a totally glorious time figuring out how to skate again and racing round in circles!

Thank you to Jo and to the Venue Masters London team and other guests for making it such a memorable evening!

November 10, 2013November 16, 2013

Pier pressure

We’ve all felt the pressure exerted by our peers and last night I felt that inexorable pull as the first of my school friends turned 50 years of age… they always seem to be able to drag me along when it comes to age! I drove down to Andy’s party in Southampton with Cliff, who managed to persuade me, during the course of the evening, to join the crazy crew on the Pier to Pier run today. Not for them the straightforward route along the pavement… their route just had to do in the opposite direction and take a big 28-mile loop around mid-Sussex to get from one pier to the other.

Fortunately (from my current perspective, at least) I had my excuses lined up in a row… I had not run further than 3.77 miles for weeks, I was inundated with preparation for my current heavy workload of lecturing /consulting and I needed to be able to walk next week… unlikely if I did even half of the distance they were running!

I took a careful look at the route on the map to figure out which short section I could most efficiently run, time-wise and decided that I would join them at the end of the day for the final few miles to the end.

I met up with them in Ovingdean towards the end of a gloriously sunny day. Nikki had sadly succumbed to fatigue (on the last run, from the London Eye to the Brighton Eye last year, she intended to only run half way yet ended up completing the whole thing in style!) so there were seven left accompanied by two cyclists and Dai on his motorbike.

The running was easy as I was fresh out of the starting blocks, but these guys still had capacious reserves despite having run 25 miles! What I particularly enjoyed was the camaraderie, something you tend not to have on the running machine.

We ran on down to the kayak club, pausing to regroup and allow the last man to catch up ahead of the final dash.

The final dash ended up being exactly that, with Andy P inevitably unleashing a final burst of speed in order to cross the line first! Fortunately there wasn’t really a line as such to cross, so the ensemble all won first place at around the six-hour-mark for 28 point something miles.

As the sun started to head from the sky, I decided to make tracks back to the car, but I couldn’t resist doing my own pier to pier to pier run on the way. Of course I opted for the sensible direct route: it took me six minutes.

Thus I found myself running back from the West Pier to Ovingdean as the chill of the evening descended and a combination of this and my recent fast treadmill sessions spurred me onwards. Whilst the outbound route technically took me an hour and five minutes, including standing around chatting at the landward end of the pier, the return leg took me a mere 35 minutes… a respectable 7 mph.

We won’t mention the overall stats for the 8.2 miles ! (Well okay… 4.9 mph).

I shall now wait with baited breath for the next sublimely crazy challenge… increasing age certainly doesn’t appear (a pier?) to be dimming my peer group’s sense of adventure or creativity!

November 3, 2013November 16, 2013

Slow thinking

I’ve written before about how my thinking seems to slow, running on the machine, as the speed rises above 7mph. Today that didn’t seem to be the case, although it was this subject that I was thinking about so maybe it doesn’t count.

I was thinking that the reason why thinking slows is that the subconscious draws energy reserves away from non-vital organs to focus on those that really need it. I remember from the Michael Mosley’s BBC series about High Intensity Training that that the energy-management programme errs on the side of caution, persuading us that our muscles are more tired than they really are, so maybe the same applies here… especially since the brain is such a power-hungry organ.

I remember from both the marathons I have run, Berlin in 2004 and Brighton in 2010, that I succumbed to what I can only assume is a version of ‘the wall’. My experience was of an increasing internal dialogue, almost voices in my head, trying to persuade me to stop… which I eventually gave in to. It’s hard to get going again afterwards as the conscious resolve has been weakened and the subconscious is more fully in control.

As I ran on I started to think how this related to hypothermia, where signs of early onset include disorientation… I wonder if this is the same mechanism at work. A tragic example of this in extremis is mountaineers, such as those on Everest, who sit down for a rest and slowly freeze to death. It often happens on the way down when their energy reserves are significantly depleted after 12 or 15 hours of extreme exertion at altitude, in sub-zero temperatures.

The intense fatigue prevents the climber from thinking clearly: it is this lack of judgement that allows the subconscious need to ‘maintain energy reserves’ to override the conscious need to keep going. I have read and heard a number of chilling accounts of climbers finding someone technically alive though deliriously unable to move and one, though I can’t find the book in my bookcase, where the account is given in the first person by someone whose conscious fought back from the warm & comfortable seat in the snow. In that case, though being given up for dead by others, he did actually manage to make it off the mountain… a herculean feat of both body and conscious mind.

3.77 miles in 30 minutes is an average speed of 7.5 mph was no such herculean feat. Whilst my cognitive excursion might have it’s roots in all kinds of stimuli, it might also indicate that I’m at least adapting to the speed as a result of the recent fast but short Sunday runs. Something more to ponder on!

October 27, 2013October 27, 2013

Low mojo

After a full and challenging week containing a mix of lecturing, executive coaching and stay-away consulting, along with a working day yesterday catching up with all the administration, my mojo was at a surprisingly low ebb this morning. This was exacerbated by the realisation that the clocks had gone back overnight, meaning that I had got up somewhat earlier than I really needed to.

The only apparent upside was that by 8am I had already finished my quadspressos and guitar playing and was on the running machine starting to run.

I ran for 30 minutes as per the last couple of weeks, warming up at 7mph and ramping this up as the distance increased. As I finished the allotted time, covered in sweat, I had completed 3.71 miles with the average of 7.4 mph falling neatly between the results from the last two weeks.

Little else to report other than that the glorious bright red leaves on our Japanese Maple have finally fallen off and the first major storm is fast approaching. Despite this, the mild weather seems set to continue for a few weeks: no forecast yet on my mojo, but I’m sure it’ll be back to normal soon.

Have a great week!

October 20, 2013

Stoned!

With a little more flex in my schedule last week and rain forecast for Saturday and Sunday, I chose to spend a few sunny hours here and there working in the garden as a trainee stonemason in exchange for a few rainy hours working over the weekend.

This meant that that the stone garden and path has progressed well, to the point where I can now focus on other things.

Next on the schedule is a final version of the hastily thrown-together prototype panel that has been standing firm against the elements for a couple of weeks, and a hidden store to clear out the shed part of the tea-house.

The latter is to facilitate the latest idea, which is to create a frame in the tea-house to take a futon mattress… moving it closer to the original relaxation/contemplation purpose that I had in mind when I designed it five years ago.

I was up good and early this morning, making good use of the tea-house (and coffee) doing the readings that I had set for my students tomorrow. Fascinating stuff and all about self development and happiness.

Around half-ten I jumped on the machine, positively reinforcing the habit that I’ve created over the last few weeks.

I warmed up for a mile at 7mph and then started to increase the speed as per last week.

It seemed easier, so I pushed a little harder towards the end and completed 3.74 miles in the 30 minutes… a shade under 7.5mph average compared to 7.3mph last week.

I still don’t think I’ll be completing the marathon distance pier to pier run next month, but at least I’m running enough to have overcome the feeling of slothfulness! Although that could also be something to do with moving the pieces of a one-tonne stone jigsaw around!

October 13, 2013October 13, 2013

Project Man digs in

Last week was somehow more frenetic than any of the nine weeks that preceded it, despite generally not working the 11+ hour days that had typified the Cambridge project. Thus, when Saturday morning emerged, I was ready for a rest.

Hmmm… well, they say that a change is as good as a rest and since I’m not really one for sitting around, I opted for the former.

Kim and I had been looking for stone with which to progress the garden project and with a little desk research we found it… right on our doorstep!

I had been wanting to visit the local reclamation company Dorton for years, but it doesn’t have a particularly consumer friendly exterior. However, once inside there are friendly staff making sure that you can find what you’re looking for in this capacious Aladdin’s cave.

We found a metric tonne of rock… as you do.

With the rock ordered and the likelihood of dry days fading as autumn blows in, we seized the sunny day to prepare the ground.

Whilst I stripped the turf, Kim laid it back down in the new ‘working garden’ area behind the deck panel. It was back-breaking work for both of us, but by evening we had completed our task.

Fast forward to today and I was fully expecting to feel wrecked after all that hard work. But with the rain tipping down outside, all I could feel was really pleased that we had grabbed the moment.

I’ve been preparing for my Monday workshops on and off across the weekend and I finally reached an interesting inflexion point at a confluence of thought between the following two ideas… in the context of creating high performance teams:

First, Rory Sutherland, of Ogilvy fame, who said that ‘the circumstances of our lives actually matter less to our happiness than the sense of control that we feel over our lives‘ (it’s well worth watching this TED talk!)
Second, Albert Ellis, the forefather of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) with his ABCD model, which highlights the need to Dispel unrealistic Beliefs about Adversity to reduce the emotional Consequences that they would otherwise create.

I could see that there was a really important link, but I couldn’t quite grasp what it was… it was clearly a good moment for a run!

I hopped on the machine and set myself a 30 minute challenge like last week, this time donning trainers to protect my feet from the heat. I set the warm-up speed to 7mph and then increased it slowly after the first mile until I finally reached 8mph.

The run was harder work than last week, but the result was a little better too: 3.66 miles in 30 minutes, 7.3 mph average.

As I’ve noted before, I find it difficult to think clearly around 7 mph or faster, so it was actually a really great break from my cognitive challenge. Better still, Kim (a qualified CBT practitioner) quickly pointed out the connection afterwards… rather obviously, I guess, it’s simply belief.

I believe that we’ve had a fantastic weekend and that I’m now ready for another frenetic week! Have a great one!

October 6, 2013

Lightly toasted feet

It was a sublimely glorious morning and I wandered outside into the sunlit garden with my quadspresso. The chairs were wet with dew so I sat in the tea-house and let my mind relax, a sensible thing to do having completed an intense nine-week project in Cambridge.

As I sat and looked, so thoughts from my subconscious bubbled to the surface in the form of new ideas about the garden. A second quadspresso helped! Kim was looking out at me from her office and could tell that light-bulbs were flashing from the way I was standing and staring.

In my mind I designed a hidden shed to free up the tea-house to relaxation and a new partition to create a Japanese stone garden… both were seeds (or subtle challenges) that Kim had planted a few weeks ago.

Sated, I capitalised on the reversal from this deeply thoughtful mode by stripping off and jumping on the running machine. I decided to run for 30 minutes and slowly ramped the speed up above 7mph.

The run was as perfect as the day outside and I swept along almost effortlessly, the only mild discomfort being the slowly rising temperature of my feet as they were toasted on the belt of the machine. I’m not really sure whether this is the belt heating up or the friction of my feet on the grippy surface but either way it was a little like walking on hot coals… I imagine!

After 30 minutes I had covered 3.55 miles (7.1 mph average) and still felt great… apart from my lightly grilled feet!

I stretched outside, showered, had breakfast and then got into prototype mode to explain to Kim what I had in mind.

Looking outside, as I sit here typing, the prototype is complete, whilst Kim is researching deliveries of stone and the prospect of two new stages to the autumn garden project is very exciting!

September 29, 2013

Token gesture

My students and clients will attest to the fact that I’m forever encouraging them to spend ten minutes a day pushing their understanding through reading, or doing something they love but otherwise can’t find time to do.

It’s how I’ve managed to improve my guitar playing over the last three and a half years, compared to the previously lacklustre 35 years.

Today, despite not feeling like a run, I pushed myself to do just ten minutes… it might be a token gesture, but better to find time to do something, rather than continue to do nothing.

The weekend had a slow start. In fact is was a repeat of my nightmare journey back from Cambridge three weeks ago, except this time it was the M11 that was shut.

When I finally got free of it, after about six hours, I found myself stationary again on the M25, in almost exactly the same place that I got stuck before. Fortunately this time it was only for an hour or so!

When I finally got home, even I was surprised that the journey had actually taken a nightmarish 9 hours, 45 minutes… longer even than three weeks ago!

Yesterday was spent cutting grass and soothing the furrowed brow of my poor car (or ‘heated onezy’, if you’re reading this Grant), whilst most of today was spent relaxing (aka sleeping) in the garden!

My token run was ten minutes, 1.1 miles and 6.6mph… at which rate it would have only taken 17 hours to get home Friday. Worthy of consideration for the future!