I had really heavy knees as I went out this morning to run around the block. 1.87 miles in 18 minutes, but I felt much better by the time I returned.
21 runs across the winter
When I started this blog, back in 2007, the idea was to encourage me to both run and write. I have been running (a little) across the winter, but I’ve clearly not had the time to write about it. This is probably because I’ve also been teaching one day each week across that period, a task that demands good preparation and verily soaks up any spare cognitive energy during non teaching time! The tally below relates to one-mile runs on the machine.
October: 2 runs
November: 4 runs
December: 3 runs
January: 5 runs
February: 4 runs
March: 3 runs
Fabulous
Daren, Lyra & I went for a gorgeous run this morning from the Windmills to Ditchling Beacon & back… 4.24 miles in 47 minutes 🙂
Leaping forward into the Year of the Tiger
Happy Chinese New Year 🙂
Moving conversation
I’ve spoken many times about motivation in this blog (across 14 years… yikes!) but it’s worth reiterating here.
A simple aim drove me back in 2007, relating to running and writing, where one drove the other in a virtuous cycle. Preparation for the occasional race or longer run (or even fast walk, as in the Tour du Mont Blanc in September 2011) helped me to push to increase the mileage in some years. More recently there has been a health aspect, where I really need the aerobic exercise. But the other thread that has, er, run through this blog is my desire to be fit enough to run with friends. The one-mile runs on the machine are fairly minimalistic, but the fact that I’m running means that I’m at least able to run.
That’s the theory, at least.
It was nice to be able to test the theory yesterday with a run with Daren on the Downs. I must confess that I felt some trepidation, given that even when I’m fit I find it hard to walk for a couple of days after our very hilly 6-mile circuit. But Daren had a plan, which started with us meeting downstairs (for any new readers, downstairs = Clayton rec, at the bottom of the Downs, by comparison to upstairs = the Windmills at the top of the hill).
We ran along the lane, deep in conversation, to the bottom of the Tank Tracks, the half mile track that goes directly up the 500 ft scarp slope. We love this hill (I once ran up and down it seven times in one go, for fun) but there was a point last year where I could no longer run up it. However, the runs on the machine had clearly had at least some effect and we managed to run to the top without stopping… and even managed a bit of a sprint across the grass at the top 🙂
I know when I’m exhausted at this point in our runs because it’s hard to run down the hill to the Windmills, but that was not the case here. We had already decided that the run would be half of the normal circuit, but we put an extra short loop along the lane and back before dropping down the steep hill back to the cars.
Finishing without being in a state of exhaustion was a real result and the combination of shorter run and base fitness meant that I could still walk the morning after. Even when I’m fit, it can be sometimes difficult to walk on the second morning, but last year my legs were stiffening later on the same day as the run, making walking difficult for a couple of days!
So 3.2 miles and 600 ft height gain in 38 minutes… not fast by the Bok’s standards (he ran 6.7 miles with 445 ft height gain yesterday in 52 minutes) but fast enough for a moving conversation 🙂
Odd three
Having completed the clear goal of 21 runs for the last post, it was almost inevitable that my habit would lapse (yes, I’m human too 🙂 )
The next week I managed another two but last week I missed one and ran more slowly on the other one… but that’s okay as you’ll see in the next post.
21 run salute
I’ve been holding out for a couple of weeks to be able to use that title… simple things like this make me smile, which is never a bad thing!
This said, whilst I have been managing to complete two machine runs each week, my cognitive bandwidth has been too stretched lately to come up with anything of real interest to write, so holding out was no real chore! Having said this, it is possible that my head has been so crammed-full of other stuff that I have too much of interest to share.
I’ll give you just one example.
Have you ever reflected the amount of control that Finance teams have within organisations, by comparison to say HR or Marketing? Measuring the quantitative stuff (time, money, material quantity etc) is so much easier than measuring all that other messy qualitative stuff (happiness, satisfaction, experience etc) and this means that the Finance agenda tends to dominate decision-making.
As a result we tend to ask ‘Which of these strategies or new products shows the greatest return on capital employed?’ rather than ‘which strategy is going to give employees a bigger smile… leading to more discretional effort, greater customer satisfaction etc?’ Like the inebriated man searching for his keys under the streetlamp (where the light is better than where he actually dropped them) we tend to default to the quantifiable measures.
(I feel the need for a disclaimer here… I’m not saying that we should ignore the quants, just that we need more balance)
The same sort of challenge exists in management. We know that the most effective teams have members with diverse perspectives, alongside psychological safety so that each person’s voice is heard and considered. However, the task of managing this type of team requires much greater skill… not to mention a higher salary. It’s so much easier and cheaper to resort to some version of ‘command and control’, even though, aside from making the team less effective it directly affects the life experience of the team members and indirectly affects their families and communities.
We stick with all this quantitative stuff because it’s easy, or because it’s always been done that way, or because everyone else does it this way… but in the process we ignore the huge opportunity costs.
I was told last week that Brighton City Council had decided to stop treating the weeds in the local pavements. I’m sure that, aside from saving them time & effort (well maybe not that much effort, if you’ve ever seen the guys driving the mini tractors or grass cutters around), they can now justify their decision on environmental terms.
I’m not immune to the environmental argument, however a more balanced decision might factor in the needs of small children wanting to learn to roller-skate, or elderly parents and grandparents trying to stay active outside without tripping over. It might also consider the messages that we’re sending to young people about attention to detail and the frustrations of house-owners (aka voters) trying to get the best price for their house or simply feel safe in their home when the neighbourhood looks increasingly shabby.
Finance drives the agenda, but at great cost to everyone else.
From this one example of something on my mind (which isn’t even anywhere towards the top of my cognitive priority list), you may be able to see why I’ve not had the headspace to write lately.
I will endeavour to post on topic next time… and in the meantime I will try my best to keep up the running 🙂
Stay well and positive!
To do run, run
It’s Saturday again and I find myself sitting to write about another pair of short runs on the machine, one on Tuesday and the other earlier today.
I felt comfortable running at 7mph for two minutes at the end of the session today, and whilst that’s not really anything to write home about (I’m sure that I remember being able to sprint at 14mph for a couple of minutes in years gone by), I feel that I’m progressing simply by turning up and putting one foot in front of the other, one run and then another.
Do two run, run
I’ve been pondering the time aspect of habit maintenance… two minutes brushing teeth twice a day is easy, as is a five-minute shower… perish the thought that either don’t happen.
Amusingly, as these words tumbled out I realised that I didn’t actually brush this morning, because I jumped into housework mode first thing. I immediately felt the need to rectify the situation… my teeth are now sparkling clean, as I continue to write 🙂
My one-mile machine runs and blog posting, on the other hand, take more than 10 minutes and 20+ minutes respectively and despite the tremendous benefits of both, I’ve been finding them really hard to maintain recently.
It wasn’t always so. Several years ago I would spend a couple of hours running maybe 10 or 12 miles at the weekend, then spend most of the rest of the day recovering and writing… and then repeat the exercise with shorter runs during the week. I don’t feel the need to return to that at the moment, but it would be nice to be able to get back into the habit of doing at least a couple of short runs each week. Preferably outside.
Thanks to my hairdresser’s chiding I did actually manage to do two machine runs this week, but, as is clear from the title, only one piece of mediocre writing. Ho hum! Maybe it will be a little easier again next week.
What you might notice from the two photos below is that at least the time is slowly coming down. 🙂
Quick post
After my run earlier in the week I felt cognitively and physically revitalised, so I thought I would at least try to keep up the momentum. I was more mindful of the time today so ramped up the speed to a greater extent and could easily have got under 10 minutes. However, the main aim at the moment is to gently build back up so I can run a longer loop outside… there’s no point if I injure myself by being competitive!