It’s been a while, but house guests often stimulate the neural links to spark new ideas, or forgotten habits. So, with thanks to my temporary house guests Nigel and particularly Kristin, I have done both yoga and a one-mile run on the machine this morning.
Regular readers will already know that running tends to lower my resting heart rate and help me think more clearly, both of which would be useful at the moment given a range of really interesting cognitive challenges… ones which are largely positive in nature, but gnarly nevertheless 🙂
While I have your attention, I’d also like to report that I had a short mental break last night. It had been raining most of the day, and I’d had my head buried in my work, so I stuck my head out of the window to get some fresh air before bed and realised that it was really calm and warm outside.
So I went to sit in the teahouse for a while, with the sweet fragrance of the honeysuckle drifting across from time to time, and a short rain shower pattering gently on the roof for added effect. The photo below makes it look quite light, but by the time I headed back to the house it was difficult to see in the darkness. Overall, very calming 🙂
Okay, so I was running around the local ‘hood again, and not deep in the woods at all.
But the neurons in my head have been firing up nicely recently, to first compose a piece of guitar music that even the amazing Lucas Cook might approve of, and to then put some half-decent words to it (my first new song lyrics since the beginning of 2022).
The words reference a place on the western edge of Washington State called La Push where lush rainforest gives way to a bright beach that takes the full force of the Pacific and regularly collects the remnants of waterlogged trees the size of articulated lorries.
Deep in the woods at the edge of the world
There’s a place where the waves come thundering in
Some that are blue, some that are tall
And some that come crashing to the surprise of us all
et al, la, la
My head has been full of other stuff too, recently, so I really needed a run this morning. It really wasn’t an appealing thought, as I sat in the teahouse with my coffee, but the sun was out in full force and I pushed on out the door.
I stuck to the short circuit so I could get back to my desk, but just over 2 miles in 19:31, 9.42 mins/mile, is a really good pace for me 🙂
Sitting in the teahouse this morning was really lovely, quadspresso in hand, listening to the waterfall gently splishing.
Running has been on my mind recently, for all of the reasons I mentioned a few weeks ago and this morning the planets aligned to actually make it happen.
My now-normal short circuit is just sufficient to keep me exercised, but today I added a short exploratory loop which marginally increased the distance… breaking a cognitively-limiting pattern.
In other news, I’ve lost count of the age of my running shoes, but they are still surprisingly comfortable, despite the slowly deconstructing inners and the only-distant memory of splodge. However, the guys at Run would not approve and I really must visit them soon to confess my sins & make amends 🙂
2.25 miles in 22:23 , 9.55 mins/mile, is not a bad pace for me, and I even look as if I’m enjoying it more than last time 🙂
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.
Those of you who know me will know that I like to read, especially in the morning at the start of the day, feeding my mind in the same way that a subsequent breakfast will feed my body.
This habit used to lapse each winter, when I prefer to sit in the emerging gloom rather than put any electric lights on. However, last year I inherited a Kindle and I have found this perfect for providing those few pages of insight in a backlit format. It’s also more discreet than the kind of chunky books I often read and doesn’t stand out in our pleasingly-minimalistic sitting room.
Later this week I’m running a workshop on Change to the wider Sussex Projects team and whilst I’ve already done the heavy lifting of designing the session and the slide deck, I do like to flip through the slides each day, in the run up to workshops, to ensure that I’m really familiar with the flow.
Reading before a run is always helpful to help my mind using the exercise time to assimilate and throw out new ideas, so this morning I chose to read my slide deck rather than the Kindle.
It was only a short 1-mile run on the machine before work, taking just under 9.5 minutes, but mind and body are now both ready for the rigours of the rest of the week 🙂
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 🙂
With three weeks since my last run, I decided that it was more important to take it steady today and enjoy myself… which I did!
Whilst it wasn’t so warm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, a weak sun was pushing through the greyness which, along with a hat and gloves, made the temperature bearable.
I focused on flowing along gently and had none of the heavy footedness that I was experiencing a few months ago. In fact, I could easily have run further… although I can’t deny that it was a relief to get back in the warm 🙂
So, a smidge over 2 miles (I ran to the door and the warmth behind it 🙂 in just under 20 minutes. That’s not as fast as the last couple of runs, but only on the outbound leg, running up the hill… on the way back I actually matched the pace of the last two runs, which is pretty amazing given that I thought I was taking it steady!
Life is about to change here to some extent with both a new role and house guests imminent. New constraints always help to shine a light on the old routines and drive creative thinking about new ways of doing things, making for both exciting and daunting times ahead 🙂
No pictures of the run today, but enclosing one of my Mum’s Jade plant / Money plant, which has suddenly decided to flower. This is a really rare event, so I’ll take it as a good sign 🙂
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 🙂
