My Mother sent me an email earlier which mentioned Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw’s comments from the Andrew Marr Show this morning… which she paraphrased as ‘pull your socks up, satisfactory is not good enough!’
She had taken it as a personal admonishment and though I didn’t see it until I got home, the cognitive essence of the message clearly came straight through to me as I ran the last few steps to the top of Ditchling Beacon.
It was my birthday yesterday (thank you all SO much for the myriad birthday wishes!) and this morning I was reflecting on my chosen career path, which seems to involve a greater number of ups and downs than those of more conventional 48 year-olds.
No prizes for guessing that I’m currently on a down, though, if I remember rightly, Malcolm Gladwell says that the path to excellence in any field is a steep, gruelling, arduous and inordinately lengthy 10,000 hours of lung-busting effort, being forced to stumble and fall at every turn, etcetera… so I’m pretty stoic about it.
It had been flat grey outside threatening rain (likewise in my head) as I downed two quadspressos, and as I changed into my running gear it started raining, so I left in a hat and jacket. The rain was really light though and within half a mile I had removed hat & jacket so that I didn’t overheat… it’s clearly not autumn yet!
My plan was to run to Ditchling Beacon & back and I soon found myself passing Oldlands Mill where there is a lively open day today if you’re interested.
Ditchling was looking pretty, despite the number of houses being redeveloped and for sale boards… I’m sure that sometimes people are so fearful of change that they choose to (in this case) move, so that there is at least the perception of control.
The bare chalk on my favourite steep and gruelling route up the Beacon was damp in the occasional light rain and thus very slippery and I was glad that I discovered this on the way up the hill!
I reached the top in an underwhelming 55 minutes (5.45mph average for the 5 miles) so with little view to appreciate and presumably sensing my Mother’s thoughts, I turned round without a rest for the return leg.
It was not a good day to go quickly down this hill but I wasn’t feeling tired so once I got to the flatter ground at the bottom I started to push on a bit. Nothing heroic, just a little more effort.
I laboured momentarily up Lodge Hill (if you’ve ever seen it, you’ll know why) then resumed my slightly faster pace, passing an already busier Oldlands Mill. When I got back to the tarmac of Ockley Lane (with the rain now coming down a little more heavily) I pushed on a little harder still, though still not beyond a comfortable jog.
And thus I finally returned to the house, 10 miles in 1:41.
The quick mathematicians amongst you will notice that my return leg was 9 minutes faster than the outbound section… 6.5 mph average for the second 5 miles. That gave me something to smile about! Even the combined average of 5.95mph was faster than last week’s (brilliantly enjoyable) run.
Maybe my running mojo is getting its socks on ready to return… and maybe, with a little more effort on steep and slippery paths, that bodes well for my work too! Thanks Mum!
