Tag Archives: running

Distraction techniques / Running to the Beat

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Special thanks to Royal Mail for failing to deliver my race pack, meaning I spent a good portion of this afternoon familiarising myself with tomorrow’s route.

Out of sensitivity to my friends I’m still reluctant to discuss what’s made me so sad and contemplative this week. But given that it still dominates the majority of my waking thoughts I find myself at a loss to think of any other subject matter – except, perhaps, tomorrow’s half marathon, which has snuck up on me somewhat with all the other things that have been going on. It’s probably best that way really, as I haven’t had the chance to get too worked up about it (though I take great comfort in knowing I managed to complete the 16 mile Wholefoods run in sub-zero temperatures in March – surely it can’t be anywhere near as bad as that?) I’m not fundraising this time around, purely because I’m saving myself for when I do a full marathon (dare I say hopefully next year?) and really will need all the help I can get. I see this as a dry run (literally) for the main event, something to tick off the list along the way. I’m as physically and mentally prepared as I can be, and I have a target in mind (sub-two hours if you please), so all that’s left to do is some serious carb-loading this evening before a nice long sleep. I shall report back post-event – wish me luck…

 

 

All in the mind

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Yesterday I was berating myself for falling off the exercise wagon by neglecting to complete my weekly half marathon training with a planned nine mile run. My guilt was compounded by the fact Friday night had gone from ‘one quiet drink’ to a jagermeister-fuelled 4am finish, which meant the traditional post-booze self-loathing kicked in at about the same time as the lack of exercise self-loathing i.e. a double whammy of shame.

Fortunately, however, I managed to redress the balance of yin and yang by completing the missed nine mile (well, eight point nine nine miles, to be precise) run this afternoon – which is bordering on a miracle considering that I’d spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon and evening drinking punch at a tropical themed birthday party.

A few kilometres in I had serious doubts about completing the full distance, but then I remembered a conversation I was having with someone at the party yesterday. We were discussing sporting challenges and how mental strength is as important if not more so than physical strength when it comes to both training for and completing a race. If you don’t believe you can do it then in all likelihood you won’t – not because you can’t, but rather because in failing to believe you can do it you are, whether consciously or unconsciously, making the decision to fail. As I ran today and remembered the conversation I felt physically as well as mentally lighter, and the remainder of my run, despite my initial lethargy, was actually enjoyable.

Of course, the concept of believing you can do anything you set your mind to should not be limited to sporting challenges. It’s something each and every one of us should try to incorporate into our daily lives. Positive mental attitude isn’t just a state of mind, it’s a state of being, and if you can achieve it then you really can achieve anything.

This was me metres from the finish line after the Blenheim sprint distance triathlon in 2010. You could say positive mental attitude is written all over my face – or maybe just relief it’s nearly over!

The lapsed athlete

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Just when you think the Great British Summer is drawing to an end it pulls out all the stops for one last week to show you exactly what you’ll be missing for the next nine months. It’s somewhat appropriate, then, that I should today be attending a friend’s tropical-themed birthday party to make the most of this final hoorah. Without wanting to be selfish, however, I must admit I’d rather like the temperature to be a fraction on the cooler side for next Sunday’s half marathon. The closer the event has got the more my training seems to have tailed off, so I need all the help I can get to avoid keeling over half way through.

I was reminiscing yesterday (over my second pint of cider) about how seriously I took training for my first sprint distance triathlon in 2009. So terrified was I of being unable to complete the race that I went cold turkey for a month beforehand, giving up booze and fags (these were in the days of my being a dirty smoker) completely. With the second sprint I was a little more relaxed with my regime, though when the Olympic distance triathlon came around I really knuckled down with the training to avoid full scale cardiac arrest half way around the course.

My first long distance run was the Whole Foods Market run in Kingston in March this year. At sixteen miles it was a serious challenge for someone who had previously never run further than ten kilometres. I trained hard and, fortunately, it paid off, as I don’t think I would have managed to get around the course in the freak weather conditions (zero degrees and snowing at the end of March? Really?) had I not been at the peak of my physical fitness.

This time around, however, I seem to have adopted a rather more laissez faire attitude. I’ve put the time in and roughly followed the same schedule as for the March run, but if circumstances (read: social commitments / pub) have made it difficult to fulfil every running obligation then I (literally) haven’t sweated over it. The only big run I’ve missed to date is the nine miler I was planning for today (see previous comment about ciders in the pub to understand why that hasn’t happened), but there’s always tomorrow, right? Or maybe the day after…?

athlete

Near miss

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I’ve just looked at the time and realised to my horror that I haven’t written my blog post today. In truth I’ve been so busy with work, popping in to a friend’s birthday drinks, running club, cooking dinner, planning an exciting holiday (more on that later) and watching Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (I know, I know, not a good reason for nearly failing my daily writing challenge after nearly nine successful months of posting every day) it clean slipped my mind. But at least I’ve remembered before all was lost. Do I redeem myself in any way by saying I’ve almost finished a 2,500 word submission to a short story competition that’s due on Friday, the content of which is of a far higher calibre than any of the rubbish I’ve been churning out on this blog for the past few days? I thought not. In which case I shall simply have to try harder over the coming days to regain your trust – consider my wrists virtually slapped.

So about this holiday…It’s taking rather a lot of my waking attention at the moment as it’s just about the most exciting thing I’ve planned for a long time, besides the amazing travels of 2011, that is. I don’t want to say much more at the moment for fear of jinxing it, but suffice to say my hope is for a mini travelling adventure that will get the creative juices flowing faster and more furiously than ever. Watch this space…

Sunday, 9am

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It’s 9am on Sunday morning and my feet are already pounding the pavement. It wasn’t easy getting out here, but now I am I’m revelling in the coolness of the air, the absence of cars and other people. I run on through the concrete jungle, noting all the signs of last night’s excesses; a used condom outside a pub, a pool of vomit by a telephone box. The perpetrators of these crimes are long gone, most likely now lying in a bed that isn’t their own beneath a blanket of self-loathing. One group of young adults are still partying on a rooftop, cans of lager clasped in their hands, teetering on the brink.

I run onto the common, relishing the green space even though it’s flanked on all sides by road. There was a festival here last night and there’s still a trace of sweat and booze and hot dogs in the air. Men in orange jackets clear the remnants as occasional dog walkers and clusters of military fitness groups pass by. Everyone is resolute and unswerving in their purpose, like worker bees. I take a lungful of damp air and look up at the grey sky overhead. My feet splash through puddles, catapulting splodges of mud onto my calves.

I run on.

Acts of charity

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I’m currently reading Khaled Hosseini (he of Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns fame)’s wonderful new book, And the Mountains Echoed. In it (don’t worry, no spoilers ahead) there’s a character who makes great gestures of kindness, but who only ever does so in a very public way. In other words, it could be said that were he not to get recognition and praise for his actions, he might not feel it worth doing them in the first place.

This morning I rose early to run from my flat in Clapham to the flat my boyfriend’s just moved out of in Camden. I needed to do the run as part of my half marathon training, but had selected the route as I’d been asked by my boyfriend to pick up the last of his things, and latterly also by his flatmate to pick up the sofa cushions from the dry cleaners. None of this was any trouble as far as I was concerned, I was happy to do them a favour and help out.

When I reached the dry cleaners and discovered there was an outstanding charge of £35 on the cushions, however, I’ll admit my spirit of generosity waned somewhat. Fortunately I had brought my cash card and was able to pay, after which I duly traipsed back to the flat to put the aforementioned covers back onto the cushions – which turned out to be far from an easy task given their size and the amount of feathers that flew out with every squeeze. Fifteen minutes and several swear words later I was standing in the living room triumphantly surveying my handiwork in successfully reintroducing the cushions to their covers – the downside being that I was now ankle deep in feathers and the living room looked like an illegal cock fighting ring. Cue an impromptu tidy up mission and more cursing, whilst the part of me that had so happily agreed to do the favour in the first place steadily began to regret the decision.

The main – rather uncharitable -thought that went through my head at that final moment was “they’d better appreciate this,” which is when I drew a parallel with the character in the novel I’m reading, and also when I wondered the following question: Is doing someone a favour any less charitable if it’s not the act of doing the favour that gratifies you but rather being thanked for having done it? Furthermore, do we as human beings have a deeper desire to help one another or to help ourselves? Which is the most prominent driver?

Those who do favours for others gladly and happily without grumbling or expecting thanks are clearly the most admirable. But surely there’s still something to be said for the rest of us mortal beings who do favours for others and do then expect thanks in return? After all, there are plenty of miserly souls out there who would rather stab themselves in the eye than do a favour for someone else in the first place….Right? Or wrong?

Paving paradise

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When you’re young – and, for the purpose of this post let’s qualify that as being under twenty five – it’s easy to forget your mortality. Most people in this category (in the western world at least) are blessed with good health and supple joints, and find it relatively easy to exercise if they actually put their minds to it.

I was a late bloomer when it came to discovering the joy of regular exercise. It wasn’t until I reached the grand old age of 26 that I started to go to the gym frequently and took up running and triathlons. Fast forward five years and I like to think I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been. Or at least I would think that if it hadn’t been for my recent spate of injuries.

First I put my back out two days before Glastonbury-an affliction that was fortunately managed with the help of slow release Ibuprofen, heat patches and an osteopath treatment in the healing fields on the second day.

Then today came the one I’ve been dreading: my first running injury. I was six kilometres into an eight kilometre run when it happened-a sudden acute pain in the muscle at the back of my knee. I carried on running for a while, but when it became apparent the pain was not going away I was forced to walk the remaining two kilometres.

This was displeasing, and has completely burst my bubble of invincibility when it came to running. I am suddenly both physically and mentally pained by the realisation that my body isn’t as strong as it once was. I may be looking after it now, but when it was in prime condition I was systematically abusing it with crap food, fags and litres of Bacardi Breezer and Jagerbombs in the student union.

Wasn’t it Joni Mitchell who sang about not knowing what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, apparently. Now I know how she feels.

Glory days

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Whoever has stolen the weather from some far flung tropical clime and brought it here to the UK deserves a medal. No, more than that, a knighthood. There’s simply nothing better than returning from holiday to find the weather at home equally as good as the place you left behind (apart from going on another holiday immediately afterwards, that is, but that would just be greedy). It softens the blow somewhat, that’s for sure. As does freelance Monday which, I’m afraid to say, I slightly shortened today with the insertion of a lazy middle of the day picnic in Brockwell Park with some friends and their baby. But sometimes you have to go with the flow and make the most of good fortune when it smiles upon you(r country). And as any Londoner who’s spent any length of time in this fine city will know, spells of good weather like this don’t come around too often.

The only down side of this fabulous weather (if one could really classify it as a down side) is that it makes running even harder, not just because it’s physically hotter but also because it’s harder to motivate oneself to exercise when the sun is shining and one would really, let’s face it, much rather be lying on the grass than stomping all over it. That said, I’m pleased to report my first 5k in almost a fortnight was completed in a rather respectable 27 minutes (had I not had my running club friend as a pacemaker I’m certain I’d have been considerably slower). And whilst at the time I felt I might be about to meet my maker, as soon as it was over and the familiar warm glow of satisfaction washed over me I felt much better. Which is just as well, because it’s less than nine weeks until my half marathon, and if I really want to avoid an early brush with Heaven I’d better get training…

The runner

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She closed the door behind her and began to run, her feet pounding the pavement with reassuring clarity. As every second passed she felt the muscles in her chest relax. She breathed air deep into her lungs and expelled it forcefully. In, out, in, out, as if she was on autopilot. He couldn’t hurt her here, the streets were her domain. They whispered all their secrets in her ears. They knew she was like them; sleepless, never alone and yet lonely beyond words.

Nobody knew what she was going through, she was too ashamed to admit it – sometimes even to herself. She’d known from that first time it would be silenced, swallowed somewhere deep within her like Jonah in the whale; too far down for her screams to ever find release. He’d apologised, of course, begged for forgiveness and wormed his way back into her affections. Like a maggot in the core of an apple he’d corroded her from the inside out. She still looked the same on the outside, but inside she was empty, a gaping, hollow chasm of pain and despair.

Still she ran, as the sky began to darken and fat rain drops plopped onto her cheeks and mingled with her tears. How could she leave him? Where would she go? He’d severed all her ties, there was nobody left to save her. Her bruised skin slid like water over the weary mountains of her bones. Each step sent shooting spears of pain up through her veins like bolts of lightning. But she didn’t care. She would run on, she knew that now. Until her body was as tired as her mind and she began to stumble on the cold, hard ground beneath her. Until the night turned into day and the birds began to sing their morning song. She would run on.

‘W’ is for ‘Well’

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It’s funny the effect being under the weather can have on the mind and body. I use the term ‘under the weather’ because I’m referring not to a state of full-blown illness, but rather one in which you exist in a perpetual state of feeling just below par, as one feels when afflicted with the common cold. You’re not too ill to work, or do the weekly shop, or even to socialise with friends. But all the while you’re acutely aware of not being the best version of yourself; hardly surprising given that your body’s putting all its effort into fighting off the bug that’s threatening your immune system, leaving little energy for anything else.

It’s often not until you’re fully recovered that you realise quite how below par you’ve been feeling. I found this out today, when I donned my trainers and went for my first post-cold run. This time last week I attempted a run despite having a scratchy throat, and was forced to turn back after ten minutes through sheer exhaustion. Since then I’ve laid off exercise entirely, feeling uncharacteristically unbothered by my lack of exertion. But today, for the first time, I woke up full of energy. And I just knew I was better.

When I set off on my run and settled into a comfortable pace I felt as if I could run for miles – which I did; five of them to be precise. Each one was as glorious as the last, and as I ran from Clapham to Battersea, around the park, along the river and back in bright sunshine with new music playing on my iPod, the world felt as if it had righted itself once more. I returned with a smile on my face and a song in my heart: It’s just so wonderful to be well, and better still to have those occasional moments when you actually appreciate it.