Racing Hard at the LRB Bookshop

It was one of those little coincidences that make you believe the world can be a neater place than it really is. Yesterday I was in London and, as usual, visited the LRB Bookshop, where I saw there was going to be an event that evening. William Fotheringham would be in conversation with Richard Moore about his new book ‘Racing Hard’, which was the very book I had in my bag and was half way through. How could I not go?

For those who don’t know, William Fotheringham has been the cycling correspondent of the Guardian for the past 20 years and the book is a collection of his articles, with additional commentaries to put them into context. The shift of perspective of knowing what we know now and seeing how it was reported at the time is always interesting and for cycling probably more so than any other sport.

Initially I had been reluctant to buy the book as I knew I would have read most of the pieces when they were first published. Even if I could not longer remember the details, I argued, I knew the bones and the general take. But I should not have worried because as I began reading the book proved to me yet again that I can never underestimate my capacity to forget. I lost count of the times I was grateful to be reminded of things I thought had been quite well embedded. Aside from that, reading pieces side by side gave them a continuity that helped certain themes emerge more clearly. For example the development of the British Cycling programme, the application of science to performance, building professional and supportive structures and the development of talent, is the subject of a number of the best essays. They often seem to have been written with more enthusiasm and enjoyment, whilst some of the pieces on the Tour de France (where to be fair there is more of a pressure to get something out) were a little more guarded.

Nevertheless the big story of cycling as sport is always the Tour de France and it is a large part of the book and a large part of the evening was spent talking about it. Nothing wrong with that and I would have been disappointed if it was not the case. I never tire of listening to stories about the race, learning a little more about some of the characters, and hearing about the direct experience of being there. Aside from the theatre of a great sporting event one of the more interesting questions though was about something completely different: the shift of cycling from a working class to a middle class activity/sport.

Once you start thinking about this topic there are so many threads to unpick. At the activity level there is the development of cycle chic, to the number of people in the City using Boris bikes,  the expense and stylishness of equipment so that bikes become objects of desire, and the fact that, proportionately more middle class people take up exercise for health reasons. It would be interesting to back this up with knowledge of how the social make-up of grass-roots clubs has changed and how that relates to the use of bikes for transport. Perhaps i will have to see what I can find out. But there is other evidence of our changing attitudes, not the least being the fact that there was a literary event hosted by the LRB Bookshop.

At the sport level the background of new riders will be interesting to watch. It will be influenced, like other sports, by general social trends. The lessening in the amount of unstructured outdoors play and keeping kids in a physically undemanding school environment until they are older has to be compensated for by formal coaching and training. Organisations are moving towards being top down rather than relying on a talent bubbling up from local clubs. It is hard to find so many people physically hardened through manual labour as well as sport and the days of whistling down the pits to find the next Yorkshire fast bowler are long gone. Work and childhood have changed. Now it is middle class children who have  access to best facilities combined with an incentive as a career in sport is now seen as desirable across all classes. That is not saying sport has gone totally middle class just that the distribution has shifted.

Different sports have different profiles and traditionally cycling has been more working class than most but I think the success of British Cycling and Team Sky represents something outside of that, outside of class. It is the triumph of managerialism (or professionalism if you think that sounds better). It is about structure and goals, made possible by state funding and totally distinct from the pre-existing culture. Traditional assumptions have been questioned and many thrown out, coaches have been recruited from outside sports and athletes with the right physical and mental attributes, whether or not that had previously done much cycling, have been actively scouted. It is rather like a greenfield development compared to the brownfield site of traditional continental teams. 

All in all it was a stimulating evening and I was very glad I went to that bookshop on that day to find everything perfectly aligned.

End of Juneathon

I have no excuses. I came home from my break and felt tired after a long drive and so didn't go out. After I had missed one day I found it easy to miss another and so the whole thing was broken.

Bit of a failure really as I never got up to speed.

Juneathon 2013 Day 3 - A Gentle Stroll

Juneathon 2013 Day 3 - Walk  3 miles, Time 55m

In all these years of ‘athoning I have never tried to run everyday. Exercise - yes; but I am a great believer in the need for rest, recovery and variety. Two days on, one day off is a good pattern for me, so today I limited myself to an amble in the countryside. Just like yesterday, though, the core of the day’s activities had nothing to do with exercise.

There was a visit to the Bladnoch . It is one of the smallest distillers and one of the few remaining independents. It only has an output of about 200,000 litres a year, raised from a previous limit of 100,000,  which can be produced in just two weeks of the year. It is a traditional and friendly place and as you walk around you have few reminders that you are in the 21st Century. In an industry dominated by huge conglomerates, this is artisanal - and all the better for it.

A couple of miles away is Wigtown, Scotland’s cut down version of Hay-on-Wye.  It is a small, sleepy place but full of second hand book shops. I spent a chunk of the afternoon browsing and my favourite find was an edition of Francis Bacon essays, which had been annotated in beautiful copperplate by a student of Trinity College (in 1905 - he was very full with his notes!). All I can say is that hand writing has certainly deteriorated over the years.

So there you have it - a day of whisky and books. Who knew Juneathoning could be such fun

Juneathon 2013 Day 2 - Forget the exercise

Juneathon 2013 Day 2 - Run - 5.2km, Time - 30m

Blackwell - Main Hall

The reason I had to run so early yesterday was that it had to be fitted in before driving to the Lake District. I am away for a couple of days diversion and a change of scenery.  Today I woke up in Kendal and the morning’s run was  alongside the river Kent. It was perfect: the morning sun was out, the air was fresh but not cold and beside me the water flowed fast and clear. Yes everything was perfect except  me. Once again I struggled and it  was much harder than it should have been.  But I refuse to dwell too much on that and have no intention of turning this blog into some sort of misery memoir.

Instead I will talk about the pleasure I had during the day: of walking round Blackwell, the Arts and Craft house designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott, and then visiting the house of the great theorists who prepared the way for that movement: John Ruskin. Brantwood (Ruskin’s house) is one of my favourite places. It is not in anyway an example of good architecture (the exterior is a jumble) but the location overlooking Conniston Water is beautiful, the garden is bountiful, and the interior is a monument to all that Ruskin achieved (I just don’t know how he managed to write and do so much). It is a good place to sit and think ... and then eat (as there is a really good café ).

Blacwell - overlooking Windemere

Juneathon 2013 Day 1 - A good slapping

Juneathon 2013 Day 1 - Run - 3.5km Time - 19m

Don't just stand there - spread your wings

As everyone knows June is the month where you exercise everyday, supposedly as a form of fun. I should thus be leaping out of bed with a spring in my step and a song on my lips, looking forward to seeing the rosy fingers of morn’s early morning light, hearing the chirruping of birds, and sensing the fresh air passing over my skin... But somehow it is not quite like that - something is a little bit wrong.

For the past month or so I have lost my mojo and have not felt like doing anything much at all. It started (as it usually does for me) with a chest infection that hung around and left me feeling lethargic. lIt’s as if my world has been smothered in a soft grey blanket. “Don’t go out.” a voice would tell me “There is no point. You will only be disappointed in both your lack of speed and stamina.” 

Oh that siren song! It promises to protect your comfort and shield your esteem but it actually does the reverse. It closes down your world and leaves you with less.

I recently saw the film ‘A Late Quartet’, which is about the crises faced by a well established string quartet when their cellist discovers he is in the early stages of Parkinson’s and will shortly have to retire. In one scene he participates in an exercise class with other suffers. The instructor explains that the disease constrict movements making you take shorter and shorter steps and limiting your gestures, physically turning you in on yourself. To fight against this she forces them to stretch and move, to fight to expand their range of movement. 

Never mind the music, or the emotional angst and tangled relationships that drove the story - it was this small tangental scene that rang some bells in my head. I might not have Parkinson’s but the mind can play similar games and box you in. You need to shake yourself out of the stupor. It is my hope that Juneathon will do just that. I am looking upon it as a slap round the chops combined with a firm injunction to “Stop being pathetic!”. 

 In fact I took the idea so seriously I was up at 4:45 and out running by 5:00. (Who said I couldn’t be hard core?). OK it was not very far and I felt a bit rubbish at the end but that’s beside the point. It is the intention that matters.

Sometimes I think about barefoot running

I think about barefoot running a lot and yet I think about it hardly at all. This might seem a paradox (or just plain incoherence), but it isn’t. Really it isn’t.

When out running it is an irrelevance. I wear cushioned shoes¹ and have no issues with them. My mind is elsewhere. If I have to think about my feet I know a nerve is signalling me that something is wrong - and I don’t want that. Most of the time that doesn’t happen, and my mind can ramble and jump around without constraint. I have no great desire to concentrate over hard on the mechanics of what I'm doing and certainly don’t want to be the centipede who is immobilised because he can’t remember which leg moves next. However,  when reading or thinking about running in the abstract, I am fascinated by the subject. It raises questions about whether there is or is not a correct way to run or whether the physiology of each individual dictates their form. It is also an interesting example of how ideas grow from being the preoccupation of a few to gaining wider acceptance and how a minority with strong convictions can appear to dominate an argument but not necessarily change behaviour (the majority of runners still have quite a lot of cushioning on their shoes). Above all though it shows how little real evidence we really have but nevertheless how many people are convinced they know they are right.

I think barefoot running became a hot topic because it entwines two strands of thought that are powerfully attractive for most runners. The first is romantic and conjures up images of distant ancestors and how they evolved over the millennia evolved and is part of a common yearning to get back to nature. The second is the claim that it lessens the risk of injury (is there a runner alive who would not want to reduce the risk of being injured again?). When these ideas are woven into a compelling narrative they are close to irresistible. This happened in Christopher McDougall’s huge best seller Born to Run, which also contained the exoticism of a remote Mexican tribe capable of amazing feats of endurance, a mysterious man of the wilds, maverick American individualist, and the suspense of a race.  No wonder it captured the imagination of so many people. For normal runners though there was the story of the author himself who, within the book, represents everyman. He was a runner so injury prone  he had more or less abandoned the sport but through learning to run barefoot he was able to come back, better and stronger than ever. He is a  compelling example.

With the success of the book the trickle of articles about barefoot running became a strong flowing river. It is worth recalling though that before 2009 (when Born to Run was published) there had been growing interest in the potential benefits of changing running form to land on the forefoot/midfoot. Methods such as POSE or Chi Running frequently discussed on running forums and the Vibram Five Fingers had already been adopted by runners (they were originally deigned as yachting shoes), so the ground was well prepared the upsurge in interest. However the big shoe manufacturers were slow to respond. Perhaps they felt they had too much invested in the concept of protection and pronation control or that it would never be a big enough market to worry about. For whatever reason they left a gap for other companies to fill but that now seems to have changed and the traditional running brands are moving in, but some with more enthusiasm than others.

So that gives me four topics to think about when I think of barefoot running: romancing of the Palaeolithic runner; injury prevention; the response of sport shoe manufacturers; and the evangelical mindset of some proponents of barefoot running. I will write about each of them in future posts.

¹ If I am going to write about barefoot running I should perhaps declare my own practice. I tend to land midfoot. It is not the result of a conscious decision - it just happened that way.I am not, however,  a barefoot runner. I like some cushioning and a bit of a heel but I can't be doing with a huge, big heel as they get in the way. For me a benefit of the current trend is that there are now more shoes with less drop. I do however wear minimalist shoes, occasionally, when I am on the treadmill, doing my speed (don't laugh at the back) training.

Appreciating Achievements and a Generosity of Spirit

No one should need to be convinced that Paula Radcliffe was a great distance runner. It should be evident to the dimmest of intellects that breaking the world record for the marathon by such a huge margin that no one else has come close to her time in 10 years is a huge athletic achievement. It was not a case of just having one run where everything came together - she still has the three fastest marathon times to her name. She is the best women's marathon runner of the 21^st Century but she has not won an Olympic medal and the misfortune she suffered in those races has given some people the ammunition to undervalue, or even dismiss, everything else.

A couple of days ago the BBC carried an interview  where she talked about the probability that her days of competitive running are over. Injuries have taken their toll and the latest operation on her foot is taking a long time to heal. As she herself admits it was always likely to end this way, with the her body giving out before the competitive will has abated and it is unsurprising as a body can only take so much punishment. She is a classic example not only of what can be achieved with extreme dedication and hard work but how such regimes cannot be sustained indefinitely. Nothing illustrates this better than the fact that she ran for 18 years on a stress fracture (something a wuss like me finds hard to comprehend).

I would have thought that a great athlete facing-up to the end of their career would cause people to remember the highs and celebrate what was achieved but nowadays that is rather naive as the culture of the internet commentator seems to be quite vicious. For some reason (and I really don't know why as it is something I usually avoid) I read the comments below the article and was quite shocked at the abuse, mean spiritedness, and ignorance. Why? She has always seemed to me to a be a decent, honest, and committed as well as being one of the country's greatest runners we have ever produced, so why would people want to be so spiteful?

Athletics Weekly had the same reaction as me and posted an interesting article suggesting the lack of respect was caused by a culture that saw medals as the only measure of success. Perhaps; but I think there might be something else happening as well: the way some some people identify so strongly with the person they are supporting they feel personally let-down (almost insulted) if that person does not perform as expected. Sadly Paula Radcliffe was not fit enough to compete properly (or at all) in the last three Olympics and so could not show how good an athlete she was. When she was sitting on the kerb in the Athens marathon, unable to go any further, I saw heartbreak. Others, however, saw it as  quitting and an excuse to give up on her and pile-in. They saw vulnerability as an excuse for abuse.

Such people are best ignored as it is always better to try to look for the good in people and rejoice in examples of nobility or generosity. But thinking about it reminded me of a famous case from athletics history, which showed that people who really know what is involved in distance running can see triumph in what outsiders might see as defeat. 

Ron Clarke was the dominant middle/long distance runner of his generation, for example in 1965 alone he set more than 10 records, but he too never won an Olympic gold. His best opportunity should have been 1968 but that year the Games were held in Mexico City, at altitude, where his ability to compete was also compromised by an unbelievable IOC rule that no one could train for more than a month at altitude to acclimatise (sometimes you have to wonder what goes on in the minds of sporting bureaucrats). He thus knew he was at a disadvantage to athletes who had been born, or lived their lives high up, nevertheless he ran as he always did, from the front, albeit at a more leisurely pace. His plan was to run faster in the last four laps and at first that was what happened but with a lap and a half to go he was finished, without enough oxygen in his body. On willpower alone he somehow managed to complete the race but took 90 seconds for the last lap instead of his normal 64. He then collapsed on the line, under the bell and was in such a bad way the team doctor, Brian Corrigan, was weeping as he administered oxygen. People were worried about his survival and although he recovered there was permanent damage to his heart. 

For what it’s worth the winning time (by Temu of Kenya) was the slowest since Emil Zatopek, twenty years before, in London and it is Zatopek’s generosity of spirit of which I want to speak. He can lay claim to being the greatest Olympian of them all not only because of his achievements (he won four gold medals, three of them in Helsinki in 1952 where he won the 5,000m, 10,000m and the marathon) but because of who he was as a person. In 1966 he invited Ron Clarke to Czechoslovakia and at the end of the visit accompanied him to the airport. Just as Clarke was about to leave Zatopek thrust a parcel into his hand saying ‘this is for you because you deserve it’. It was an Olympic gold medal, one of the four. As Ron Clarke has said

"I do know no-one cherishes any gift more than I do, my only Olympic gold medal, and not because of what it is, but because of the man whose spirit it represents".

There is no reason for Paula Radcliffe to worry about internet trolls but if she is upset she should think of the gesture of Emil Zatopek and know that, as it was for Ron Clarke, her peers know what she has achieved and appreciate her qualities.

An antidote to the modern world

I found this article about working for Amazon haunting. What have we come to when staff are controlled in such microscopic detail that they are no more than fleshy robots? Only the computer knows where items are stacked and only the computer knows best route so there is no room for expertise  - remembering a layout, fixing a mental map, knowing what you are doing. But worse than that the computer knows how long you should take and makes sure you keep-up. No time for a chat or anything that would mark you out as human.

You could say it is a story as old as the industrial revolution and is there any difference with the production lines of the twentieth Century? I don’t know. Logically there are contiguous but most of those workers, especially in the car plants,were paid a good wage; there were unions, and a community. The line certainly forced the pace, allowed only so much time to tighten a bolt and limited the space for expertise but the Amazon world seems more atomised. The workers are controlled individually and have no collective rights -  it seems bleaker. Previous generations have had hard lives, ground down by work, but there have been hidden corners and ways to work round the edges of the system - the chance to find a little personal space. The cavernous warehouse echo;  empty of such places.

We all knew it would come to this. Science fiction has been writing about it for decades  but it still raises the question of what it meant to be human in the Twenty First Century. Where do we find our own interior life in a world where almost everything is shared and known?

A running blog is not the place to explore such wild and woolly speculative projects (and so I will go no further, except to say read this article from John Naughton that explains the template of the digital age and also read this tangentially related essay about the Google Bus and the effect on the neighbourhoods of San Francisco). A running blog is instead a place to remind myself what running means. How, despite all the technology and branding, it is still a basic, fundamental, human activity that connects us with our forebears. It is one of the ways we are meant to move and rediscovering this simple fact makes us feel more alive. It also provides one of those dark, fecund corners we can go to, to recover a sense of ourselves. We test the body and explore our physical capabilities, and have the opportunity to let the mind wander wherever it wants. Most thoughts will be (if you are anything like me) fleeting and  inconsequential but that is not the point. The point is the freedom.

Go for a run and you escape outside direction and are free from interruption (unless, of course, you take your phone with you).

Janathon 2013 Day 31, the last

Walk - 3.5 miles, 1h 5m. Weather - strong gusty winds, but sky was blue

Janathon has now finished; not with a bang, a grand gesture, a monster run or a hard session, but with a tame walk. But that was OK, I used the time to work some things through, by letting thoughts bubble up (rather than trying to force them). This freeform way of thinking is one of the pleasures of walking and one of the reasons why, as an exercise, it should never be underestimated. Sometimes we place too much value on the volume of sweat shed or the hardness of the task. Slow, steady activity can have great value.

This January, though, has been about more than exercise. Trying to find a Stoic quote for each day has been as challenging as getting out of the door; but I have managed all but two days and surprised myself. When I started it seemed a slightly absurd idea and all I hoped was that I would be able write at least a couple of posts linking practical philosophy to running .In the end I have gone the distance and so will sign off with a quote about the nature of philosophy:

“Philosophy, however, takes as her aim the state of happiness.That is the direction in which she opens routes and guides us. She shows us what are real and what are only apparent evils. She strips men’s minds of empty thinking, bestows a greatness that is solid and administers a check to greatness where it is puffed up and all an empty show; she sees that we are left in no doubt about the difference between what is great and what is bloated. And she imparts a knowledge of the whole of nature, as well as herself. She explains what the gods are, and what they are like.” (Seneca, Letters, XC, 31)

I wouldn’t even attempt to say the same about running!

Janathon 2013 Day 30 - Getting near the end

I haven’t listed the day’s exercise as it’s hardly worth it. It has been a token effort: just a few stretches. That is all - but it will have to be enough. It’s getting to the end of the month and I’m running out of steam.  I am though amazed that it is the 30th already.  Time flies! We need a quote to match that idea - and I have one but it is as much about the proper role of education as it is about life disappearing behind us.

Stoicism was a school of practical philosophy whose central idea was to guide people on the path towards living of a virtuous life. It is not overly theoretical (or rather it is only as theoretical as it needs to be) and it believes that true understanding comes with practical application not just through reading (in fact Epictetus writes about the futility of just reading Chrysippus and thinking you are making progress). It is rather different to the western academic tradition as it has evolved and certainly at odds with philosophy as it is currently taught in our universities. However it is its practicality that makes the philosophy as vivid to us now as it was to the people of ancient Greece and Rome as we are basically still the same sort of people. Life is still finite and time rushes by:

“Things tend, in fact, to go wrong: part of the blame lies on the teachers of philosophy, who today teach us how to argue rather than how to live, part on their students, who come to their teachers in the first place with a view to developing not their character but their intellect. The result has been a transformation of philosophy, the study of wisdom, into philology, the study of words.

The object which we have in view, after all, makes a great deal of difference to the manner in which we approach any subject. If he intends to become a literary scholar a person examining his Virgil does not say to himself when he reads that magnificent phrase

Irrestorable, Time flies

‘We need to bestir ourselves; life will leave us behind unless we make haste; the days are fleeting by, carried away at a gallop, carrying us with them; we fail to recognise the pace at  which we are swept along; here we are making comprehensive plans for the future  and generally behaving as if we had all the leisure in the world when there are precipices all around us.’ No his purpose is to note that Virgil invariably uses the word ‘flies’ whenever he speaks of the swift passage of time.” (Seneca, Letters, CVIII, 24)

Janathon 2013 Day 29 - Working hard

Weights, 30m

I cannot call someone “hard working” knowing only that they read and write. Even if “all night long” is added, I cannot say it - not until I know the focus of all this energy. You don’t call someone hard working who stays up all night long with their girlfriend. No more do I. If the goal is glory I call them ambitious; if it is money, I call them avaricious. If, however, their efforts aim at improving the mind, then - and only then - do I call them hard working. Never praise or blame people on common grounds; look to their judgements exclusively. Because that is the determining factor, which makes everyone’s actions either good or bad. (Epictetus, Discourses, Book IV, 41)

Never mind other people, I can’t even judge myself. I don’t know whether I work hard, in the right way, exercising good judgement, or not. That applies to everything not just this fitness jag I write about here - but it certainly applies to fitness. It is not something you can do outside the normal rules of living. You have to think about it in exactly the same way.

The danger with any training regime is that it becomes just that: a routine. You develop habits and go through the motions and then the benefit diminishes. A classic example would be going for runs of about the same distance at about the same pace, all the time; or going to the gym and using the same equipment without any progression or intensity. I am as prone to that error as anybody and so have to consciously remind myself what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and what I hope to achieve. To get benefit you have to concentrate.

With my weight sessions I have an overall aim of trying to increase the strength of shoulders and arms, and increase my core stability. In other words develop the muscles that hold everything in place when you run. Today was 30 minutes, hard enough to make my T-shirt damp, and my muscles feel a bit achey. I hope that is good enough but I would still not claim to have worked hard. If truth be known I did it all more with a sense of duty than a feeling of zest so it is hard to judge whether the session was worth anything at all.

P.S. Away from the scope of this blog, the quote is useful whenever I hear someone justifying huge city salaries and bonuses on the grounds that the people deserve so much because they work hard. Normally I would just get annoyed and splutter but now I can say: “No not hard working you are avaricious. Judgement is the only thing that makes actions good or bad!”

Janathon 2013 day 28 - Good in your own terms

Gym - running (treadmill) 4km, 20m, weights - 30m

“Nature did not blend things so inextricably that you can’t draw your own boundaries: place your own well-being in your own hands. It’s quite possible to be a good man without anybody realising it. Remember that. And this too: you don’t need much to live happily. And just because you’ve abandoned hopes of becoming a great thinker or scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving humility, serving others, obeying God.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VII, 67)

Beside me on a treadmill today was a woman who looked as if she could be fit: she was probably late thirties, slim, and healthy looking; but she was obviously not running fit. She alternated walking and running in fairly short bursts but her running speed was only about 6.5 km per hour. My first reaction was “well it goes to show you never can tell!” My second reaction was the more considered one of never judging what other people do when you don’t know enough. From the outside how can you tell what is happening? Someone might be coming back from illness or injury, they might have been inactive for years and made a admirable resolution to get fit. It could be that they are actually faster but are experimenting on form. There are all sorts of reasons someone might be pursuing a particular programme.

All I know for certain is that if you see someone making an effort - no matter what it is - they should be applauded. They are drawing their own boundaries, working on their own way of attaining freedom. Good for them, good for all of us.

This is why I like the above quote from Marcus Aurelius. It also shows why the overlap in the Stoic approach to living a good, i.e. virtuous, life and running a road race where winning could never, ever be a feasible objective. In your own terms it is still possible to be a good runner without anybody else realising it!

Janathon 2013 Day 27 - Doing something else

Weights - 40m

Every habit and faculty is formed and strengthened by the corresponding act - walking makes you walk better, running makes you a better runner. If you want to be literate, read, if you want to be a painter, paint. Go a month without reading, occupied with something else, and you’ll see what the result is. And if you’re laid up a mere ten days, when you get up and try to walk any distance you’ll find your legs barely able to support you. So if you like doing something do it regularly; if you don’t like doing something, make a habit of doing something different. (Epictetus, Discourses, Book II, 18)

If you want to do something do it, and do it regularly, if you don’t, do something else. How many years have I spent not recognising this simple, basic truth. How much time have I wasted, faffing around, not acting on that simple, clear instruction. Many a time I have failed both ends. Things I have wanted to do have not been done because I thought other things ought to take precedence, whilst for things I don’t want to do, the situation has been far, far worse.  I have procrastinated, done them in little bits, agonised and delayed, and not them properly but at the same time this has blocked me from doing anything else. This is the worst of all possible worlds as the important part of Epictetus’ advice is to do something else.

Janathon should in theory give you no way out - you have to carry on and do something. Well you have to if you don’t want to backslide, which is what I did yesterday. My excuse was that we had people round for lunch and all the morning was spent preparing and cooking and in the evening, when everyone had gone, there was the sad realisation that I had drunk far too much and was in no fit state. So the day passed. Am I sad? Unfortunately, for all of you who believe we should rigorously stick to our resolutions, I would have to say no. I made a positive choice to do something else and I have to be happy with that.

Janathon 2013 day 25 - Musonius on gender equality

Gym - run (treadmill) 6km, 30m, weights - 20m

I am going to start with an observation so blindingly obvious it hardly seems worth making: in the gym today there were as many women as men, and this is usually the case. How non-shocking is that? It is something I expect and if it were otherwise I think I would be a little startled. However outside this space there are definite divisions. Most classes are dominated by women: bodypump, boxercise, power hoops, dance aerobics, etc and, of course, yoga and pilates. Circuit training, martial arts, strength, and competitive games like 5 a side and squash are much more male. Overall there seems to be some difference in the types of exercise done by men and women. But in the gym we are side by side and the fact that it is unremarkable is something of a triumph.

Think of running. It is one of the sports where there are very low barriers to participation and there is an equality of participation - just look at the field of any road race. But  this equality is comparatively recent - in other words in my life time (and that I find shocking). For example women were not allowed to enter the Boston marathon until 1972 and before the 1980s there were no women’s distance in the Olympics. Imagine only thirty years ago there were dozy old men administrators who would argue that 1500 metres was the maximum competitive distance suitable for a woman!

But the question I hear you all asking is how did the Stoics stack-up in their attitude to gender equality? And I am pleased to tell you pretty well. Remember this is more than 2,000 years ago but this is what Musonius Rufus had to say

“If then, men and women are born with the same virtues, the same type of training and education must be appropriate for both. For with every animal and plant, proper care must be given to it to produce the excellence appropriate to it. Isn’t it true that, if it were necessary for a man and woman to be able to play the flute for a living, we should give them both exactly the same thorough training in flute playing. Well then, if it is necessary for both to be proficient in human virtue, that is for both to be able to have understanding, self-control, courage, and justice, why don’t we teach them both the art by which human beings become good? Yes that is the only acceptable option... 

For all human tasks, I am inclined to believe, are a shared obligation and are the same for men and women - and none is necessarily meant for either one exclusively ”

How many centuries did it take for that to be accepted as obviously true? You know, the more Stoic writings I read the more modern they seem.

Janathon 2013 Day 24 - An unsettled mind

Walk - 3 miles, 50m, Weather - grey and gloomy

Some days that are just off, everything is slightly out of focus and nothing quite works. Things are not terrible: there are no disasters and all calamities are minor. It is mainly an accumulation of inconveniences and a feeling of not being quite right. You know that if you wanted to hammer in a nail it would not go in straight and true but would bend and crumple.

The question is what to do on days of meh? Usually my answer is to take a break and do a little exercise and hope that the internal systems right themselves. But what exercise? I know that if I go running I have about a 50% chance of it working: sometimes the cobwebs are blown away but it is just as likely my head will continue grumble along, telling my body that it is not enjoying itself. Weights or stretching is a waste of time: my mind will definitely say how  deeply it cannot be bothered. No, the most reliable remedy is a walk, which is what I did today

There is something about the rhythm and of not having to think about what you are doing that frees up your thinking and allows your mind to wander. Gently and gradually things fall back into place. I started out grumpily noticing the bad things about days like this, when the beauty of the snow covering is disappearing and what is left is mostly mush and inconvenience. In the park and the snow is going but the floods remain. After a time though I stopped noticing negatives and began to feel less irritated. It was time to get back and start again.

Such days are not the days of a Stoic but the Stoics are a place to look for advice.

“... you have inner strengths that enable you to bear up to difficulties of every kind. You have been given fortitude, courage and patience. Why should I worry what happens when I am armed with the virtue of fortitude? Nothing can trouble or upset me, or even seem annoying. Instead of meeting misfortune with groans and tears, I will call upon the faculty to deal with it. 

‘But my nose is running!’ What do you have a hand for, you idiot, if not to wipe it? ‘But how is it right that there is a running nose i the first place?’ Instead of thinking up protests, wouldn’t it be easier just to wipe your nose? ...  

But no. There you sit, worrying that certain events might happen, already upset and in a state about your present circumstances. So you reproach the gods. What else can come of such weakness except impiety?” (Epictetus, Book 1, 28-32, 38-39)

In other words the well known that well understood Stoic admonition: “Just get on with it!” Or if I were a sports good firm I would perhaps say: “Just do it!” But the Stoics go further an make an interesting offer:

“I am prepared to show you that you have resources and character naturally strong and resilient; show me in return what grounds you have for being peevish and malcontent.” (43)

Janathon 2013 Day 23 - The daily audit

Walk - 6 miles, 1hr 45m Weather - raw

All our senses should be educated into strength: they are naturally able to endure much, provided the spirit forebears to spoil them. The spirit ought to be bought up for examination daily. It was the custom of Sextius when the day was over, and he had betaken himself to rest, to inquire of is spirit: “What bad habit of yours have you cured today? What vice have you checked? In what respects are you better?” ... What can be more admirable than this fashion of of discussing the whole of the day’s events? How sweet the sleep that follows this self-examination? ... I make use of this privilege and daily plead my cause before myself ... I conceal nothing from myself and omit nothing: for why should I be afraid of any of my shortcomings, when it is in my power to say: “I pardon you this time; see that you never do that anymore.” (Seneca, On Anger, Book III, 36)

This passage comes from a book about anger - how damaging an emotion it is and how we should control it. The daily audit is included as a technique that might be useful (“anger will cease, and become more gentle, if it knows that everyday it must come before the judgement seat.” was a phrase I omitted from the above) but it obviously has a wider application. It applies to every aspects of our lives  and so obviously that would include running.

It is what every one of us does when we write down our mileage, speed, weather conditions, how we felt and where we are on our schedule. It is what many of do when we write our blogs (though I must admit to being a bit skimpy with those sort of details). It enables us to look back and see how we have improved (or not) and evaluate our regimes. Importantly it allows us to see whether we are being soft with ourselves or not. Concerning that I rather like the first sentence of the quote. It could be a motto for almost every runner

Janathon 2013 Day 22 - Within your own limits

Gym - weights, 35m

‘The life of folly is empty of gratitude and full of anxiety: it s focussed wholly on the future.’ ... What sort of life do you think is meant by a life of folly? Baba and Isio’s? No, he means our own life, precipitated by blind desire into activities that are likely to bring us harm and will certainly not bring us satisfaction - if they could satisfy us they would have done so by now - never thinking how pleasant it is to ask for nothing, how splendid it is to be complete and independent of fortune. So continually remind yourself, Lucilius, of the many things you have achieved. When you look at all the people out in front of you think of all the ones behind you. (Seneca, Letters, XV).

The last sentence reminds me of some running advice I read from Joe Hnederson, where he pointed out that when you line-up at the start of a marathon do not worry about how slow you will be compared to the others. Even if you finnish last you will still be in front of those who signed up but didn’t make it to the start and all of those who never got off the couch to even enter. Always looking ahead to those who are faster (and there will always be someone faster) will cause dissatisfaction with what you have achieved and what you can do. 

But that advice not only applies at the start of a race, it applies to everything. It was helpful to me today as when I started on the treadmill I felt a twinge behind my right knee. It was not bad and I could have continued but as after 5 minutes, as it was still there, I decided to stop and concentrate on weight training, which I could do without problem. I felt quite happy switching my attention, especially as I didn’t want a twinge to turn into a tweak and then a strain. Working within my capabilities is always the right thing to do but the next step of being grateful for those capabilities is just as important but usually more difficult. So it was with me today - until I sat down and thought about it.

Janathon 2013 Day 21 - Reasons

Gym - Run (treadmill) 9km, 45m, Weights 30m

In these Janathon posts I would usually say something about the days exercise and try to link it to a quote from a Stoic. Today I'm not even going to bother. I'm going to cut straight to the chase and post a cartoon from the ever wonderful xkcd, that is a perfect commentary on something I wrote about on Day 13. 

The first part of the first book of the Discourses by Epictetus is called "Concerning what is in our power and what is not" and it starts by saying that reason is the only faculty we have that is able to analyse itself. So voila:

Janathon 2013 Day 20 - Walking in the snow

Walk - 4 miles, Time - 1h 15m, Weather - cold, raw, heavy grey sky, light snow

When the weather is like this most of my attention is focussed on the ground a few feet ahead, looking where I step, trying to keep upright. The paths are ice with a light covering of snow and when I place my foot the heel will sometimes slide to one side or the other and I make adjustments. At times I can look like a bad tightrope walker but at other times I can crack on. Walking is hard though: the stride is shorter and less regular and it is difficult to drop into a rhythm. The coldness of the air and the snow on the face make you want to hunker into yourself and the obvious question should be: ‘why am are out here when there is no real need?’ But that is not what I am thinking. I am both enjoying myself and not want it to last too long.

Sometimes I listen to the silence as all noise seems to have been dampened. I appreciate the hazy, grey beauty and they way outlines become blurred and more mysterious. There are a few people about but for stretches there is no one in sight and it is pleasant to have the illusion of being alone in the landscape.  

There is every reason to be out. I did though make sure I left promptly, at 8 o’clock, so there was no time for procrastination. On that subject this quote from marcus Aurelius seems appropriate:

At dawn when you have trouble getting out of bed tell yourself ‘ I have to go to work - as a human being. What do I have to complain of if I have to do what I was born for - the things I was brought into this world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?

• But it is nicer here.

So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

Many, many times do I need to admonish myself in this way

Janathon 2013 Day 19 - Action by action

Run (treadmill) - 4.1km, time - 20m, Weights 20m

If I hadn’t already planned most of my January exercise to be in the gym, today I would have been here. Snow fell yesterday  and as the temperature has not since risen above zero it remains on most pavements as a slippery mess. I’m sure some hardy souls will be out there showing they can take mucky conditions in their stride, proving that nothing can stop a run if you are possessed of superior determination.

To all such people - I salute you. But I am not one of you. If conditions outside are adverse (i.e. majorly unpleasant not just a bit meh) I prefer being inside. It is after all one of the reasons gyms were invented.

Today a lot of people thought the same and the place was packed (though this might also have something to do with it being January: the month of resolutions). Sometimes I had to wait for a machine but I felt quite relaxed as it gave me a chance to look around and watch all the other people with their different routines and aims: some working on their strength, some on flexibility and some on just trying to get going. The thing is that we were all trying, and I liked that. Today everybody in the room was in earnest. I looked around out of curiosity but also on the chance of seeing something I could copy. Not today  though.... but I did see something extraordinary. A lady on a treadmill had taken off both her trainers and was balancing on one of them i.e her rear foot was placed across it, whilst the other leg was stretched out in front, not touching the ground. She slowly moved it to increase or relax the stretch, whilst squatting on the rear leg and then lifting up. It was controlled and wonderfully balanced and looked difficult. I have no idea what she was really doing or why she was doing it on a treadmill.

It is one of the fascinating things about being somewhere like a gym. We all share a common high level objective i.e. to get fitter but the reasons for this fitness, and the uses we want to put it to, vary. There are common machines but that are used in slightly different ways (according to those objectives), and everybody is going at their own pace (nevermind different speeds on the treadmill, weight and crunches are pushed at vastly different rates). Everything is similar but not the same. There are very few clues as to what anybody else is thinking and there is limited interaction. It is all perfectly civil, people smile at each other when their paths cross, and there are some small groups of people working out together, but for the most part the room holds individuals working on their own.

When I looked around I thought it a very stoical space - everybody was working on just what they could control and not worrying about anything else or anybody else's opinion.

One of the core aspects of stoical thinking is the division between things you can control and things you can’t. You must do your best with what you can control (in other words attempt to act virtuously), whereas for the things you can’t - well those things must take their course.

You have to assemble your life yourself - action by action. And be satisfied if each one attains its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening

• But there are external obstacles ...

Not to behaving with justice, self-control, and good sense.

• Well but perhaps to some more concrete actions

But if you accept the obstacles and work with what’s given, an alternative will present its self - another piece of what you are trying to assemble. Action by action.(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VIII 32)

This is what you see in the gym: action by action.