2011 Streak Day 227/365 (Aug 15th): Pathetic

2011 Streak Day 227/365 (Aug 15^th): Run - 1.1 miles, Time - 10min, Weather  - Gloomy

Pathetic! I think I will draw a veil over this run except to say that I followed the dictum of Joe Henderson. He advises you to run for a mile before you deciding the sort of session you should complete. A mile is enough to warm up and clear away the usual early run sludge and allow you to tell how strong you felt. Today the answer was not strong at all and I didn’t want to go any further. There was no spring in my step and no enthusiasm to force myself onwards. So I stopped, looked up the hill and walked back.

I am not sure whether that is failure or realism. It is what I did and that is all there is to it. The veil is drawn.

Today’s picture shows a couple of things: 

The first is how unremittingly dull the weather is. The pattern for almost every day has been to start with grey cloud, which may or may not bear rain, followed by patches of blue sky later in the afternoon. As I tend to go out in the morning I only get to see the wet or the grey.

The second is to show something about Hemel - it is a low rise town. The initial plans were drawn up by one of the leading landscape architects of the time, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, who envisioned not a city in a garden but a city in a park. It is still a town of low density, with many green spaces. There is no vantage point from which you can see its full extent.

If I had been feeling strong, this particular green space would have been good for a tough hill session. But as we already know I did not feel strong

2011 Streak Day 140: On tiredness

2011 Streak Day 140/365: Walk - 5.2 miles, Time 1hr 35min, Weather - bright and sunny but with a cool edge to the wind

Yesterday I wrote nothing about my cycle ride because it was uneventful. The one thing I could have said was that it felt harder than was warranted. I don't know whether I was generally tired or it was just my muscles complaining but the result was the same: it felt like a big effort and I did not want to go any further than I did.

This has carried over to today - my legs have felt leaden and there has been no physical zip. My original plan was to go for a run but decided against it and went for a walk instead.

If tiredness is psychological it usually wears off once you are out and you feel much better for some exercise. If it is muscle weariness then a session is hard work and you return even more tired. Before you start you often do not know which is which. This is why the advice of Joe Henderson, to run for a mile to warm-up before deciding how tired you feel and what sort of session you need, is so wise.

OK I skipped the running for a mile bit but the route of my walk was only decided after I found the legs were not as bad as first thought and the canal seemed like a good idea.

I am glad I extended my route because the canal was indeed refreshing. I saw a heron on the opposite bank standing as still as a statue, whilst a canada goose, followed by her chicks swam past. Such things lift my spirits.

The whole point of the 2011 challenge is to be out every day so I can watch the changes of the seasons. That is why I have posted a number of flower or leaf pictures but the cycle of animals is also important.

Today we have signets at a lock gate.

2011 Streak 57/365: Steady Rain

2011 Streak 57/365: Walk - 7.62 miles, Time - 2hr 30min, Weather - rainy

The canal was actually a very small part of today's walk but I am using the picture to illustrate the rain. There is nothing like the splashiness of water on water to show that it was a miserable day.

It actually affected my picture taking because I did not look around very much. Actually when I have my kagool hood up I can see very little - just what is in front. Inside the hood the pitter patter noises of the rain drops sounded very loud so I felt part of some minor sensory experiment - limited sight and hearing interference.

I began to wonder what I was doing especially as it was the sort of day when you could be walking down an empty road but the moment you want to cross it cars emerge to block your progress. Most junctions were like that: a minor irritant.

I began to wonder whether I should cut things short and now I wish I had.

There are days when you just have to admit that things are not really working and regroup. Joe Henderson has some really good advice based on his own training practices: he runs the first mile to warm-up and get a sense of how he feels and then he will make a decision as to whether her carries on as planned, cuts it short, or goes a bit harder.

I should have followed his example as today was more about endurance