Janathon2013 Day 5 - Not too much exercise

Walk - 3 miles, Time - 50m, Weather - grey and overcast.

Sometime in the past 3 months I might have moaned about the miserable weather, complained about the dreariness of the light and suggested that we have had enough rain already. How boring - complaining about the weather is one of the more useless types of conversation you can have and it is not anything a fully paid-up Stoic would do. Nevertheless it has happened and in my defence I post this picture to show how dull, waterlogged, and grey everything is. It might prove a point but it also shows you how far I am from a practicing Stoic - but there again I make no claims to be one.

As if to prove the point I will give you a quote from Seneca (Letter XV) contra to my current endeavours:


"For it is silly, my dear Lucilius, and no way for an educated man to behave, to spend one's time exercising the biceps, broadening the neck and shoulders and developing the lungs. Even when the extra feeding has produced gratifying results and you've put on a lot of muscle, you'll never match the strength or the weight of a prize ox. The greater load, moreover, on the body is crushing to the spirit and renders it less active. So keep the body within bounds as much as you can and make room for the spirit."

So there we have it. Seneca believes that you should do the minimum amount necessary to keep the body healthy and devote your time to the pursuit of wisdom and seemed to think there was a degree of conflict between body and mind. But you should never believe anything just because it was said by someone with a reputation for wisdom. In some cases it is possible, just possible, that a Japanese sports goods company  has a better idea.  A sound mind in a sound body - yes indeed!

2011 Streak Day 285 (Saturday Oct 15th): Mind body

2011 Streak Day 285 (Saturday Oct 15^th): Walk 1 mile Time 20min Weather beautifully sunny October day warm enough for T shirt

The role of the mind in running is is fascinating because it is not a neutral observer of the feedback from the body - it conditions those messages.

You can see this when you have good and bad days. There are times when you go for a run when you feel weary from the first step to the last, even though there is nothing physically wrong (i.e. you are not sickening or injured). Your mind is tired and so are your limbs. 

That is a fairly common example but fascinating nevertheless. 

What causes a bad day? I have never been able to isolate an answer but I keep on trying. I always start by looking for simple physical explanations: was my nutrition or hydration good, was I still tired from previous sessions? I rarely think about my mood or mental outlook. Perhaps I should. 

But if my outlook is wrong is there anything I can do about it?

Another simple example of the way the mind can affect you performance is the difference between running on your own and running in a group. With a group you are often stimulated to run faster or longer than you would normally because of the others. You adapt to the norms of the group and your expectations change.

When you are by yourself you often head the signs of distress earlier or you just fall into your normal comfortable pace. You more easily stay within fairly soft mental boundaries.

This leads to an interesting question. If your mental outlook is limiting how fast you go what can you do to change it. Would fooling yourself work?  This article from the New York Times suggests it might.

P.S. The practical response to a bad day is not to worry about it and try to find a cause. You should shrug your shoulders and carry on, knowing the general statistical rule of 'return to the mean' will apply. So if you have had a bad run the chances are your next one will be better but sadly if you have a good day it is likely the next will be worse.

2011 Streak Day 226/365 (Aug 14th): Mind/body

2011 Streak Day 226/365 (Aug 14th): Run - 7.5 miles, Time - 1hr 14min, Weather - there had been rain but it was merely cloudy

Time for a longer run. If I am going to do a half marathon in September I have to try to extend my runs, even if it does feel hard work.

It was a sunday morning and so everything was fairly empty, which made the discovery of road-stripping plant hidden away in a quiet parking place, all by itself,  seem a little bit eerie. Not a sight I expected but I was amused by the big brother, little brother look.

As for the run - there was no breakthrough. I had hoped the regular running in France would have made a noticeable difference and this would feel like a breeze. But there can be a wide gap between hope and reality. It was not bad, I did not struggle too much but at the same time it didn’t feel any progress. Most disappointingly the last half mile was hard and I was happy when it was over.

P.S. When I said most of the last half mile I was referring to that strange phenomena of feeling progressively more tired until the last 100 meters when suddenly the sight of the finnish line lifts the spirits and your form picks up. Finding you were not as tired as you thought, when just a couple of minutes ago your body had told you it had nothing left, is common.  It is a small part of the evidence that supports the theory of the central governor but even without such a theoretical underpinning it shows how much a run is governed by the mind.

Ice Baths, Placeboes and Culture

Sometime ago I wrote a post on ice baths, happy with the idea that the idea had been tested and there seemed to be no great benefit. What pleased me was not so much the question of whether the ice bath was effective or not, but the demonstration that the plausibility of an idea does not necessarily make it true. It is something we have to be very careful about in running because there are plausible explanations for everything from the design of running shoes to the mix of training sessions, to the sort of food we ought to eat. The trouble being that many of these explanations are inconsistent and some advice comes from a limited evidence base (I am particularly suspicious of nutrition advice recommending particular foods).

It is up to us to test all of these things and find what works for us. It really does not matter if research finds, for example, the ice bath doesn't do what is claimed. If it makes us feel good - it is good, and we should persist with it. I really do believe that the most powerful training effect happens when the physical training is combined with a fundamental belief that we are doing the right thing and we will therefore continue to improve. In other words the belief in an action makes that action potent.

This is the placebo effect and it is incredibly powerful. However there is an evil twin brother: the nocebo effect, where if you think things are going to get worse the probably will. This means that if we think we are in a rut and will never get faster then the training has a double load to carry and it becomes more difficult to maintain a schedule.

We therefore have to believe in what we are doing. But the placebo effect is also mysterious (for example the colour of pills affects their effectiveness) and cannot be easily and directly summoned up. In part it is built on our underlying cultural attitudes, which would explain the meanings attached to colour. It would also explain some of the attraction of ice baths, because there is a long, deep and conflicted attitude to bathing.

I have been reading Clean by katherine Ashenburg, that relates the story of something we take for granted, i.e. washing, and its cultural meaning.

I liked this passage about the gymnasium in ancient Athens:

Greek athletes, who exercised in the nude – gymnasium literally means “naked place” - first oiled their bodies and covered them with a thin layer of dust or sand to prevent chills. After wrestling, running or playing ball games, the men and boys removed their oil and dust, now mingled with sweat, with a curved metal scraper called a strigil. After using the strigil, athletes could wash, either standing up at a basin or in a shower or a tub. Although hot water would have made their oil and grit much easier to remove, there is no evidence that the gymnasiums offered hot water before the Roman period. The manly rigour of cold water bathing suited the gymnasium's spirit and reassured Athenians who brooded about the weakening and feminising effects of hot water.

She goes on to say that the attitude of equating hot water with softness and decadence is very persistent. The British Empire was built on the rigours of a cold morning bath and a modern German expression for a man short on masculinity is warmdusher, or warm shower.

So there you have it: those who like an ice bath after a run are as much following the tradition of the gymnasium as they are acting on an understanding of physiology.

Me I still like a tepid shower but having read this book I realise that I ought to keep quite about this if I meet anyone from Germany.