All I Need is a Little Progress

One of the pleasures of winter sun is seeing the tracery of branches against a clear blue sky.

Today was one of those days that remind you why you run - why it can lift your spirits. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the air was sharp but not too cold, the wind was light. In other words the conditions were just about perfect and it would have been hard not to enjoy yourself. 

Again the aim was to run easily and today I tried harder to keep my heart rate down. Still not totally successful but a couple of beats better than yesterday. I can’t make a quantitative comparison with yesterday because it was a different route, slightly more hilly. All I have to go on are observations when it was flat and I seemed to find it a little bit easier. That is good enough for me this year because I am taking a bit of an old school approach - running just by time and heart rate. The distance I post on the blog is done using Gmaps and gives an indication of how things are going but speed and distance are not measurements I need to know on the run. In basic training they can take care of themselves.

The slight sense of progress is one of the things that can keep you going (and something I lost last year). It doesn’t have to be much and it could be anything: you can go a bit faster, a bit easier, or just come back feeling more relaxed. It doesn’t matter, except that you need to know you are getting something back from your effort. You could be someone like Chris Boardman who is fascinated by measuring everything and who was never interested in anything where he couldn’t see a natural progression and found his satisfaction in the challenge of objective improvement and winning (as a thirteen year old he rode his first time trial in 29:43, a week later he rode it in  28 and it was that that hooked him`). You could at the opposite end, like me, and chase feelings and an increased sense of well being. Whatever it is we are all looking for we need to know we are not wasting our time.

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.