Running with an iPod

I don’t normally run with my iPod as I like feeling connected with the landscape and being able to let my mind wander freely. However at the moment I am thinking about next week and worrying about lasting the distance. Perhaps listening to music in the last 6 miles would be a helpful distraction.

Today I experimented to see if that would work - and it was pretty much a failure. I didn’t sense my body properly and in a strange way felt a little off balance. I couldn’t hear the footfall and felt isolated from my surroundings. In addition the cable flapping around and the earbuds slipping were a constant irritation. In other words I just did not enjoy the run very much even though it was a perfectly still day and the temperature was just right.

Ah well another idea bites the dust.

However I really enjoyed the music in the open air, amongst the trees and woodland paths and it was particularly enjoyable when doing my stretches. That might have been a useful discovery because I maintained the stretch for longer and more easily than usual.

PS

When running I put it on shuffle play (not a feature I use that much). During the run 17 tracks were played but a couple of artists had more than one song i.e they were over represented. I remember reading articles about people who used shuffle a lot and were convinced that their iPods had favourites (or there was an Apple conspiracy to favour certain artists). Apple responded at first by saying that the order was totally random, which I’m sure was true because truly random events are likely to have clusters. However they did not hold fast to the purist line and soon altered the program to make it seem more random.

I like this as a small example of how we all like to look for patterns and how difficult it is to identify what is random.

Amsterdam

This was never designed to be a training blog. All I ever hoped to do was ramble-on about things and then make some connection with running (however tenuous the link might be). There have thus been very few clues to my gradual increase in mileage over the past three months. It has been nothing too spectacular and has peaked at about 35 miles per week. But if Womble can run back to back marathons on that sort of mileage I don’t see why I should not attempt just one.

So Amsterdam it is.

I have been keeping quiet about this because I have a truly lousy record of actually running these races. Out of the four I have attempted I have only finished one (the first). Two I failed to start because of injury or illness and in the final one I scared myself witless by having a heart rate that went out of control.

But there are now only a couple of weeks to go and apart from the paranoia of everybody around me having colds and coughs, I am fairly confident of being there. Although I am looking forward to it I am also a little apprehensive - I have no idea what it will be like.

So early on the Saturday morning we will be flying out from Luton and on Monday we return. We will also try not to feel guilty about burning up our carbon allowance on this indulgence.

Ritual

It is first thing in the morning and I am in Café Nero, drinking a coffee before work - just reading the paper and watching the world go by. A man about 30 years old comes by with a large mug of coffee, which he places on the table, before carefully removing a dirty cup to another table. He then looks at the arrangement of the chairs and moves one a little forward and the other to the side so they equidistant from the table and symmetrical. He then takes another chair to make a triangle around the small round table, a few more minor readjustments and then he is satisfied. He now disappears and returns with a paper napkin and a handful of sugar bags. He thoroughly wipes the table and places the used napkin in the dirty cup on the other table. Still standing, he starts to add sugar to his coffee. The little bag is held between thumb and forefinger at the corner and given two shakes. The corner is ripped off and the sugar poured out. Eight and a half bags of sugar are added before the coffee is stirred. He then goes off again and gets a paper, arranges things on the table and finally sits down. There is an adjustment of the zip of his jacket and his posture before finally he takes his first sip from the mug.

Everything is done with deliberation and I wonder if the first sip is accompanied with that inward sigh that says ‘ahh just right!’ or ‘that’s better’. I compare it with my behaviour – where all I did was brush the old cup to the other side of table before sitting down and drinking, without much thought of what I was doing.

I think of Kieren’s report of the Berlin Marathon, where he mentions sharing a flat with other runners and finding out about their pre-race rituals. Again I think about what I do and can think on no ritualised behaviour. When I run, all I try to do is remember everything I need and get out in one piece – there is no calm order.

Perhaps I need to give everything more focussed attention. Ceremony can be useful – it fixes an event, gives it status and puts you in the right frame of mind.

I am reminded of something from a radio programme of 35 years ago (it could have been ‘From our Own Correspondent’), when the reporter talked of meeting some native Americans who used tobacco in their ceremonies. He asked what they thought of the way tobacco was used by westerners and they replied it was bad because it was not treated with enough respect.

This has stayed with me because it makes me think of how full attention can change the nature of a thing – give it a different cultural meaning.

In Café Nero the man is certainly giving his coffee full attention. Perhaps it is a valuable ceremony that enhances his pleasure. On the other hand he could just have a compulsive obsessive personality.

Rediscovering Childhood and John Ruskin

I have recently come back from a weeks holiday in the Lake District. It rained most of the time and I did not do quite as much running as intended - but that did not matter. Being by waters, surrounded by fells, is enough to lift the spirits. We were in Grasmere, the heart of the romantic lakes, and everything felt cleaner and fresher. Pleasure came from just being outdoors and active - even if it was wet.

I did sufficient running, and even managed to fit in a long run, but that is not the point. For a running blog I have a rather a subversive message - "sometimes you do not need to run". Sometimes it is better to go searching for waterfalls and recover the sense of surprise you had as a nine year old city boy who saw mountains and fast running streams for the first time; who wandered over the open landscape to find a river, hidden by trees, and watched in wonder as your father skimmed stones on the water, whilst you could only make them sink with a great plop.

I don't really know the full reasons for spending so much of my time running. Part of it could be some futile attempt to recapture a little of the feelings I had when younger - when I could run, cycle or move with ease, without thinking. I know that all my effort really achieves is an understanding of how much stiffer I am and how much longer it takes to recover but all the same there is a linger sense of continuity.

However I can make that link far more directly by visiting places and seeing again the sights with fresh eyes, skipping around without any great purpose. In other words just being on holiday, or finding some other way to free up my thinking.

Running is good but there are other things as well.

During the week we also visited one of my favourite houses in England - Brantwood. It was the home of John Ruskin and displays the range and depth of his work as well as where he lived and worked. The views over Coniston Water are stunning and endlessly change with the weather and just add to the sense of contemplation.

I am always in awe of the achievements of Ruskin, the scope of his ideas and how many of them still seem current. His views had tremendous sway on the public opinion, with his books, with those of Thomas Carlyle, forming part of the library of people of all social classes. Try as I might I cannot think of any present day figure of comparable stature.

I look at Ruskin's study, his collected works and the engagement in important issues and think -

Running is good but there are other things as well.

However I then look at the pictures of Ruskin in his later years and see a shell of a man beset by health problems. I then think -

Running is good it helps with all of those other things.

If Your Run Was A Piece Of Music, What Would It Be?

A recent post was prompted by the death of Paul Rutherford. In the past couple of weeks there have been two more deaths to add to the list: Joe Zawinul and Mike Osborne. Of the two Joe Zawinul is the great name. Weather Report is a high cultural peak, which still sounds fresh and inventive, and the Miles Davis record 'In a Silent Way' (the title track of which is a Zawinul composition) is one of my all time favourites. However I never saw him live. Mike Osborne on the other hand played with people I loved to see (Mike Westbrook and Chris McGregor). When I heard of his death I could see him standing there, a bear of a man, making the alto seem very tiny, blowing with intensity and passion.

The contrast then is between someone who has been the background sound of chunks of my life and someone of whom I have a vivid memory. In running terms it is the contrast of a run in Ashridge (beauty with ever changing views and surprises such as glimpses of deer. Always there, always different.) and the sharp memories from a race (when there is either a higher feeling of satisfaction or deeper level of disappointment). I don't enter many races, so each of them tends to be clear in my mind. Some of the best pictures come from 'A Run Around Wyre Forest' - a rather lovely half marathon with lots of greenery and a wicked little uphill finish. So that can be Mike Osborne.

Ashridge can be Joe Zawinul and just thinking of that way adds an extra dimension to it. You are running through a wood of beech and oak and when you look ahead you see a series of layers. That is very much like Weather Report (the arrangement of Birdland for example is like an intricate mesh).

Writing this piece has been the first time I have thought of comparing runs to pieces of music. I rather like the idea - it is playful, and part of soft core running is play.

Finding Time

Although I know that consistency is the biggest virtue for a runner, I have always struggled with mid-week runs and have never been able to work out the ideal time.

Early morning is useless as I already get up early enough just to get to work.
I gave up running at lunch time because I did not like the changing and the drying, the bolting of food and water, and limitations in the type of runs that could be done.
The most time-efficient method is to run as part of a commute, but I do not like running with a rucksack as I feel unbalanced and find myself always adjusting the strapping.

The only answer is to run in the evening, which although quite good, requires iron discipline - something for which I am not renowned. When I get back home I feel a bit hungry and a bit drained. The tiredness is mostly mental but the temptation to merely rest and eat is huge. Every time I get out of the door part of me is saying it would just be so much more pleasant to do nothing. That siren voice is still singing as I walk the pre-run walk and through the first few steps of the easy jog. Then something strange seems to happen as the body starts to loosen up - I begin to feel easier in myself. When I have found a rhythm everything feels calmer and I can not only feel happy that I am out, I can feel slightly smug that I have shown resolve.

"One run at a time" I say to myself as if I was some recovering alcoholic. Instead of it being a day at a time, the unit is a week. Each sunday I decide on a quota of runs for the next seven days and during the week I shuffle them according to circumstances. That is all - it is not complicated. Having a few things that can be rearranged or reordered seems to make all the difference.

It is easier in the summer time of course. Wet, dark, cold evenings make overcoming the inertia almost impossible and winter consistency is something I have never mastered. But I should not worry about that now. The whole idea is only to think of one run at a time.

Just a Run - Nothing Special

I am writing this in that time of post-run relaxation, when the mind is empty. Nothing is in focus and everything feels pleasantly hazy. There is nothing in particular that I want to say – no point to make. All I have are the impressions from the run idly playing in my mind.

First there was the weather, absolutely perfect, a bit overcast so that it was not too hot but still pleasant and summery. This makes such a huge difference. Last week it was hot and I really felt it and slowed down. Today everything was easier.

Then there were all the people strolling about, at ease and socialising. The general sense of recreation is one of the reasons I like running by the canal. At Berkhamsted there are three pubs in quick succession. People are on the benches looking at the water, sipping their beer. The beer looks tempting but I am running and cannot be distracted (there’s focus for you). I can only let my mind wander and think of the pub as a social institution, think of the longboats and their gentle progress between pubs and thinking that I must try that for a holiday sometime.

Although I like people around too many causes problems. Sometimes I think there is a growing lack of spatial awareness – everyone so much in their own world that they are unaware of how they affect others around them. A small example: a mother has parked her pushchair on the path, facing the water so that the child can throw bread for the ducks. That is great and it is a good thing to do. However she parked it right in front of a bench, thereby making a narrow an awkward gap to negotiate and I had to slow right down – a couple of yards further on there would have been no problem as I could easily have detoured on the grass.

Later on I ran up behind a group of three middle-aged people, side by side, taking all the available space. The man was aware of my coming and made a bit of space for me to run through. However the two women were completely unaware until I was right by them. One of them made a little panicky jump and was all of a flutter. She then made some remark about me needing a bell. This amused me – firstly the thought that my pace was anywhere near the speed of a bicycle was gross flattery. Secondly for all my puffing and pounding I had somehow approached unnoticed – I must have been running more gracefully than I thought (if only!).

With some people greetings are exchanged because we are very briefly sharing the same space and it is sociable but others want to make no contact. There was one woman who moved out the way excessively when I passed. This happened fairly near my turn around point and so I passed her again but this time face-to-face. She turned away to look at the hedgerow and avoid any chance of eye contact. I wondered about the story behind such nervousness, such closed-offness.

Contrasting with that isolation was the community of the river. A rather fine barge, originally from the port of Rotterdam (I know this because it was embossed on the hull) was moored whilst the owner was doing some work on the cabin. Other boat owners wandered over and started conversations about boats, comparing activity, that sort of thing. As I went past I heard that Rotterdam owner used to be an engineer. That’s all i heard but it's enough to get you thinking about interests aptitudes and life choice.

No thought was held for any great length of time. They flitted and passed, easily, without consequence - a bit like the running itself. It was just one of those days where things felt relaxed.

No Breeding Whatsoever

This is not genteel. It is not decorous. It is not something any well-bred person should do but … this is running and physical exertion can play havoc with good manners. I will therefore admit that I have occasionally been known to spit if things get a bit phlegmy (though in my defence I will say that I always try to do this discretely amongst the wilderness that grows beside the footpaths).

However sometimes you just cannot help yourself. Towards the end of Saturday’s long run, when I was feeling tired and my mouth was hanging open, a big furry fly flew right into it. I immediately spat it out with great force and a huge hawking noise. Unfortunately I was just behind a lady enjoying a gentle stroll along the canal, who turned round to give me a look of extreme distaste. Understandable - I would probably have done something similar if the positions had been reversed.

I wanted to say it was a fly- but said nothing. I was actually totally preoccupied firstly by thinking “thank god it wasn’t a wasp” and then imagining what would have happened if it had been a wasp that stung either my tongue or the inside my mouth.

Dangerous lark running - I’m sure there must be some health and safety directive that tells us to breathe through our nose and only run with our mouths shut!

Craftsmanship

The last post was kicked off by jazz. This one is starts with some hip-hop The album is 'Talking Honkey Blues' by Buck 65, which contains the track 'Craftsmanship' It is probably about Buck 65’s attitude to hip-hop but it can apply to any activity. A key section is:

You brush it, you rag it, and voila, your work is done
And that's it. You treat each shoe like it's special
Care about your work, and be a professional
There's a right way to go about your job and a wrong one
I find this way is much better in the long run
It ain't about the dollar or trying to go fast
Unless you take pride in what you're doing, it won't last
Craftsmanship is a quality that some lack
You got to give people a reason for them to come back

When I was listening to this track this morning I started to wonder if there was any craftsmanship in running and really struggled with the concept. I could only think of three potential areas: maintaining a good training regime; running technique; avoiding injury.

Avoiding injury might seem a strange addition to the list but it’s an important skill because it involves knowing your own body. Being able to distinguish between a twinge and an injury, knowing when to press-on or back-off, and knowing the right remedial exercises, are not easy things; especially as training regime are based on breaking down muscles to rebuild them, i.e. getting to the other side of discomfort. “Listen to your body” is one of those truisms that are easy to say but very difficult to practice because there is just too much noise.

If you read the hard training thread on the Runners World web site you know that most of the contributors spend half their time on the injury bench. Something is wrong and it does not matter if you get the other two skills right and can run like the wind. If you are constantly injured you only make yourself miserable.

Technique is interesting because it is not strongly emphasised in road running. There is a strong argument to say that over the years the body has evolved a number of ways to compensate for its various imbalances and weaknesses and that if you try to alter too much you will probably damage more than you cure. There are however some common principles of good form and it is something you can recognise when you watch other runners.

Perhaps this is an aspect that needs input from an outsider. We never know how we look when we are performing an action. All the compensations our bodies have made over time have normalised things to make them feel natural. We fool ourselves into thinking that we are in balance when what we really need are outside eyes to see what is actually going on.

This leaves training regimes, which in some ways is the easiest and the most difficult skills. It is easy because there are a number of schedules that you can find in all sorts of books. It is also easy in that there is almost instant feedback – if something is not working after a couple of weeks then try something else.

However it is difficult to find the regime that suits you. More importantly it is difficult to stick to the programme and maintain consistency (well it is for me). It could be that consistency is the most important factor – but that is a character trait rather than a skill.

So I am still struggling. With my own running I cannot find any great skill. I cannot identify the craft. The only thing I have is the experience – the feeling of the moment.

Perhaps that is enough. Perhaps that is actually the great attraction of the sport. There are no great skill barriers and anybody can run and then gather their own experiences.

Paul Rutherford

(This piece should have a subtitle saying that I make some connection with running, in the end!)

I think it is just a sign of my age but I am keenly aware of an increasing number of deaths of people who have a place in my inner life. The musicians I listened to, the writers I read, the actors I watched – the ones I thought had a special relationship with my own generation. Mostly these people are a bit older than me, because you tend to make the most vivid associations in your teens when they are in their prime. They have therefore reached an age where you would expect more of them to be dying. But even so it is still a shock.

Their death is not so much a reminder of my own mortality but a spur to remember the taste and atmosphere of the time. The things I heard and the meanings I attached to them.

This year has seen the death of a few people from jazz. It started with Michael Brecker and Alice Coltrane. (George Melly occupied a slightly different cultural space because I remember hem mainly for his cultural writings in the Observer) and yesterday I read of the death of Paul Rutherford.

I did not expect name of Paul Rutherford to mean much to very many people and so was quite surprise to se the size and prominence of the obituary in the Guardian. To be quite honest he was not a big name in my internal landscape – I was aware of him mainly because he played in the Mike Westbrook Band, which I really liked. But the obituary made me think of the time I used to listen to free jazz. I don’t anymore and now think it was made much more for the musicians rather than the listener. However at the time I was attracted to the idea of the hard core, the cutting edge, and an uncompromising personal vision. I think I was buying into the romantic idea of the artist as the visionary and the harder the exterior, the more profound the inner truth, i.e. I was slightly delusional.

And yet… and yet there were moments of great clarity and beauty. I don’t know quite how it happened but if you stayed with it, sometimes things just came together and something surprising and rather wonderful happened. And the people involved were genuine and committed. It was a serious endeavour.

Sometimes my running is a bit like that. It is a serious business that involves a certain amount of pain and a deal of incoherence, especially towards the end of a long run, but it does reveal moments of clarity that pay for everything. Why and how it happens I don’t know but, just as with the jazz I used to listen to all those years ago, those moments do happen and you know it is good.

I am talking about this because I read recently that Michael Nyman has been commissioned by the Great North Run to write some music that will in some way illustrate what it is like to run a long distance. It will be interesting to hear how he interprets the jumble, the false dawns, the set backs and injuries, the rhythm, the endeavour, the sense of achievement and the peace. Of one thing I am certain – music that can express those things will not be the sort of music you want to listen to whilst you are actually running.

Sunday Morning

When I typed my last post I realised that what I’d told the young girl was a convenient half-truth. I was running up the hill to get fit - but only to get fit for running itself. I was not answering the question of why I run. That is something far more complicated.

I actually believe that if you just want to keep generally fit, running more than a few miles a week is not sensible. You need to do a range of activities that use all of the major muscle groups and work on strength, flexibility, and cv stamina. Running could be a part of that but weight bearing exercise like cycling or swimming might be better.

Running repetitively strains certain parts of the body and makes us vulnerable to injury. I have a vague recollection reading about a tactic from Bill Rodgers who said when he was introduced to someone he might have met but didn’t recognise he just asked how the injury was going. The other runner was always grateful for the concern.

It’s a bit like the cold reading technique of mediums, except with runners you know you are always going to be right. There will always be some tale of woe about the calve, knee, ankle, achilles, hamstring or glutes. Whatever it is it is no great advert for the health benefits of our sport.

The reasons I have for running are varied and any one time I might find a partial explanation. But they do not include general fitness.

One of the things they do include though is the sense of peace you can get on a Sunday morning. Today I went for a 30-minute hilly run before breakfast at 7.30. It was the perfect temperature you get when the day is just preparing to be hot; a few people were about, but not many. There was sense of awakening.

After getting back, stretching, showering and breakfast, I sat drinking coffee, listening to one of Keith Jarrett’s solo concerts, feeling completely clear and relaxed.

You see that is just not an answer you can give to an 8 year old – I run because when I finish I can listen to Keith Jarrett and feel at peace.

A short Hill Run

For the first time for ages and ages it has felt like a summer evening. Not a balmy evening after a hot day, just a blue sky, clear light and a warmish temperature. Enough to lift the spirits - a good time for a hill run.

Plod plod plod, puff puff puff.

Nearby there is a big open area, which has a slope sharp enough to make my legs feel very heavy.

Tonight I was slowly going up the hill and a young girl aged about 8 skipped along beside me for a bit

“Why must you have to do that?” she asked
“I don’t have to do it but I like to do it. It keeps me fit”
“I like to keep fit as well. But sometimes if you do it to long you get all out of puff and sweaty”
“You’re right there – that is just how I feel”
“I have to go this way now. What way do you have to go?”
“Back down again”
“Bye bye”
“Bye bye”

It made me feel very cheery

Wild Orchids and Spindle Trees

With all the rain this year, plants seem to have grown tall and green. I was thinking this as I was running through the footpaths of Ashridge, sweeping the bracken away from my face. I then thought about how much I missed doing this with my friend, who last year emigrated to New Zealand with his family.

We had a particularly male type of friendship that it was based on two things; running or cycling, and drinking beer. For many years went over the trails of the Chilterns, talking about this and that. I think it kept us both sane when work was either especially tedious or fraught.

His background is botany, well that was his degree - his work is arboriculture. This meant that our routes would sometimes be interrupted by looking for plants. This always opened up my eyes to things I would never otherwise notice. For example there is a gully, with a path, alongside Pitstone Hill. To me it has looked completely unremarkable. To my friend it was a wonderful example of an unspoilt downland ecosystem, a sheltered area with varieties of grasses and flowers that had not been ploughed or overgrazed by sheep.

The short turf is rich in flowers and is colourful, comprising the yellows of Common Bird's-foot-trefoil and hawkweeds, the blues of scabious and milkworts and the pink of the dwarf Squinancywort. The orchid flora is often very diverse, including Early and Late Spiderorchids, Bee, Frog, Musk, Fragrant and Pyramidal Orchids, Greater and Lesser Butterfly-orchids, and Early-purple, Green-winged and Burnt Orchids.

Many a time we would stop whilst he went looking for small wild orchids.

On another occasion we passed a hedgerow and he pointed out a spindle tree, saying that it got its name because the straight, hard branches were used for spindles, as well as artists’ charcoal. Other times we would talk about why trees would spontaneously drop limbs or we would follow the changes in the season and compare the years.

To me this is what soft-core running is about – feeling part of the environment, through exertion. The contrast with hard training is that if you had a schedule and were measuring your performance, stopping to look for orchids would surely mess it up.

Ice Bath

There is an element of masochism in running. You put yourself through a degree of pain for the pleasure you feel when you have earned the right to stop. Soft core runners like myself are not too big on the idea of seeking-out pain, we just accept it as part of the mix that makes running satisfying. We need the feeling of testing our boundaries, pushing ourselves, and knowing we have achieved something.

I don't really know the boundary between extending yourself and just trying to prove you are hard. However I know there is a strain of thought that thinks tougher means better and I think it is one of the reasons iced baths have gained favour as a means of post-run recovery. There is , of course, a plausible reason why they might work but it reads more like a hypothosis than something fully supported by the evidence. I still suspect that the underlying idea is that nasty medicine works best.

it was therefore really pleasing to read this refutation. It is not that I want to stop people diving into iced baths if they like them. Many people obviously think they work (and thinking they work is probably significant in actually making them work) so they should continue. No, I was pleased because I like to see ideas being properly tested - just because something is plausible doesn't make it true and we should not confuse the two.

However i must admit I get more satisfaction when the testing confirms my own prejudices - in this case I prefer a tepid shower.

More Lack of Understanding

Following on from the last post this is another example of an academic not understanding running.

In this puritanical age in which we live, it is perhaps unnecessary to labour the point that one should not always give way to immediate gratification. Paradoxically, it may be more important to stress the folly of avoiding such gratification without checking that the long-term benefits are really worth it. America has become a nation of masochists who spend hours aimlessly jogging and depriving themselves of all but the nastiest foodstuffs. No rational hedonistic calculations are made… These self-punitive tendencies are just as irrational as Aalways clutching at the nearest pleasure… the desire to live forever and the self-punitive activities that accompany it are surely as much caused by fashion as the crinoline and the mini-skirt. And behind it all lies the most widespread, irrational and powerful fear of all, the fear of death.

I suppose that if you find even the thought of running uncomfortable then it probably inconceivable that others can find pleasure where, for you, there is only pain and discomfort.

Although it is an error of thinking to be totally bound by your own viewpoint,I would not be too harsh on this. Firstly it comes from a rather wonderful book Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland, which strips bare the ways that we all mess up in our thinking. Secondly, underneath, there is the life-affirming message that one should not stop doing, or eating, what we enjoy. The subconscious assumption that there is a big pay-back for all pleasure is irrational. We should not look for and then celebrate false virtue.

However if it had been me I would have used another example but only because I like running.

These Philosophers, They Know Nothing

They order things differently in France. When you run it is not just exercise; it is a political and intellectual statement. I loved this story about Sarkozy because it is a great example of a wonderfully patrician judgement based on complete ignorance. Alain Finkielkraut is obviously no runner but equally obviously that is no bar to having an opinion on the subject.

However I like this quote:

But Mr Sarkozy has rekindled a French suspicion that the habit is for self-centred individualists such as the Americans who popularised it. “Jogging is of course about performance and individualism, values that are traditionally ascribed to the Right,”

Not because I want to dismiss it with a snort of derision (though that is tempting) but because it generates within me a genuinely mixed response. On the one hand it is right – when we run we are self-centred. We are concerned with how we are feeling, our heart rate, our mileage, and our time. There is an underlying feeling that we can improve through little more than our own effort.

On the other hand it is a classic piece of reasoning from prejudice. It focuses on one aspect of running and makes that stand for everything about the subject. In doing so there can be no recognition that a runner is also part of a community. Many people put in hours of work to help run clubs and help others, out of love not for reward. People will support other runners, whatever their level of performance because they know everyone is on the same path (just at a different place). If we are going to play at silly political labelling then those are seen as more left wing virtues.

I think that to the outsider running seems boneheaded. It is exercise that causes pain and injury for no good purpose and it is easy to mock and make a contrast with more subtle pastimes (as is done in this rather facile comment piece). Those of us on the inside know that it is far more complicated than that. It is not only physical exertion as it involves our intellect, our discipline, our emotions, and our sense of worth.

All we can do is content ourselves with the knowledge that we know and they don’t.


PS – If I was Sarkozy I would not be worried about the people making fun of the idea of running. I would be upset about the coaching comments on my style and weight – that is a bit low.

Some days are just slower than others

Sometimes do you feel like just giving up? That the effort you put in is not only not making things better but just making things worse? That, in short, it is all a waste of time?

Today I was very close to thinking all those things as I was running through countryside, on a sunny day, in the St Albans half. The more I tried to run at a reasonable pace, the more I slowed down and the more puzzled I became. Instead of muscles I think my legs were made of molasses. At the seven miles marker I checked my pace for the past mile and could not believe I could run that slowly. I really felt like giving up in disgust.

But and this is a big but, you cannot give up just because you are having a bad day. The only thing you can do is carry on. I had to change my attitude though, had to say that this was not a race but a long slow Sunday morning run (easy to say because it was all of those things).

Ah well I finished in the end, got my medal, got my T shirt and thought it was a nice, well organised event. I think I will come back next year and lay this ghost to rest.

In answer to the question do you feel like giving up? Yes but not really. What I really feel like doing is changing things to get better. Onwards and upwards!

PS When describing my legs I used the word molasses because it reminded me of a scene in the WC Fields film 'It's a Gift'. At the start of the film he is a put-upon store keeper. A gang of kids come in and mess up the store, knocking over a barrel of molasses which then spreads over the entire floor. The next shot you see is the closed shop door with a notice " Shop closed due to molasses". i think that is my favourite sign.

Left Side Right Side

When I started this blog, way back in January 2005, all of the entries carried a tag line with a reason for running, eg here and here. I stopped because, after a time, it felt a little contrived. Nevertheless the point of continuing to write this blog is to explore the mystery of why I run and why it gives me satisfaction, even though I am objectively not very good and my age rather limits my chances of getting very much better.

I was thinking about this when listening to the book plugging programme that is 'Start the Week' when the subject was Wild by Jay Griffiths. Amongst other things her book is about the need for wilderness and the way it feeds our imagination. At one point she contrasted the vivacity of an aboriginal representation of an area of Australia with the dry emptiness of a European map of the area. At that point I thought of the internal battle I am constantly engaged in. On the one hand I strive for clear logical thought (the emphasis is on the struggle as it is infrequently attained). When trying to describe, or understand, the world around us we have to be rigorous and any idea should be open to being rationally contested. In other words I am a great believer in the scientific approach and my underlying philosophical approach is that of the Enlightenment. However what I value and viscerally respond to are works of the imagination. I love the wildness, the unexpected connections and the spark.

The fight will always go on without resolution. All that can happen is that at any one time one side or the other will have temporary ascendancy. But in running there is something that unites both part of the brain.

Mostly I run to feed the imagination. It gets me closer to the countryside, I see things with fres eyes and it allows me to enter a meditative state. However there is also the science bit. Mostly this is the domain of the hard core runners seeking to be seriously competitive but I still find it fascinating. In some ways I look at it from a distance as I lack the discipline to decide on a schedule and stick to it, but I love trying to work out what I should be doing. It is also why I admire people like Windsurfin Susie who is always trying to improve her knowledge about the relationship between heart rate and performance. More importantly she practices what she preaches.

So there you have it -

Reason for Running No. 14: It unites the left and right side of the brain


PS the success of 'Start the Week' for authors can be seen on Amazon, where the sales of Wild are linked to Blood River, one of the other books on last Monday's programme. Obviously enough people were impressed enough to buy both books together.

Confused about Shoes

One of the things that can divide my wife and me is shoes.

This is not the cliché where the woman has an obsession with new shoes and a couple of cupboards filled with all the styles and colours needed to match any type of outfit. No its me with the problem. The area under our stairs is cluttered with too many pairs of trainers and the mess is a cause of distress.

There are two pairs of off-road shoes (one for trail, one for mud), a pair of lightweights, two road pairs and a couple of pairs that are past their running date but can be used for messing about. Some runners have far more shoes, others have fewer. My attitude is however fairly male in that I see them as tools. I like the idea of tools for specific jobs and I get a sensory pleasure from the feel of something well balanced, that does a job easily and efficiently - like a good kitchen knife.

The problem is I am yet to find a pair of running shoes that give me that pleasure - none of them are perfect. They are good in some areas and not so good in others. Some are perfect for one foot but hurt the other, some feel a bit clumpy, others are not flexible enough, whilst others rub the foot in all the wrong places. All my trainers are OK but I am still searching for a pair I can love. Like some deluded romantic I am longing for something that just right. I know this is illogical but that is how it is.

My wife also knows it is illogical but doesn't see that as an excuse.

I was thinking about this when I was reading 'The paradox of Choice'about why what should make us happier (almost infinite choice) causes anxiety and dissatisfaction. One of the chapters talks about the difference between maximisers and satisficers, between those who always think there is something better and that one has to find the best, and those who are happy when they find something that is good enough and they can make a clean decision. The first group are much more unhappy, living in a perpetual state of anxiety or regret about the choices they make. It can be a form of paralysis, even over the most trivial of things. Have you ever stopped, staring at the supermarket shelves puzzling over which of the 100 shampoos you should buy, whilst also knowing that it did not make a great deal of difference?

The thing is that you are not necessarily one or the other. You can be a maximiser about some things but a satisficer about others. I am a tremendous mixture and usually for the bigger things I am quite clear, for example I almost chose my bike because I like
Max Wall and have been very happy with it. However for running shoes I am a maximiser and that doesn't really do me a great deal of good.

90% Half Mental

Here is something to get librarians very excited as it shows the power of classification. If you classify cleaning as exercise, instead of drudgery, then it not only has an effect on the mind it also has physical implications and can cause o weight loss.

This is rather startling as I have always been a believer in the rather austere school of weight management, i.e. it is purely a matter of calories consumed against calories expended, with an underlying assumption that there is a fairly standard tariff for energy burning i.e. if you did a certain activity you would expend set amount of calories. But this does not seem to be totally the case.

Perhaps I should not been surprised because the power of the placebo effect is well known. This is a variation without pills or pseudo interventions where you do yourself good by thinking that you are doing yourself good.

I think it is important that it is not a conscious cause and effect but rather it is the subconscious effect of real belief that you are doing exercise. If you directly tried to think yourself thin I don't think it would work because there would always be a part of your brain that knew it was a bit artificial - and this would ruin the effect. However if you can see what you do in a new light everything changes

It is the same with running. I don't think I can just tell myself I am a better at running and then expect to see an improvement. However I do believe that if I followed a coach or training schedule I had faith in, then that placebo variant would kick-in. There would be the physiological effect of doing the exercise but it would be amplified by the belief I was doing the right thing.

I almost believe that any method works - as long as it provides a structure and an explanation so that there is also a rational explanation for what is happening. Almost from the beginning of time there have been arguments about training regimes, especially between those who believe in lots of mile and those who emphasise speed and intensity. There has never been any resolution because different approaches have been successful for different athletes. It will probably always be so because the most important thing is that the athlete believes that their training regime is right for them. In other words, if the mind is right the body will follow.


I always liked the famous Yogi Berra quote that "baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical". My variant for running is that it is 90% half mental.