Limits

Part of running is experiencing your limitations. Of course, certain circumstances raise the bar of our limitations. Fearing for your life would, for example, make you run faster. But many circumstances are fleeting: you cannot always rely upon fear to make you run fast. Instead you have to rely on choice, and hope that you continue to run.

As an English teacher, I have about 21 hours of marking to complete this week in addition to my usual work. I have established a gifted and talented project tomorrow. Normally I would avoid putting students in a position where I trust them to organise themselves to use their initiative. Now, though, I am too busy to concern myself with that. And that is a good thing.

It is 11:37pm on a Sunday night. I have not rested or relaxed. However, unlike my student days, I am able to retire to separate bedroom from the study that I have worked from most of today. I do not have a long walk back from a cold library. Instead it is across the landing of my apartment. I trust I will be able to sleep and then work on the sleep I manage tonight.

On the weekend just gone I managed to run 22:22 for a 5k with less effort than before. There was no sense of urgency: just a relatively steady pace. I need to, at some point, examine my Garmin and see how far I slow and how much the gradient affects me. Truth is, though, I managed to run well for my fitness.

I am slower than before by a substantial way. But at least there is a base of fitness. And that base of fitness coincides with the run up of Year 11 exams, which requires a level of fitness that cannot be sustained all year.

Motivation can be simply choice: the fear of choice is whether we choose that which otherwise does not benefit us.

70, 75, 80, 85

Today I managed the kind of cross-training session that I managed at my fittest last year. It came after an experience today that made me think about what kind of man I want to be, and what kind of man I want to my kids to aspire to be, or know.

Part of running, as with any kind of physical activity, is an essential kind of machismo. A sense of testing yourself, and your limits. What I love about running, though, is that the person you test is yourself.

When I was young, I thought that any manager or leader had to be better than the person he or she was leading. As I grew older, I read that the leaders of professional organisations needed to use the skills of people better than them. Therefore, for a leader to be better than those he or she leads does not mean that he or she is more skilful. The one definitive thing is that a leader has to work harder than those he or she leads.

If a leader isn't perceived as working harder than those being led, then (in my eyes) they aren't leading well. That isn't to say that a leader needs to be working 80 hour weeks every week (although that might not be far off what is necessary at times) but it does mean that effort and endeavour are non-negotiable bench marks required by those who deserve to be led.

Another 5k today

Having returned from an inordinately long journey from London (after travelling for seven hours) I stopped at the gym. Needless to say, while sat in the car for that time my legs seized up. In my old(er) age I realise that stretching is no longer just important - it's bloody essential. Without it, my legs can't take any kid of punishment.

I attempted to run a full 5k at a pace faster than I could run. I managed 4.5, but I simply didn't have anything left to give. However, I realised that (at least) my legs are stronger than I thought. I don't have the niggles that I once had, and I can perhaps step up my training. It has been a fair time since I've been able to say that.

Intensity on normality

I have been working out with fairly intensely while feeling little motivation the past few weeks. Today was a case in point. My legs were tight, and I would have liked to skip training. The gym was quiet, and I was somewhat tired of my MP3 player.

However, I put my resistance up to 65,70,75,80. These four sets were what I did when I lost my weight and gained my fitness two years ago. It requires a hell of a lot of leg work. But my legs are strong enough - it is my core that lets me down.

As before, I experience the strange sensation of a failing body still continuing. My heart rate was massive (180+), but my mind realised that this was well within my limits. So, even though my body was telling me to stop, and my conscious mind was not so bothered about if I continued (hence the lack of intensity) I was able to continue.

In regards to my speed, I think it is the distance of my strides that matters more than anything. And that relies upon staying supple, and training regularly. If I get to anywhere near to my PBs this year coming up, I'll be amazed.

A week without running

In the past week the only exercise I have done is an hour of football. Afterwards I felt terrible: sick stomach and mouth, pounding head and eyes that wanted to push themselves free. My hamstrings were taught to the point of tearing, and no stretching seemed to help.

I had missed my Tuesday workout because a gas leak had closed the gym, and I missed my Thursday workout because snow had fallen heavily and I was grateful to have made it home. However, the snow and the football meant that I did not run on Saturday in Bridlington (although the park run results have yet to be posted, so I wonder if it went ahead at all...)

I remember two summers ago I worked a little at my school work everyday. I also completed a running tour of Scotland with some success. It was an enjoyable routine, and mean that the rest of the year was a little easier. I sit here now in my study contemplating something of the same this year.

There is no great desire to push myself towards a goal: a sub-40 minute 10k, or regular 18-19 minute 5ks at the Park Run. I don't even have that great a desire to lose weight, although I know that I really should. I do stretch, and my body has some strength still left in it. But, my life, this last week has crumbled my fitness. It only takes a short while of not working to do so...

And so I managed to use the cross-trainer at the kind of intensity that I used at my fittest. For the first ten minutes I felt as if I might collapse. I didn't though, and it set up my day. I don't want to do no training at all, though, for the next week.

Sewerby PB

I ran on Saturday, again, but without my watch for the first time in years. It was liberating. Without my inherent strength, I am unable to speed up in response to my watch's pace.

Kudos to the marshalls at Sewerby; they timed us on paper and with a phone after the organiser broke down.

I was conscious of increasing the power in my strides rather than my cadence. I am still slow (22:06) but I am regularly hitting this time. My shins hurt fairly substantially, but I think that that is perhaps necessary for my body to adapt to the demands of running again.

Running is about finding out one's limits without surpassing them. To run outside one's limits, as teaching outside one's limits, invites breakdown, and the retreat of those limits. This week I have been working for at least ten hours a day, and some in the evenings, all with four workouts and reading in the evenings. At other times, this would be too much. It feels just right at the moment, but I doubt it is a pace I can sustain forever. We'll see.