Training took a little dip in the post half-marathon period, mostly due to low level bugs and the usual pressures and distractions of everyday life. We elite athletes just need to be left alone, untroubled by things like work, gardening and shopping, but for some strange reason no-one appears to give us this freedom! I’m a finely tuned machine, a biological miracle, but try telling that to someone else.
Anyway, I feel that my training is gradually getting back on track, so to speak. Earlier this week I completed my fastest circuit of Pitsford Water (6.5 miles) – although this was the first time I ran it in a clockwise direction, so it had a bit of novelty appeal. It can be surprising how this gives a different perspective on the scenery, and the patterns of light are also different. Apparently there are training advantages in going the other way round – apart from preventing the rare “centrifugal syndrome”, where vital neurones are spun into more distant orbits through the outer reaches of the neocortex (I’m not too hot on the exact anatomical details) causing confusion and a complete failure to buy any Christmas presents, it regularises the stresses on ankles and knees as one tilts in the opposite direction on the bends.
I was running in poetic mode, and that always helps. As I ran over the bridge it became an aqueduct – I was a river, water flowing over water….
And while in poetic mode, let me paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning – “How Can I Give to Thee? – Let me count the ways..” (From Sonnets of the Portuguese, #43) ….
As you may or may not know, in April 2017 I am running in the Brighton Marathon to raise money for MIND, the national UK charity for mental health.
- You can give via my Just Giving page [http://justgiving.com/fundraising/dereklee-runningman ]
- Through JustTextGiving – text DRDL 99 £x to 70070 fr0m any network, where x = £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10. Of course, you can text multiple times! [UK only for this option, I think].
As an example, a donation of £10 equates to….
- 38.2 pence per mile
- 23.7 pence per kilometre
- 2.2 pence per 100 heartbeats (based on my stats for half-marathon)
- 1.9 pence per 100 steps
- 3 pence per 100 calories
Psychologist on the Move 
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got. When my writing starts to fizzle out, I re-order my office space. It’s amazing what comes to the surface, physically and metaphorically. I see now why my mum likes to rearrange her living room from time to time.
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What a wonderful point!!! It’s been a long time since I reordered anything at home. You have inspired me! 😀
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Absolutely!
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I was grinning all through your second paragraph, Derek. I have positional vertigo in my left ear and listening to you talk about going round and round made me dizzy. When my vital neurones are spun into more distant orbits through the outer reaches of the neocortex,” I walk like I’m three sheets to the wind! LOL
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