Tag: Running
on February 12, 2018 February 12, 2018 By damianrobb
Music today comes from a chap called Allman Brown., the song is called Sons and Daughters, I've been loving it, and now you can too.
Words written for the year: 30,997
Being an emerging writer, I don't have many deadlines. I have some, such as if I want to enter a competition that has a closing date, when I'm creating things with other people, or when I have picked up the occasional writing job, but when I'm working on my own stuff there's no need to hit a certain mark every day, no one breathing down my work saying they need those pages ASAP.
While it's good not to have the stress and extreme pressure, some pressure can be a good thing. It can motivate. I'm still hitting my daily word goal, six hundred plus, but I want to incorporate that with short sharp bursts of writing where I try to hit much higher marks.
Basically, I think I could do with a liberal dose of deadlines, so I'm planning to give myself some. The idea will be to choose a project, or a subsection of a project, and set a date to finish it by, and sometimes aim to start, middle, and finish some of the smaller projects within a single day.
The thing is, I have the time. I've purposely been doing less things this year so that I have more down time. When this happens I usually consider writing, but then talk myself out of it by saying that I've already hit my daily word goal. Which isn't a lie, and is good, and should be rewarded, but there's also no reason I shouldn't push myself for a little bit more. The problem then comes from motivation, because the fact is writing is work. It's definitely enjoyable, and fun, and you can get into a zone where hours fly by without you realising, but conversely, there are times where it's laborious, and hard, and feels like squeezing juice out of uncut coconut. You have enough of those times and your motivation can wan.
I'm hoping deadlines will work as a way to force me to squeeze the coconut, even when I don't want to.
I'll let you know how I go.
I've also been relearning how to run.
I don't mean I'm getting back into running, I mean I'm literally learning a better way to run, and it hurts.
Let's back up a bit. I've been seeing a running coach, two actually (I get around), although one's also a physiotherapist. The people in question are Dominic (running coach) and Nikki (physiotherapist) who run BCN Health and Fitness, and they've been teaching me how to run.
I've been running for a few years now, probably around ten now, and have done okay at it. I'm not about to win any races, but I've completed a few half marathons and mostly managed to stay consistent and (so far) injury free. But, as I'm learning, I've also been running in a way that exerts excess energy and doesn't utilise certain muscles that could give me extra speed.
I completed a running assessment with Dom and Nikki, where Nikki asked me to do a number of stretches and squats to test my butt muscles (she called them gluts) before passing me over to Dom who recorded me running (clothes on, he insisted) and made some changes to my form and stance, as well as some other suggestions. They followed this up with a in-depth written and video analysis, a number of daily exercises to strengthen my sweet gluts, and a running program for the next six weeks.
It's now been two weeks since I've implemented their changes and I'm sore. My arms are being held in a different way, my juicy butt is getting a frequent workout, I'm landing on my feet differently, and unsurprisingly my legs are using different muscles to compensate for all that. It's a good kind of sore, a kind that says I'm training my muscles, strengthening them, and making me a more competent runner. But still, sore. The soreness is decreasing though, and I'll be interested to see how their changes pay out by the end of the six weeks.
Lastly, I saw this video of artist, Fernando Abellanas, building himself a secret studio under an underpass and thought it was the best thing ever. Check it out.
Remember, you're still going and so am I.
on November 29, 2017 November 29, 2017 By damianrobb	3 Comments
Another tune from Kim Churchill for today's blog song because the album's so good that I'm still listening to it. This one's called Weight Falls.
Current chain of writing days: 9
I'm currently in training for a half marathon. Despite a previous resolve to do one a year, indefinitely — which I have admittedly only done for the past two years — I didn't think I was going to do one this year. Dropping the ball on the third time round wouldn't have been great but I was okay with it because I knew the cause, writing. Most of my not-at-work/not-socialising time this year has gone into writing, a fact that I'm pleased with, and would have accepted as a reasonable excuse to shirk past-Damian's running resolve. Add to that that training for a half marathon is inevitably a time consuming endeavour involving building up your stamina over weeks to be able to handle longer and longer runs, which end up going for hours at a time. Like just about everybody I know, I felt like I have no free time, and so cramming hours of running every week into an already bloated calendar seemed impossible.
Luckily my brother, Matthew, stepped up to coerce and convince me to think otherwise. Well, all he really did was send me a text that said he was planning on running a half marathon and would appreciate it if I could do it with him, but it was the motivation I needed to ensure I didn't break my streak, especially as I was keen to support Matt's own efforts.
Let me tell you about my brother. Not only is he an excellent teacher and family man, he's also someone who when he sets himself at a task gives it his all. At the start of the year he wrote a list of 2017 goals on a blackboard in his garage. He purposely chose the word 'goals' over 'resolutions' because he felt that you could only ever succeed or fail at a resolution, whereas goals could be changed depending on circumstances, and therefore still be achieved even if not in the initial form. How fucking great is that. It's pragmatism at its best. It's also just about everything you need to know about Matthew.
Two of his yearly goals were running based. He's been running for years, off and on, much the same as I have, but he'd been more off than on at the end of last year and so to counter that he decided he would attempt to: 1) Run a thousand kilometers across the year, and 2) complete a half marathon. Pretty lofty goals for someone who hadn't been running consistently for some time. Hell, lofty even for someone who had. To complete the thousand kilometers he would have to run at least twenty kilometers per week. He started out strong, hitting this target through the hotter months and into autumn but then slowed down come winter, until the point where he knew he wouldn't achieve his initial goal. So, he altered it; reduced the number, and ensured he would keep going rather than quit altogether. Pragmatism in practice. I still love it. He also decided to double down on the goal to complete a half marathon, but, it being later in the year, and, with the longest distance he had ever ran previously being ten kilometers, Matt knew he needed extra motivation and so the message to me was sent.
Which brings us to last Sunday, we're halfway through our training (four weeks into the eight we've given ourselves to get half marathon ready) and appropriately we're about to run twelve kilometers (a half marathon being just under double that). It's early in the morning — to avoid the heat, which is still present anyway, although more in the form of humidity thanks to some recent rain — and we're standing on the Maribyrnong river running track ready to go. We click the button on our watches to measure our distance and we begin. We chat as we go, probably not a good idea as it uses precious oxygen our moving bodies are desperate for, but this is also our catch up time, and so on we talk between breaths. At two kilometers Matt's watch beeps (as he'd set it to do) and he says something to me that I really liked, the very something that made me write this particular blog, in fact. He tells me that in his classroom they've been practicing celebrating every victory, basically that celebrating a completed goal is great but to also acknowledge hitting the milestones on the way to that goal. He then held up his hand and, still running, we gave each other a high five. Every additional two kilometers his watch would beep and we would slap our increasingly sweaty palms together, every victory celebrated. As mentioned, Matt's previous longest run was ten kilometers, so as we stepped over the ten kilometer mark and into the ten point zero one kilometer mark Matt threw his arms into the air and let out a whoop. And why shouldn't he? He'd just run the furthest he'd ever run before; it wasn't the twelve kilometer goal we'd set for the day but it was surely an accomplishment well worth celebrating. By the time we did hit twelve there were more whoops, more high fives, and then the ultimate celebration, breakfast.
What I like most about Matt's goal adapting and every-victory-celebrating is that both of these ideas actually help motivate you to keep going, and ensure you feel success and pride along the way. Which you should. If you set out to go for a ten kilometer run but only do five, you shouldn't berate yourself for not running ten but rather celebrate that you went for a run at all. You just ran five kilometers, well done you.
Of course, this doesn't apply to just running. It can, and in my opinion, should, be used anytime you set yourself a goal. For myself, I plan to use in for my writing. If all I have in me on any given day is to write one sentence, well then at least I wrote that sentence, and I'll celebrate that fact.
Feeling like you've failed is a poor motivator. Celebrate every victory. Matt did, and last Sunday he ran the longest distance he ever had before, and by Christmas, he'll likely have doubled it.
This morning I went for a run. I had pre-planned it. The inevitable Christmas gorging is something I'm a big fan of partaking in and thought I should preemptively offset at least a bit of it, so that when my belly's full from too much consumption and the twin demons of guilt and regret are making their way towards me I can say 'Well, at least I went for a run.'
I got up at around 6:30am and by seven I was dressed in my running gear and closing the door of my house behind me. The sun was low, but bright and beaming. It reached somewhere towards thirty five degrees celsius in Melbourne yesterday so even with some of that heat dissipating overnight the morning was still warm. I started my watch to record the kilometers as I ran them and my feet began rhythmically hitting the pavement. I decided that I would run ten kilometers and by the time I reached the five kilometer turnaround point I was covered in sweat. The warmth of my body felt good, and cleansing.
On the way back it started to rain. Nothing too hard, just a light sun shower after the heat of the night before. Usually, I don't enjoy running in the rain mostly because I find it frustrating when it gets into my eyes, but this morning, with my sunglasses negating that problem, the rain was clean and refreshing. I finished the run in good spirits, my muscles sore but my body hot and alert. As I usually do after a run I decided to do a cool down walk around the park next to my house. The rain, that until this point had remained in the shower category, turned into a thunderstorm as I did so. It was gorgeous. Even with the thunder and lightning dancing above me and the thick drops soaking my already wet running gear the storm still wasn't enough to dampen our strong Australian sun. Instead I had a stunning view of green grass under a small patch of grey sky encircled, to the horizon, by blue and sunshine. A summer storm. The heavy rain was welcome and I finally started cooling as I made my way around the deserted park. I stopped briefly under a tree to simply watch the storm as the pattern of lightning followed by thunder continued above. The rain was torrential now but the dark mass it poured out of was still ringed by the stalwart light of the sun. I stood there, hot but getting colder, red faced and wearing black, and near laughed at the beauty of it. A middle aged coupled came towards me from around the corner of the path and they too were soaked, although seemed to share the energy a thunderstorm can bring. They approached and the man made a joke about the fickleness of Melbourne weather, we shared a smile, and they stood beside me under the boughs of the tree, all of us silently watching the rain.
Tomorrow is Christmas and with that comes a certain kind of magic. On the other side of the world that magic is personified by blankets of snow, rugging up against the cold, and sharing warm fires. Here, nothing seems more appropriate that standing with strangers and watching a summer storm.
I hope you all have a magical day tomorrow.