running

In the morning

April 23, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

In the morning I’ll wake. The sky will be dark and the birds still asleep. The only sound will be the humming fridge and a cold neighbour’s dog.

Into the darkness I’ll run, leaving the fridge and the dog to hum and bark on their own. With each step my breath will deepen, with each mile my mind will settle.

And as I cross the distant bridge, the rising sun will turn the river gold and kiss the city buildings good morning.

I’ll smile as I go upon my way, for these are the gifts that morning brings.

What’s your tempo?

April 6, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

Creating a personal best requires an intimate relationship with pain.

If you want to do a marathon you’ll need to walk, jog, or shuffle 42.195 kilometres. Whatever way you do it, once you’ve crossed the line you’re a marathon finisher. You’ve done it. But most people aren’t satisfied with just completing a marathon.

Once you’ve done your first you have a personal best (PB). The next is about breaking your PB.

So how do you run a faster marathon?

For most weekend runners the answer is to jog further and further and further. Jog 34 ks in training and you’re pretty much guaranteed to complete a marathon in a decent time. Do that often enough and you’ll set a PB.

There’s no doubt that doing long runs at a slow pace is important but other factors are equally so. There’s stride efficiency but there’s also this thing called tempo.

Most good runners can run at a high tempo for a long period. This is done by improving the runner’s top speed – which is all about strength, flexibility and an efficient technique – and then learning to hold that top speed, or close to it, for longer and longer periods. The longer a runner can run at tempo the better.

But running at tempo isn’t easy. In fact it’s very hard. Not only must you have great technique but you also need to cultivate the ability to lean into the pain, to settle in to the new sensations of burning lungs and jelly legs or whatever it is that you go through during a period of peak performance.

During those moments the voices usually start. That voice that says, “Don’t hurt yourself,” or “Hey, just take it easy today. Do a hard workout tomorrow.” There’s a myriad of these little voices chirping away and each attempt to separate you from your physical experience. But they, too, are part of the peak experience. So, in just the same way as you become one with the pain, become one with the voices. Give them an opportunity to have their say. Don’t fight them but don’t engage with them. Just let them chat away, acknowledge them, then bring your focus back to the physical experience.

Bring it back to your breathing. Feel your breath flow in and out. Feel the tension in your forehead and the back of your neck. Relax your lips and your fingers. Relax the muscles in your face. Relax your toes. Focus on your technique, on your foot strike, on the drive from your arms. Soon, all that will be is your breath and your effort will become relaxed and not strained of forced. In that moment, there’s no struggle and no fear. Just breath and movement.

In these moments we begin to approach our peak. And it’s in these moments that we achieve longer, faster, stronger. Do that often enough and PBs will come your way.

Image: Vick the Viking on Flickr

Do you look the masseuse in the eye?

March 29, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

Where do you look when you’re getting your quads massaged? Image: Rpm 90 https://www.flickr.com/photos/76074536@N07/7649628352/

I was running this morning with a bunch of super fit athletes, some of whom who were training for the Paris marathon. The pace was easy and the conversation plentiful.

Around the 4 k mark someone started to talk about massages. Marathon runners love massages. There was the usual banter about the last massage and how many massages were going to be had before the Paris. Then Jason blurted out, “During my last massage I couldn’t stop looking at the masseuse’s eyebrows. They were plucked way too high. they made her look funny.”

Straight away someone asked, “Why on earth were you making eye contact, Jason? That’s just weird.”

And that question started a debate about the most appropriate place to look when you’re having your quads massaged.

Now I don’t want to diss Jason here but I’m an eyes-to-the-ceiling kind of guy. Either that or eyes closed. But eye contact is off limits. I get a massage to relax, sometimes to the point of sleep but not to talk or connect with the masseuse.

How about you? Where do you look when you’re having your quads massaged?

Today I ran. And did chin-ups.

March 13, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

I ran this morning. And I did some chinups. The chin-up bar was wet from rain. It made it hard to grip. Still, I did sets of 3 chin-ups and 10 push-ups.

Afterwards, I ran for 600 metres at sub-4 minute pace. Running that fast feels great but it takes strength to maintain good form.

I’m going to run fast more often. Most of my running is done at a jog and that’s does little to activate my glutes and hamstrings. A smooth action needs strong glutes and hamstrings to rotate the feet higher at the back. With a higher rotation the runner spends more time in the air and the more time you spend in the air, the faster you run.

So tomorrow I’ll run intervals to improve my speed and efficiency.

I’m an average runner but I’m better at running than I am at chin-ups. That makes me pretty hopeless at chin-ups. But, I’ll persist until I succeed.

Never give up, right?

How digging myself a hole has stopped me from running

March 8, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

Distractions can come from something as simple as a hole in the ground. Image: Kelly Sikkema http://www.flickr.com/photos/95072945@N05/10158714405/

I’m going for a run in the morning. It’s my first long run for 3 weeks. It’ll be around 16 k’s.

Both my running and chin-up challenges are off the rails. First I suffered a calf injury. That took a couple of weeks to get through. Then I got distracted by two presentations that I’d never done before. It took a lot of time to get the story line right. The investment in time was worth it but the cost of that investment was a setback in my fitness.

There’s something else that’s distracted me. That something is the bore in our front yard. About 3 weeks ago it stopped working. I turned it on one morning then, ‘pop’, a fuse blew. And it wasn’t an ordinary flick-the-RCD-back-on kind of blow. This one was ‘down to earth.’ That’s an electricians way of saying that there’s a live wire shorting to ground.

It’s dangerous.

After some digging and testing the electrician told me that the problem was where the old bore wiring joined onto the new. Find that join, they said, and you’ll find your problem.

I started digging.

I dug and I dug and I dug some more until hole the size of the Grand Canyon appeared in my front lawn. Not only was there a hole but there were also mounds of dirt and mounds of once beautiful lawn that now sat waiting until I could find the problem and fill in the hole.

Finally, I found the join. I was happy. Soon I’d have the sparkies back, they’d fix the problem, I’d fill in the hole and my lawn could start growing again.

But things don’t always go according to plan.

About 7 years ago I had the old bore decommissioned and a new bore installed. We were doing some other work on the house at the time and I had a Bobcat driver on the property. I told him I wanted to fill in the old well.

Quick to seize on an opportunity to save himself some money in tip fees he said, “No worries. We’ll just throw this rubble down the hole then fill it in with sand.”

“Won’t it subside?” I asked.

“Nah mate. I do it all the time,” he explained.

I was convinced, but was fooled too easily.

Within a month a round depression had started to take shape on the newly planted lawn. It was the shape of the old well.

“That’s ok,” I thought. “I’ll put some topdressing on it and it’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t.

A few months later the depression was back. Once again, I did the patch job but in no time the depression was back.

I had to do something.

I called the landscaper.

“Ollie, I want you to come out and lay a patch of concrete over this bore so that it stops sinking,” I demanded.

He did and the problem was fixed – until the bore stopped.

To get to the problem join I had to break through the concrete slab that Ollie had laid.

As luck would have it, Ollie wasn’t the world’s greatest concreter. Even with the tools I had available – I’m no big tool guy – I was able to smash through the concrete patch with relative ease.

But something odd happened.

As each piece broke an ever larger hole started to appear. Soon it was more than a hole – it was a cavern in the size of a bore hole and well over a metre deep.

Now, not only did I have the holes I’d dug to expose the electrical conduit, I also had a hole where the soil had subsided beneath Ollie’s concrete cap.

The Bobcat driver had turned out to tell a lie as big as the hole he’d been filling at the time.

Today, I poured 120 kilograms of concrete on top of the Bobcatter’s rubble. That’s going to act as a plug just like Ollie’s did. But the difference is that this plug is over a metre below the surface with only rubble below it.

Tomorrow I’m going to fill the hole up with good quality fill sand topped off with some nice loam that the lawn will love.

So if I’ve lost a missed a few k’s and a few chin-ups, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Sunday reflections: A run, Pink Floyd and a presentation

March 2, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

There’s a direct relationship between a healthy lifestyle and success.
Image: Josiah Mackenzie http://www.flickr.com/photos/josiahmackenzie/

Today I presented a 45 minute keynote entitled 6 Things to do that will help you succeed despite the odds. The audience was LED Electrical Distributors. They have outlets in Perth, Kalgoorlie and Esperance.

I spent most of yesterday preparing. I sweated over the images and the contents and the bullet points – or lack thereof. I deleted nearly every slide at least once. Then added them back in. Then deleted them. I was like a cricketer who couldn’t work out whether run or not. Yes, no, wait.

Gahhhh!

I finally settled on what I thought was a pretty good slide deck – 9 slides and only one with bullet points. But – and I always do this – I leave the finishing touches to the day of the presentation. The looming deadline seems to sharpens my focus.

That meant an early start this morning to polish, check and write my speakers bio. By the time I’d finished I was feeling sharp and ready.

I checked the time. There was still enough for the 5 k run I promised to make yesterday. I threw on my Asics then I was out the door, up the hill and around the corner.

For the first couple of k’s I was on top of the world. My breathing was steady and rhythmic. And then it hit me. I’d gone out too hard. For the rest of the run I felt like was running through treacle.

But right near the end something magical happened. With about 300 metres to go my legs suddenly felt free and loose and relaxed. My stride lengthened, my speed picked up and it all felt pretty awesome.

Now that I’d delivered on my promise it was time to get ready. But now I had a problem. I usually run first thing in the morning so by the time I’m getting dressed for work I’ve cooled down. Not today.

By the time I hit the road the day had already warmed up to bloody hot. Now, as I walked through the front door, cheeks red, dripping in sweat I was faced with the dilemma of how I was ever going to cool down enough so I can I pull on a shirt and pants.

I jump in for a cold shower. That oughta do the trick.

Well it did – sort of – until I towelled off. Then it was straight back to the sweat factory. I’m sweating like a camper who’s just found a snake in their sleeping bag. It just wouldn’t stop.

So I pull on a pair of jocks, crank up the ceiling fans under the patio and wait for the breeze to do its thing. Finally, I cooled down enough to pull on the work gear and head for the door.

The drive to The Vines is just long enough to listen to the Disk 1 of The Wall by Pink Floyd. It’s one of my favourite albums. I just love cranking up the volume and getting lost in the angst about unhealthy relationships with authority figures that pour through the lyrics.

Hush now baby, baby, dont you cry.
Mother’s gonna make all your nightmares come true.
Mother’s gonna put all her fears into you.
Mother’s gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She wont let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mama will keep baby cozy and warm.
Ooooh baby ooooh baby oooooh baby,
Of course mama’ll help to build the wall.

After all that, the presentation went well. Of course there are parts that I want to do better: the transition between points, the way that the two main stories work together, timing (I could’ve gone a little longer) and my conclusion – they all need work.

But overall I was happy with the way I presented and it made me smile when I heard a lady say, “That was brilliant!”

6 things guaranteed to make you run faster and stronger

February 9, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

There’s more to running than just pounding the pavement. Image: The Running Centre

If you want to run further, faster or both then the crew at The Running Centre have a course just for you. I attended their very informative running techniques course today. Here’s what I learned.

Practice running drills. If you’re like me you’ve started running thinking that running is just walking faster. It’s not. To run well takes practice. Swimmers have known this forever. They practice with drills designed to make their stroke more efficient so they can go faster with less effort.
Increase your strength. Running well demands a strong core, strong hip flexors and strong glutes. Individually a running stride does little to strengthen any of these muscles and that’s why you’ll need to activate them through plyometrics. Try squats, pushups, leg raises, a bridge, calf raises and ITB leg raises.
Increase the flexibility of your hip flexors. Flexible hip flexors helps you to create that beautiful circular stride that top athletes have.
Increase the flexibility in your achilles tendon and your calf muscle. Over 50 percent of your propulsion comes from your ankle. The two things that impact that the most the elasticity in your achilles and plantar fascia (the tendon in the bottom of your foot). So make sure to do lots of calf stretches.
Run less to run more. This is a trap I’ve fallen into. The fitter I get the further I want to run but that often leads to overuse injuries – like the calf strain I’m carrying right now.
Forget about which part of your foot hits the ground first. Instead, focus on getting your foot to land under your body. If your foot lands to far in front of your body it spends too much time on the ground. If you have an efficient stride you’ll be in the air for about 60 percent of the time. Over-stride and your time on the ground increases and your speed slows.

I’m keen to learn more so I’ll probably invest in their advanced workshops.