Sixty Seconds Worth Of Distance Run...
Kassios Dias has done me good…
I feel better for running the race than I did before it... My left leg - the whole of my left side - feels stronger…I have been working on it a lot for a long time now, and today I can feel another jump in improvement… On reflection I did do many many ‘step ups’ clambering up the hills and rocky paths…!
I was very relaxed for the whole race, and so this in itself has had a cleansing and clearing effect…
This morning we drove down to Ipsos for a ‘recovery swim’, and while we were sitting in the car before the ‘off’, I decided to check my ‘sitting in the car heart rate’… It was 38, which is the lowest I have recorded a resting HR for some years.
During my fastest running days, I once recorded 29 whilst lying in the ‘corpse position’, at the end of a yoga session. My cat Ferrit was sitting beside me, purring, basking in the chilled out energy. But generally then it was around 32...
Yesterday I ran the whole race on my heart rate, I kept it around 160, and I had total rests down the hills, when it dipped down into the 120’s and 130’s!
But essentially I spent around three hours with my heart beating on its threshold, and… It has made me fitter…
I know this can happen, as I have seen this effect before. It also is a very relaxing way to run… And lends to the meditation.
I won the Beachy Head marathon this way too… many years ago now; I think it was 2003, but it might have been 2004?
I chose to run all the way on heart rate and I loved every step… To run this way requires one's attention is more focused on the training than the racing... Training the body in a way which it really responds to... And every one of us is different, so discovering what works for each of us as an individual is the key, we are all a study of one…
I always emphasize to anyone I have coached that we are not looking at pace or times, they will come of themselves…
We are looking at training the system, and our system does not lie to us.
It is also affected by many things, not just the training carried out… Our lifestyle must support our training… Or at least the training must support our lifestyle and be compatible with everything else we want to engage in…
We are a whole system, and so our emotional state, our social life, our goals, our commitments, our contradictions, our ups our downs; they must all be considered…
This way our training programme, and the skills we develop, and all that we learn on the running track, or any endeavor that we engage in, can be taken back into the rest of our lives, and make us a master of our life, and most importantly the master of ourselves…
As you already know I was brought up with Rudyard Kipling... His poem ‘If’ inspired me when I was a teenager, especially of course the line
‘If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run’!
But the whole poem still speaks to me of a life lived from within, effecting how we conduct ourselves, and in turn how our life unfolds on the outside…
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
I may have interpreted my favourite line
‘If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run’ differently when I was a teenager to now… I was full of enthusiasm at every turn, as I am now, and I was reflective too, as I am now, but I can’t remember exactly what meaning I gave the line then… I just remember it spoke to the runner in me!
However, now I consider sixty seconds worth of distance run as meaning that every single minute I intend to be present, for every single one of the sixty seconds…
After our truly glorious swim today, we sat eating breakfast and I checked facebook; I said to Anadi that checking in to meet all my friends who engage with my writing and who I meet each day - those of you that connect and comment and those of you that I know journey with me too - reminds me of turning up at school each day; and the joyous fun of meeting up and sharing and connecting, laughing, being together every single day….
I love and appreciate this incredible journey I have set out on with you all...
Thank you to the Kassios dias team for the great pics!