Miles - 8 ; Time - 1 hour 6 Min's; Conditions - mild and dry; Weekly mileage - 30 miles
Saturday! The weekend. A time to rest, relax. So after 4 hours kip i was up at 5.30am to train my client.
It has been a fascinating process. What is a personal trainer? Why do people have them? To lose weight, shape up, get fit. Some people want specific things, like body sculpting, increase strength but mostly want to look and feel better. There are many trainers out there who will blind people with the technical and physical, but how many take the time to listen? To get in the head. To help with the mental as well as the physical.
My client is an ultra successful 60 year old business lady. Amazing in business and chronically low self esteem out of it. Therefore by talking and building up trust and using power walking, hills and getting up early to see dawn breaking, We have worked on building confidence, esteem, positivity and of course healthiness. It has been a fascinating process. Also a help to me too.
After I slipped in an early morning Bikram class to stretch. Injuries played on my mind but I iced, stretched tried to not worry too much. Using positive thoughts instead of my natural 'oh god it's all going to go to tits' mentality,
A quick one about yoga. Sometimes it has been painful being quiet for 90 minutes. My head has seemed so loud that i thought it would disrupt the class. Sometimes the head has been focusing on a problem, on being tired, on what hurts, on a resentment during the day, or just plain not wanting to do the class and wishing it to end. That has been a regular thinking pattern for me. Being quiet sometimes is almost painful that i want to scream. Not sure that would go down too well in a yoga class.
Today i tried to focus on each posture, on stretching, on being 'in the present'. It certainly helped and made me enjoy the class more. OK there was an ultra fit teacher in hot pants but as I've said before that was the cherry on the icing. Still helps though! Plus this attitude usually means i won't engage in an argument and get barred from class. So really it;s not just helping me but everyone else in the world too!
Afterwards, i set off for my run. It was The usual route this week (along Chelsea Embankment up to Parliament Square) and weather was good, i felt energetic and remarkably the hip has fixed, Achilles settled down, only the shin gave me jip but i could manage that. I powered on at a steady pace for a nice and tight 8 miler. Felt good, didn't go too quick, but also got into the steady rhythmic zone and floated along for a bit. I love those moments and will try to focus on them more. Apparently that's a classic sports psychology tool and helps in raising performance. It also helps with my head.
I ran this in 1hr 6 Min's, the second half was 4 Min's quicker than 1st half so that shows that my body warms up after 30 minutes. Things stop creaking and pain disappears, my head clears out and I'm in the moment. I seem to run better. That's my tip for the day. Try to attain this status in whatever you do. I may try it in DIY later (if you know what i mean)
Rest of day spent meeting a mate for lunch who happens to be a performance coach. I'm meeting him in 2 weeks for some 'mental' training. It may take him a long time. But he did say allot of interesting things about the brain, performance and how to affect change and improve performance. These are themes i will explore in later blogs.
I also did The most insane meeting I've been too (i counted 6 manic depressives in attendance, most of which were not on medication. It was like an episode of Shameless), had an ultra argument with my family, lost my temper, apologised, lost my temper again and then put phone down in a fit of temper tantrum, effectively like an 8 year old.
Why are families the hardest people to keep your cool with? God, if those family bag of maltesers weren't next to me i may consider going out for a run to ease the anger. I have such anger issues apparently but they can f*** off.
I suppose it boils down to acceptance. My moral of the day, i can only change myself not others.
So there's day 20. nearly 3 weeks of solid running. Incredible for me. All in, a good day, well, up until 8pm and then it was bag o shite. Still, tired so i am going to be the world's most boring man and get an early night it in. It;s the dreaded long one tomorrow - but I'm going to try and swap my attitude around and embrace it. MMMM, lets see if i can do such a thing
Enjoy your Sunday jogger bloggers
Mucho love
xx
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