Tag: running

Thoughts

One Year On

minceandskirlie

It’s been about a year since my last blogpost. And some things have happened since then. When I was last posting I was in the middle of half marathon training and really hyped to be back at a regular running schedule after a few years of back issues. Well, my disc suddenly decided fuck that a few weeks from the race and although I pushed through on the day, that was pretty much the last decent run I went on. That was in July last year.

Since then I’ve had physio, then surgery a few weeks ago, and I’m now hopefully on the way to recovery. If I get back to half marathon distance and beyond? I dunno. It might be that part of my life is done, which I’m starting to come to terms with, but you never know. I’m basically taking all the pressure off myself for that now.

There’s been a load of other stuff going on since last year, both on a personal level and generally in the global news that has been not fun. However, let’s not dwell too much on those. I’d much rather try and focus on things that are positive and take people’s mind off all the horrible things that are going on. The news is important and activism is more important than ever. But you have to also let the pressure off and take care of yourself first.

With that in mind and while I’ve been unable to go running, cycling, climbing or do any of the other things I would do to maintain body and soul I’ve had to look at other ways to relax. I mean, I still had gaming and music, but I was looking for something new, preferably a social sport that was low impact and I could take with me into the next ten or twenty years if my back decides to rebel against me again. I did some research and had a look at what was available locally and eventually signed up for a beginners course in archery.

I’ve been going since October and it’s honestly brilliant. The act of archery itself is very meditative – the draw, hold and release. A motion repeated over and over again across the session. Trying to build consistency and accuracy. I find it really relaxing, plus it uses a lot of back muscles to correctly draw the bow and my physio thought it would be beneficial in the long term for recovery. The social aspect is also really good for me, especially as I’ve been working from home more often lately. Everyone at the club is friendly and encouraging, it’s a small club with a focus on coaching beginners and kids so you’d expect that really.

Archery is also a very nerdy sport, it’s not fashionable, which suits me perfectly. Plus it has a huge variety of equipment to geek out over. I took great pleasure in putting together a wish list of gear, which I then picked off over black Friday sales and christmas. Then you have to set it all up and tune it so it’s as accurate as possible. I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it, despite a long break for my disc surgery. I’m excited to see how I can progress through the year now we’re into the outdoor season.

Another new hobby I’ve picked up (like I needed any more) is chess. I keep installing chess apps on phones, tablets and even my PC but then never play them. Well, I decided to give it a go and now I’m hooked. I can’t get enough. I’m watching YouTube videos, twitch streamers, reading books, doing puzzles and playing loads of games on chess.com to try and improve. I’m still pretty terrible though but I’m enjoying it a lot. I like that there’s a game mode for whatever I can fit in at the time. Quick puzzles and blitz games to pass a few minutes, or rapid games if I have some more time to spare.

I also play games like Magic: The Gathering and Warhammer 40k, but to keep up with them you have to build new decks, new army lists, and the rules are constantly being updated and you have to spend a lot of effort just keeping on top of the logistics of knowing the game, let alone actually playing a few rounds. Chess has a lot of the strategy of other games but chess… chess never changes. The rules are the rules and that’s how the game is played (variants like chess960/freestyle not withstanding). But really, I like that I can just load up a game on my PC, phone or tablet and run through it in 5, 10 or 20 mins. Or just sit and go through some tactics puzzles for a bit.

There’s also a bottomless pit of resources to help you learn and improve in the game. Which for anyone like me who has a strong hyper-fixation reflex when it comes to new things, is an absolutely essential part of the experience.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. In amongst all that, there’s still the day job, still got to spend time with the family and keep the kids entertained, and I’ve still got a uni module to finish for the OU that I use all these hobbies to procrastinate from. Once this latest (and second last) module is out of the way I hope to get back to some Twitch streams myself, pick up some music and model painting again and maybe even do more writing. For now, I’ll go play some chess. No, damnit, I’ll go finish this assignment…

Health and fitness, Thoughts

Reasons it’s OK to stop on a run

minceandskirlie

I watched a recent video by The Running Channel on YouTube where the presenter beat themselves up for stopping near the end of their long training run. I’ve seen other runners do the same, being annoyed with themselves for stopping on a run or walking a short distance. With the caveat that I am not a fast runner, or a coach, I’m just a recreational runner that’s been doing this for a long time, let me just say to everyone – it’s OK to stop!

Walking for a minute or stopping for a few seconds won’t suddenly undo the rest of the good work you’ve done during the session. If you’ve been working hard for weeks during a training block, aiming for a specific event that’s coming up, one short rest won’t knock back the weeks of effort you’ve put in leading up to it. So give yourself a break!

Here’s some reasons why you should stop during a run:

1 – To get a rest
This is the obvious reason. Maybe you’re coming down with something, maybe you’re still getting over that interval session the other day, maybe you just aren’t having a good running day. Take a minute, catch a breath and then get going again once you’ve reset.

2 – To cross the road
Another obvious reason. Not all of us have access to miles of uninterrupted running and occasionally, or quite often in an urban environment, you need to stop to safely cross the road. Remember to look both ways.

3 – To admire the scenery
You’re out for a trail run, you turn the corner just as the sun peaks out from the clouds for the first time, lighting up a majestic mountain which reveals itself in the distance and making the landscape around you glow. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming, sonnets are being written in your head at the sights in front of you. If you can’t stop for a second to check out the view, why are you even running off-road?

4 – Squirrel!
Channel you’re inner Dug. It’s OK to be distracted by a squirrel, fox, stoat, eagle, kestrel, owlbear. Just like number 3, one of the reasons I love running on hills and trails is to be surrounded by nature, and fill up my inner well with the beauty of the landscape and wildlife around us. If I hear a skylark high above me, damn right I’m stopping for a second to try and spot it. If I see a stoat running along the edge of a field, I’ll watch it until it disappears.

5 – To refuel
On race day, going for your PB, you can force yourself to eat a cereal bar or squeeze down a gel while you’re running. When you’re out on your long run in the spring sunshine and you’ve had months of a cold, wet, windy winter (as we have in Scotland), then it’s OK to stop to take on a gel, soak up some warmth for the sun, find a bin or a pocket to put the wrapper in, then set off running again.

6 – Because it hurts
If something hurts while you’re running. Stop! At least to see if it goes away. If it doesn’t go away and it’s affecting how you run – changing your gait, slowing you down – or it gets worse (especially if the pain is sharp), then really stop. Cancel the run and walk home or phone for a lift. Carrying on and making it worse will just lead to long term injury and even less running in the short term. Having said that, a bit of muscle ache is fine, no-one said it would be easy.

So there’s a few reasons why I think it’s OK to stop the next time you’re out on a training run. Obviously, some people are more hardcore than me and if you really don’t want to stop, that’s OK too. I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying if you do stop then don’t be hard on yourself about it. At the end of the day most of us are doing this because we enjoy running, it keeps us fit, and gets us outside. Make the most of it and keep it fun.

Thoughts

This is going well

minceandskirlie

Welp, It’s only been 3 months since my last blogpost! Such much for getting back to writing more regularly.

In the aftermath of my post about loneliness I said things were looking up and I had a plan to try and improve the situation. And I did, really! But knowing what I should do and actually doing it are two different things. Work got busy. I got sick, had an (unrelated) minor operation, then got injured. Kids had football to go to, school holidays, and birthdays. My OU course hit it’s peak for the year. The excuses and the stress just builds on top of each other.

In the end, all the things I told myself I’d try and do, like get back to the local running club, go to some local folk sessions or try to get together with friends more often to play games, just haven’t happened. I spent ages fretting about my online branding and renaming my Twitch channel, then haven’t had time to stream since.

To paraphrase Jurassic Park – Life, uh, gets in the way.

I did find some time to do another linocut print:

Even that was over a month ago now and I haven’t done any more. It’s really frustrating.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though. My uni module is coming to an end over the next weeks and the pressure in my day job is easing off as well. I seem to have recovered from my knee injury (pathetically inflicted walking down the stairs at home) and have managed to start running again. I’ve even managed to use some firm self control and some calorie counting to start losing a bit of weight. I figure if I can get rid of some of the weight I’ve put on since the pandemic that might help reduce my back issues and other injuries.

Hopefully this all sticks and I can get enough momentum to start hitting the running club meetups again. I’ve got a three times deferred race entry for the local half-marathon coming up in July too, so that’s giving me a strict goal to train for. If things keep going well I might enter some more races to push me through the rest of the year.

With uni winding down for the year, I hope I can get some more time to do more arty stuff. Be it lino printing or painting Warhammer again. There’s a new Ork codex with my name on it so I need to get some of my forlorn pile of shame painted up and get some games on the go. I should also manage to get some time to do some Twitch streams again for the half a dozen people that have ever watched one. I’m wary though of over committing myself to projects that I will never find the motivation or time to complete!

Which brings me to another thing that’s been playing on my mind lately. I think it’s pretty to me now that I probably have inattentive ADHD, and have always had it. Which explains why I bounce around so many (god, so many) hobbies and struggle to build any momentum. What I need to decide is should I do anything about it? But I think that’s a whole separate blogpost.

Anyway I’m going to leave it there for now, with a promise not to leave it so long until the next post. If you’re reading this, thanks for sticking around. Go watch Fallout on Prime if you haven’t already. I saw the first episode the other night and it was fantastic.

Health and fitness, Thoughts

On Loneliness

minceandskirlie

Let me start this by saying something important, I’m not actually lonely. I have a great family, good friends that I see semi-regularly, and work colleagues I get on well with. In technical terms I’m not alone. I get adequate amounts of social interaction. This article isn’t a criticism of the people in my life or a problem for them to solve. But still… I feel lonely a lot of the time and I think I should talk about it.

It’s strange talking about loneliness. As someone who tends towards being introverted, I’m quite happy spending time alone. Especially when I’ve spent a lot of energy in other social situations or doing something stressful. Time by myself, to spend on a hobby – strumming a guitar or playing a game in peace – lets me recharge the social battery and give me a chance to calm down a lot of the anxiety that I’ve struggled with in recent years. But that doesn’t mean I don’t value time spent with others. I just have a limited well of energy to draw from.

It’s not intentional, or even by choice, but most of my hobbies I now practice alone. I’m quite classically nerdy and have a lot of interests I enjoy – I like video games, collecting Warhammer miniatures, playing music on guitar and mandolin (switching between heavy metal and traditional folk), writing, and dungeons and dragons. For the sake of my physical and mental health I have a few ways of keeping fit that I also enjoy – running, cycling, and more recently, indoor climbing.

Almost universally, I do all of these things alone.

(the exception is D&D where we have a semi-regular online session. It doesn’t work well alone)

Now this isn’t really by choice. Take playing music for example, I spent most of my late teenage years and my twenties playing music in local bands, going to gigs and talking to friends about it. It was a huge part of my life and my social circle. But as tends to happen, you get older, you start a family, work gets more important and it just fades away until it’s not really something you do any more. I still play music, just for my own enjoyment, but it’s not really a big part of my life anymore.

It’s the same for gaming. Growing up we spent most of our time playing games with friends. Slowly as we all grew up and left home, that moved into playing online together. But again, that’s faded away as it gets harder and harder to arrange sessions and by the time the kids go to bed, there’s not much energy or time left to try and get a game going. So I don’t really bother. I still talk about games with some of my friends, but it’s not really the same.

Even the sports I do find time for used to be more social. Many years ago I did Taekwondo and really enjoyed the social part of training martial arts. I was an active member of a running club a decade ago. I loved meeting up two or three times a week in a carpark in the hills and then trotting round a cairngorm nature reserve for an hour or two. It was brilliant. Since we moved house I joined the local club here and have been to a couple of sessions a few years ago, but then the pandemic happened. Now things are more normal, all the club sessions clash with kids activities or their bedtimes and it just isn’t feasible to make it along.

Before we had kids, my wife and I started going indoor climbing. Both of us were terrible at it, but it was something we did together and it was good to push us out of our comfort zone. A few years ago I tried to convince her to take it up again, but instead I find myself going to the boulder wall on my own and struggling in silence for an hour or so. I’ve tried suggesting to friends that they take up climbing so I can do it more socially, but hanging off a high wall, gripping tightly to some small bits of plastic appears to be a hard sell.

Now I know all these things can be social. I realise there are other people at the climbing wall when I’m there. I could even try and arrange social runs at lunchtimes with other people in the office that go running. They exist, I’ve seen them. I’m sure I could talk to them and suggest running the same route, at the same time, at roughly the same pace. I’ve even joined discord servers for the video games I like where they have regular online sessions, which I could join in. But that introvert part of me just doesn’t know how to do it and then thinks I’ll just end up letting people down when I can’t make it.

I’ve got into the position where I have lots of hobbies. But none of my friends that I do see, or any of my family, share those hobbies. So anything I’m really interested in I don’t have a way of enjoying with other people. It’s that feeling of not being able to share your interests with other people that makes me feel lonely.

My evenings are mostly a write off due to family commitments, so I can’t go to regular training nights, or folk sessions, or spend hours a week climbing. I’m also studying for a part-time degree with the Open University on top of everything else. I don’t have the energy to figure out how to make it work.

I’m sure this is something that will get better as the kids get older, and rely on us less and less. Or at least I hope so. I’m sure as well that this is a common experience. We all pine for our youth and the things we used to do when life was more carefree and we had no responsibilities. I also know there are people out there scratching their heads at this and wondering why I make it sound so difficult. I do see people my own age, with kids and responsibilities, who cope a lot better with making time for themselves to do things with clubs or groups, or make time to go see friends etc. I’ve just no idea how they do it. Answers on a postcard please.

There we have it. I don’t really know how to end this. I don’t have a solution or a plan of action to change things. Basically I feel like I’m alone a lot of the time, even though I have lots of hobbies, because I don’t get time to do any of them with other real people, and the friends and family I do spend time with, don’t share many of my hobbies. Maybe I have too many and need to focus on just one of them to do more socially? It’s a conundrum. If I could solve it, then it wouldn’t be a problem I guess!

Thoughts

Goals for a new year

minceandskirlie

So 2016 was a year that happened. Frankly it’s developed a pretty bad rep, as well as quite a body count. It would be easy to wallow in all the bad shit that happened last year. Sod that, I want to waltz into 2017 on a cloud of positivity.

We had two fantastic family holidays in 2016, to Mallorca in June then Dornoch in October. I ran (slowly) the fantastic 15 mile Illuminator night race in Glen Tanar in September.  We had some great weekends away and I got to endure the hardship of being sent to Paris for a few days to work. I also celebrated some important birthdays with my extended family, went to some brilliant weddings and received news of some more to come.

Above all else, the year was full of the sound of my daughter and nephew laughing and playing.

Now it comes to the start of a new year and I naturally start thinking about what lies ahead. Hopefully a lot more of my daughter’s laughter, but what else? I toyed with the idea of setting vague resolutions like “Play more music” or “Run more”. However I work best when I have a set goal in mind, like a 15 mile night race to train for without my feet exploding halfway through.

With that in mind here’s a few (achievable) things I would like to accomplish this year:

  1.  Record an EP
  2.  Publish a poem or a short story
  3.  Run a sub-2 hour half marathon
  4.  Get my weight down to 11 stone

A couple of these are a little more difficult than the others but should still be achievable over the course of the year, or at least have significant progress towards them.

Record an EP

I’ve played guitar since I was fourteen and for most of my adult life I’ve written music and played in local bands. I left my last band a few years ago to concentrate on a solo music project I was working on, but once my daughter arrived I slowly played less and less until I pretty much put my instruments down one day last year and never really picked them up again.

Over the last month I’ve made a conscious effort to get back on the horse and pick up either a guitar or mandolin almost every day. The aim is basically to get involved again and start pushing the project I started 4 years ago back into being. Eventually I hope to play some gigs but I think my self-confidence is a long way from that milestone. For now I’d be happy getting my playing and my singing into a good enough condition to record the EP I wrote down a tracklisting for shortly after I left that band.

Publish a poem or short story

As a member of local writing group Mearns Writers, I’ve produced a number of poems and short stories over the last two years. While I’ve submitted a few of these occasionally to some local poetry magazines and the odd competition I’ve not made a serious effort to get anything published (aside from posting a few on this site and the groups own self-published anthology). I need to step up my submission game in 2017 and see if I can at least place in some competitions and get some good feedback.

Run a sub-2 hour half marathon

This is simultaneously the easiest and the hardest of my 2017 goals. I should have a sub-2 hour half in my legs. I’ve ran 2:01 at Skye, which is bloody hilly and there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to break that barrier. At the same time I’ve not been running nearly as much as I used to and I need to get my routine fixed and stick to it if I’m going to get anywhere close to this goal.

The Great Aberdeen Run is at the end of August and I entered on the day it was announced. That’s the target, though I might try a warm up race at the start of summer to see how I’m getting on.

Get my weight down to 11 stone

This goal will tie in with the previous one. If I train properly for a sub-2 hour half marathon I should lose weight. Since I started getting into fitness and sorted my weight issues over 10 years ago I’ve been stuck floating around the 12 stone mark. At the peak of my running routine, before my daughter arrived, I did manage to get down to under 11 and a half stone but that didn’t last long. I’m now back up to 12 and a half. That needs to be reversed.

Getting back below 12 stone should be easy. Exercise will fix that. Slimming down to 11 stone will need a bit more determination and willpower but hopefully I can get there by the end of the year.

There are of course plenty of other things I would like to do this year. I would like to worry less, focus at work more, cut out internet habits which reinforce negative thoughts, climb more hills and cycle many miles. Those are all good things to aim for but I think if I concentrate on these four achievable goals then I’ll be well on the way to a memorable year without putting too much pressure on myself.