W8R1 - Too much mindful multitasking paradoxic... - Couch to 5K

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W8R1 - Too much mindful multitasking paradoxically reaps rewards

GailXrunning profile image
GailXrunningGraduate
11 Replies

Wow! Is this what a really good run is like?

I set out by pressing the app’s neutral smiley (hedging my bets, aware that some have found the additional 3 minutes tough, and thinking: better it turns out better than I thought it would be than a disappointment.... Hhmm 🤔 ok, I’m still working on that.. the key observation being that I didn’t choose the downbeat options).

I had a multi-pronged approach in my vision for this run:

- Steve Hobbs’ mindful running podcast, set so that I could finish scanning my body by the end of the run (I started it in the last session - not the ideal way of going about this, of course).

- What I’d heard about the ‘awe-walk’ research on Claudia Hammond’s All in the Mind. (Spoiler: Improves mood. Radically transforms selfies.) Why not, I figured, rescale it to an ‘awe-run’? After all, it’s only the difference between one foot or two feet being off the ground. 🌳 ☀️ 🌊 This much I now know.

- A newly downloaded Runkeeper. I’m curious 🧐 about how far we’re actually covering in distance. No pressure, no fixation on ‘5k’ or speed or pace... just thought it might be useful to track and know when to upgrade the shoes. Googling ‘how far do I run in 20/25/28/30 minutes’ just wasn’t cutting it. (Obvs.)

As we were double-knotting our laces, fresh from our respective ‘desks’, Mr - who had clearly been focused on things other than work - started venting about the election debacle 🇺🇸 . So I forgot to start Runkeeper. End of Prong 3. By the end of warm-up, we’d also covered the latest dramas of ManU. Now, this means Mr is well and truly wound-up. And sharing it. Not much karma in the air as Laura gave the instruction to start 🏃🏼‍♀️ 🏃‍♂️. Prongs 1 and 2 were already looking like lost causes.

And yet, the run went so well. I barely noticed it. Cripes, is that even good? Was I more mindless than mindful? I was following Steve Hobbs. In fact - as I’m the only one with a functioning phone and earphones - I was channeling him (as I do Laura) to Mr. Now, I have come to realise, this is different to just listening to the podcast. I have to become the podcast. Not totally mindless, then. Somebody else’s mind. I repeated the sections on feet, arms, and head - now relaying everything to Mr. He seemed to be listening.

New for me today, Steve talked us through the ‘hip’ section. Lift from the hips not the head, he advised. (That simple revisualisation, I venture, was to be critical.) Watch out for tendencies for the alternating sides of the hip to sink down or drag back. It gives a lighter footfall, apparently. Stops the drain of energy. He talked about his own problems. His old football injury (Mr’s ears noticeably pricked up). This then got me thinking (my own mind having returned): Is this the ‘gazelle’ thing I keep hearing about? And the big conundrum: can a tortoise be a gazelle (at the same time)? Can you gazelle at a slow pace?? And then Laura piped up: ‘5 mins’. Where had time and distance gone? Amazing. Perhaps even gazelling?

In the final stage, Steve turned our attention to our surroundings. I then realised I’d completely forgotten to do ‘awe’, but Steve was closing his podcast with something similar, so Prong 2 was saved. I marvelled at his descriptions of springtime conditions from lockdown 1, and my own autumnal echoes; the two moments being just a few miles apart.

‘I think I’m doing really well at this running’, Mr remarked, as we stretched out hamstrings in the kitchen.

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GailXrunning profile image
GailXrunning
Graduate
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11 Replies

I'd try and simplify. Mindfulness means being in the moment not striving to get all the tech lined up and analysing the elections.

Breath and get in the good space. shuck it all off and enjoy your run :)

GailXrunning profile image
GailXrunningGraduate in reply to

😉

Imoca profile image
Imoca

Sounds like a very successful run, you both enjoyed it !

GailXrunning profile image
GailXrunningGraduate in reply toImoca

Against all the odds! Still glowing (nearly a day later).

DexD profile image
DexDGraduate

Love the elegance, wit, generosity and narrative shape of this post! And I've used the Steve Hobbs mindfulness one at leats three times now!

GailXrunning profile image
GailXrunningGraduate in reply toDexD

That’s so lovely of you, DexD. Thank you. It’s good to know that it has staying power too.

I found the podcast by accident (ish... if you can call internet searches that), via Zoe Williams’ review piece in the Guardian, Getting Fit After/at 40, which always cheers me although I’m 2 decades older.

Aspects reminded me of Horatio Clare’s Bach Sound Walks (available) and Arctic Sound Walk (which I’m praying the bbc will release again this season). The crunch of footsteps. The rhythm of breathing. The very distinctive reflections that people make while on the move. I’m thinking they might be worth a go with two feet off the ground.

LittleMissie profile image
LittleMissie

Well done GailXrunning, sounds like a ‘perfect run’ if there is such a thing..

Keep going, you are achieving far more than you know 🏃🏼‍♀️🙂

GailXrunning profile image
GailXrunningGraduate in reply toLittleMissie

Thank you! You are absolutely right there. Perhaps more imperfect-perfect, in my case, but that’s still a type of perfect, I guess. 😉

When I look back.... across the weeks... phew! Is that really me? I’m in a whole new place, and not one that I’d anticipated when I initially decided ‘just to try out’ W1R1.

And I’m learning that there’s a whole community of gremlins that hang out around that smiley scale, especially when we open the c25k app. That moment of choice digs up quite a lot. 😬😈👿🙄

LittleMissie profile image
LittleMissie in reply toGailXrunning

Unsure if it’s gremlins or mind over matter. The C25K plan definitely works, I would have laughed at the idea I would be capable of running for 10 minutes non-stop let alone 28 minutes by week 8 🤗

StoneDragon profile image
StoneDragonGraduate

Excellent stuff GXR 👍 - sounds like a really good run to me. And yes, you can have a gazelle like moment at any speed - 🦌🦌 - I liken it to running really freely - not thinking about it - just running and enjoying the moment. Sounds like you were there to me 😀😀

GailXrunning profile image
GailXrunningGraduate in reply toStoneDragon

That’s great news! Thank you.

Gazelling!! 🦌🦌🦌

Me!🐢🦥🦌💫✨🕊

Interestingly, it’s not thinking about it by thinking about it (differently). If that makes any sense? Or maybe I’m not quite there yet. Baby steps....🐣🐥🐥

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