Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
-
2013 – a last 10km
A last 10 km run 8 days before the run, on the Table Mountain road above the city centre. A good easy send off with a deeply etched memory. Except that I probably spent as much time taking pics, bathing in the marvel and sharing it with mountain bikes who were equally enthralled. So…
-
2013 Taper day 18
Un-timed 5km time-trial after a 2 km warm-up. The point being to stay up against the effort (effort = 2 steps per breath) of a run from which I can quickly recover . In the old days I would have run 10 km but these younger days, well, I’m older. As maybe it should have, everything…
-
2013 taper day?
A personal note My taper is turning out to be, well, unstructured. I want to run more. I don’t want to run too much. I skip runs if there is just I hint that I don’t want to do it. I set out for 18 km then settle for 12. This morning rain tapped on…
-
Engaging your mind 3: Toughness
An exercise to get your mind right for the Comrades Marathon Accept that its going to get tough out there. It is going to get tough. Accept that. Facing up to and going through the effort is what ultra-running and Comrades is about. Unless you run way behind what you could be doing, it’s unlikely…
-
Engaging your mind 2: Fear
Another exercise to get your mind right for the Comrades Marathon Write down the things that worry you. List them. Externalise them. Get them out of you. That way they don’t gnaw at, give you sleepless nights, undermine you. Then take time to understand them. Fears are not a sign of a moral failing, or…
-
Engaging your mind
An exercise to get your mind right for the Comrades Marathon Visualisation – making it concrete Get a profile or map of the route. You can look at a the small one on the the official Comrades website http://www.comrades.com/Route/Route-Map.aspx or a more detailed one at mapmyrun.com at http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/2640629. You also can rely on your memory if you’ve run it…
-
2013 Comrades – Not yet
I don’t want to run Comrades yet. More of this taper-happiness in my legs first. And I want that long trip up to KZN all sparking with hope and fear. And I want to stand in the Expo and feel the buzz. After that, the last meal and a bit of sleep, I’ll be ready…
-
2013 Taper day 9
Staleness Woke up easily for my run but felt stale and uninspired. Unusual. I didn’t look forward to running as I normally do. I worked through whether I have been running too much. not really. The alternative of going to the gym and cycling a bit, or doing the circuit didn’t inspire me either. When…
-
Notes from 1946
Notes from 1946 For 6 years through the World War II years, the Comrades Marathon wasn’t run. In 1946 it started again with a field of 22 of which 8 finished. Winner in a time of 7:02:40 was Bill Cochrane, who had also won the 1935 run. Morris Alexander in his book The Comrades Story…
-
2013 Taper Days 5-8
The taper in practice The best part of last Saturday’s 2-hour run was how I felt in the last 3 km -as if I could have gone on all day at that effort level. Which is just as well because in less than 3 weeks I’ll have to do just that – run most of…
Got any book recommendations?