Global Sport Stories

Shock horror, I’m going to open this week’s blog by exclaiming I had another busy week lying ahead of me. Realistically I should be becoming accustomed to fitting activities in around work and commitments, but this week also entailed two bus journeys back and forth to Worcestershire. Although not containing as much variety as the week prior, with the week consisting mainly of running, gym and swimming, I had two of my most enjoyable runs to date – for differing reasons.

Monday and Wednesday both involved gym sessions followed by a swiml. Monday’s session was heavily focussed on shoulders in the attempt to improve my surf paddle. Having instantly felt my shoulders tiring whilst surfing the week before, I decided work needed to be done. However, in hindsight, the very next day may not have been the smartest idea. Nonetheless, following shoulder press and lateral raises, amongst a few other exercises, my shoulders were feeling very cooked. Throw into the mix a swimming session consisting of 400m and my shoulders went from cooked to finished.

I find myself falling into, what I believe to be quite common, a mindset of when your body aches that means you have worked that body part out to a sufficient point, ensuring improvement. And historically I have found it difficult to get my shoulders to this state, hence why it is a conscious effort to increase my shoulder workout volume. And if this is an efficient measure of success (as I’m still not entirely sure if it is?) I was successful – as my shoulder aches the next day were bloody awful.

Wednesday’s workout was more pool focussed, however, I decided to add a little arms and chest session beforehand, for no other reason than purely trying to boost my ego. The swim was really the fun point of the day though. I set myself the challenge of a kilometre swim, and now I’ve started sporting my swimming cap, I felt this was definitely achievable. With the pool consisting of 25m lengths, that meant 40 lengths were needed to achieve the kilometre. Having broken the opening ten lanes down into a block of four and a block of six, I then proceeded to work in blocks of ten for the remaining 30 lengths. I view blocks of ten similarly to how I once viewed a 10k run; quite a big deal, where in reality if I do them enough my brain will no longer view them as such. Of course by the power vested in the sky blue swimming cap, the goal of a kilometre swim was achieved. I think I need to research how to improve my swimming. For instance should I up the distance, the length of the blocks I work in or the speed I swim at? I still consider myself a novice swimmer, however, including the end of session sauna spell, I am very much becoming addicted to swimming and all the endorphins one can unlock via even half an hour in the pool. 

Thursday I was torn. I had the day off! I was toying with the idea of a run in Tynemouth followed by a sea dip, but in the end time didn’t permit. Instead I settled for the classic 10k along the Tyne. I know, I should really switch up the route, I know. But honestly this was one of my most enjoyable runs to date. The sun was out and it was bright, crisp conditions… perfect yet again. Inspired by my girlfriend’s current thesis surrounding the topic of psychological ownership and sense of space, I was wondering what made me enjoy the route along the Tyne so much. And I came to the conclusion that it must be the proximity to the large expanse of water – similar to why I enjoy the coast. Back to the run, I wanted to switch up from the norm at least a little bit, so I decided to listen to another podcast on the first 5k of the run. Another High Performance pod with Jake Humphrey, this time joined by personal trainer, James Smith. 

Now I must confess I haven’t finished the podcast yet, however, I found it thoroughly interesting and enjoyable for the first part of my run. Interesting in the sense that I was both agreeing and disagreeing with what James Smith was saying. I didn’t particularly warm to him but it made for such interesting conflict within my brain whilst running. I had no real prior knowledge of James Smith, I simply saw he was a PT and obviously into his health and fitness and that ticks the box in terms of what I look for in a podcast. The pod, or at least the first half I’ve listened to, very much delves into James’ experiences and motivations, which were just interesting to put it simply. He is a big advocate in experiencing every experience you can in life. He uses the example of psychedelic drug use. He in no means encourages regular use, however he explains how in times it has made him view certain scenarios in such a new light that has almost opened up a differing perspective in life. Whether you agree with this example or not, I’d highly recommend listening to this episode, if nothing else just to make you think.

I haven’t even got to my biggest take away of the (half) episode, that being the difference between pleasure and happiness. He views pleasure as a short term fix, ie a night out or session at the pub, whereas happiness is longer term. He goes on to say how pleasure gets in the way of happiness, which sounds awfully misguided but I do agree with what he says, due to the longevity of both concepts. However, I did find it a tad contradictory as he did say how sometimes you do just need a night at the pub with your mates sinking four or five pints – which I can’t disagree with to be fair! His point remains though, to summarise briefly, that fixating on what is simply pleasure – a boozy saturday night for example – throughout the whole working week is nowhere near as good for you as prioritising happiness over a sustained period of time. He uses the example of exercise, which I guess I just heavily relate to more and more.

I hope I have explained my enjoyment of that episode clearly to a sense, I suppose if it feels like I haven’t, you’ll just have to listen to it yourself. I’d recommend it. It gets your brain ticking.

Friday was spent returning home to Worcestershire for the weekend, which meant Saturday morning was a new ParkRun location to add to the list – Worcester woods. The conditions were thankfully a lot milder than last week’s arctic conditions up north, therefore, I was quietly hoping for a decent time. My buddies, Oscar and Mike, were fairly insistent on starting near the front, and since they had run the route before I went along with them. To say it was a completely new experience though would be an understatement. Upon the start of the race if you’re not sprinting, consider yourself trampled. Not just by people either, you can expect prams and all sorts to squash you. That being said, we made it off the line unscathed, to the drumbeat of fleeting footsteps meeting concrete. The air was heavy with a thick sense of testosterone at the start honestly.

The crowds naturally thinned though, and I settled into my rhythm; Mike and Osc ahead of me but never completely out of sight. The route features two loops of a woodland course, my legs much to my delight were feeling led laden before the end of the first! Must be the 10k catching up with me. I struggled through to the conclusion of the race, with Mike and Osc not actually looking like they’d finished much before me, much to my surprise. And to add to that surprise, my time of 21 minutes 19 seconds very easily could be my personal best in the 5k. Granted that is something I should really know, however, I don’t. And when regularly training before my summer travels, I know I was struggling to drop below 23 minutes, so I’m classing this as a significant improvement. Something of which I am very happy about.

That meant the week ended on a high, capping off not the most interesting, yet still extremely enjoyable period leading into December.