Running Lessons: Now Is The Time

If you are thinking about running or if you feel like running then now is the time ... don't put it off to another day ... "just do it".

"Strike while the iron is hot"

Sometimes it can be your body that feels like it ... if so "just do it" ... let your mind follow ... this is always the best way as at least your body seems OK and you can't do the run without your body:) Sometimes it can be your mind that feels like it .... if so "just do it" ... mind over matter ... let your body follow - it will catch up but be sure to listen to your body and take care. If both your mind and body feel like it then you are lucky - this is the best way to run .. mind and body in harmony and if you don't run too far or too hard then they will still be in harmony at the end of the run :)

"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”  ~ Allen Saunders

If you have a pair of trainers and a pair of shorts and your feel like it then you have no excuse .. just put on an old T-shirt and you are ready. Make sure you have a pair of running trainers though - other sports trainers will be a a problem but cheap running trainers are just fine - mine cost £15 from Decathlon a few years ago and I've done nearly 1,000 miles in them!

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

 - Lao Tzu

You know yourself best so start with a short run you are comfortable with - round the block, to the park and back .. .it doesn't matter how far or how long it takes or if you walk or even stop for some of it - the most important thing is to make it enjoyable .. this isn't meant to be work or hard labour.

Start small and easy - its good if you have a circular route so that if you need to you have a plan B .. a short cut back to the start. When the time feels right go a bit further.

My first run was a sort of oval route out towards a local park - this meant I could cut off and run a shorter oval if I needed to.

This run was the slowest and most exhausting I had done ... believe me - it gets easier each time you run. I repeated this run each weekend a few times - then added a little bit more each week - adding laps round the park and then going through the park and beyond adding a bit more each time until I was running half marathon distances every weekend and with serious hills as well!

Running lessons ...  the things you learn in life can be applied to running and the things you learn from running can be applied to life .. maybe I should have called this series of blog posts on running "zen and the art of running" :)

Its important to make a start ... you can try to plan everything to the last detail and try to get everything right and go for a "big bang" but things change and you may end up in a sort of planning procrastination and never actually get started. Get started early with small steps and build up. Be flexible, experiment and learn and adapt over time rather than start late with a big bang. 

Running Lessons

Learn to enjoy your run - enjoy the journey

Back in September 2007 I had an epiphany about measurement and wrote "Loneliness of the long distance educationalist". I realised that the reason I started running had been lost and replaced by measurement and analysis. 

We should be careful that the act of measuring an activity doesn’t become more important than the activity itself.

I started running to to get out in the open, get some exercise and see the area where I live. Trying to beat the clock on 2, 8 and 13 mile circuits meant I was deliberately "zoning out" to run through pain - disconnecting from my internal state and the environment I was running in.

Running against the clock - I might as well have been on a treadmill.

Measurement and performance analysis has its place in activities that involve competition, definition and repetition but I started running to explore my inner self and the outside world. Running against the clock - I might as well have been on a treadmill - this is the way some people like it but for me it wasn't the reason I was running outside. 

I realised that my experience of running with measurement is a lot like the experience in education with measurement - it changes the activity. Education cynically talks about the learning journey but in reality focuses tighter and tighter on (exam) results and the destination with ever greater levels of measurement and performance management.

Children  have a natural “thirst” for learning, experimentation and play but in so many this disappears and as they pass through the school system and like my running against the clock the purpose of education can be lost and spoilt by testing and measurement to such an extent that for many young people learning in school painful and alienating. The education system itself is possibly one of the causal factors in the problems we have with young people today.

The education system is configured and stuck in developing the workforce skills of the previous century

The education system is configured and stuck in developing the workforce skills of the previous century - what Harold Jarche calls ‘Labour’ - compliance, diligence, and intelligence for routine work and standardized jobs. Our education system has thunked down to measuring, testing and training routine and standardised skills on treadmills rather than education.

Our education systems need to change radically to focus on learning rather than labour.

Rapid changes in technology are causing life to become anything but routine and standardized. The information revolution is just getting started and there is the potential for radical change and uncertainty ahead  - our future generations will need the skills to adapt to the unknown and deal with uncertainty. Routine and standardised skills and work are expected to be dis-intermediated by new technology - learning is the key survival skill for an unknown and uncertain future and our education systems need to change radically to focus on learning rather than labour. 

For the sake of our future the education system needs to be able to learn and be able to change. The education system must find a way to accommodate and not just assimilate and it must accommodate curiosity, creativity and imagination as well as more easily tested and measured rational analytical behaviours.

I run to learn and I am still learning to run - I will be writing a short series of blog posts about this called "running lessons" - lessons for life and the world of education.

Reference
"connected curiosity" ~ Harold Jarche