Run For Your Life

Me time trialling - perhaps
mindfulness could have helped me?!

Hello friends and welcome to ‘my cloud’!  I hope you find this to be a good read, and would love it if you could leave comments and share with others.  I am writing in a post-workout endorphin-enhanced state, which I have just realised is probably my favourite state to write in!  And my realising this, I think, is down to my newfound mindful way of living - having started practicing mindfulness a few months ago, I’m so much more aware of my thoughts and feelings in everyday situations - see my previous post for a bit more on the general benefits of mindfulness.

So, to get to the point of this post: I’ve just been for a run (and by run, I mean short jog!).  Of course, the fact that I went running is not the whole point of this post, but bear with me!  In recent times I’ve been making an effort to be more mindful during everyday activities, especially exercise.  This basically involves being fully aware of what I’m doing while I’m doing it, and noticing with curiosity how I feel physically and mentally whilst exercising. 

We all know that exercise is good for our mental wellbeing, and more and more of us are coming to realise that mindfulness is another powerful tool for maintaining and enhancing our psychological health.  Combine the two, and the result, I think, is magic!  It opens up a whole world of benefits, which I see as coming into two main categories.

The first is that exercise sessions are wonderful opportunities to practice mindfulness.  This in itself is a great thing, as the more we practice, the more benefits we reap.  Not only that, but it can make the experience more enjoyable and meaningful that it otherwise would be.  For instance, on my run today I noticed that the upright posture I was adopting made me feel strong and powerful (see this TED talk for more on body language and feelings of power).  On a recent bike ride I found noticed how soothing the easy feeling and sound of my slick tyres on a smooth road surface was, and the soft vibrations coming through my padded handlebar tape on a slightly rougher road surface.  One also notices a lot more of the natural beauty around you when you running, walking or cycling mindfully, and this in itself is a wonderful mood-booster.  Another way of bringing mindfulness to exercise is to simply notice the feeling of the feet touching the ground or turning the pedals, or of the wind in your face and hair.

Mindfulness can turn pain into power and enhance performance!

The second key advantage of mindful exercise is performance enhancement.  I realise that if you’re a serious athlete, the idea of leisurely taking in the scenery or enjoying a smooth road surface may not be quite up your street!  The good news is that I also think it has enormous potential to enhance performance.  This is because mindfulness is very much about paying attention to how we feel in a non-judgemental way.  So, by adopting a mindful approach during exercise, when pain kicks in you can get through it by simply noticing and allowing the sensations, without attaching negativity to it or wishing it felt different. 

I toyed with the idea of using mindfulness to improve performance a little on my run today, and genuinely think it helped me to go a little faster.  I’ve also tried it whilst going uphill on my bike and doing weights.  I think it’s something that’ll take some practice to get big performance enhancements from, but can really see the potential.  Another idea I have is to build it up slowly (after all, mindfulness is like the gym but for your mind: the more you do it, the easier it gets).  For instance, on my recent mindful bike ride I quite enjoyed the feeling of tension and power when going up a short hill.  With practice, I think this technique of mindfully noticing the sensations in my legs could help me a lot with harder climbs.

One to read for more
on mindful cycling

Of course, my experience so far is with a limited range of activities, but I think it can be applied to anything.  I’m especially interested to apply mindfulness next time I go climbing and see where it gets me!

So, there it is: a whistle-stop tour of my thoughts on the magic of mindful exercise!  I’d welcome comments from anyone who uses mindfulness when exercising, and hope to write more on this later when I’ve tried the technique out a bit more and looked into what research is out there on the topic.  In the meantime, I hope I might have inspired you to give mindful exercise a go and that you can reap the benefits from it.  Run, walk, climb, lift, cycle, row – or whatever your chosen activity – for your life!

That’s How a Superhero Learns to Fly

On Sunday I went to the Lee Valley VeloPark to watch the London round of the UCI Track World Cup 2014.  Track cycling is my favourite sport; it’s so exciting to watch and I love the fact that Great Britain is so good at it!  Lee Valley is where the track cycling for the London 2012 Olympics took place, and whilst I’d enjoyed watching track racing on TV on the odd occasion for a few years, this was the time that made me realise I just had to try this sport out for myself.  

So that’s what I did.  I found out there’s an outdoor velodrome in Bournemouth, not far from where I live, went along to a taster session then over the next few weeks attended three more beginners’ sessions until I became an accredited track rider.  By this time the summer season was over, meaning since the Bournemouth track is outdoors there was to be no more riding there for a good few months.  Fortunately I can a really good tip about some winter training that was available, from a chap I worked with at the time (no less than Gary Dighton who competed in the team time trial at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics!).  He recommended a weekly indoor ‘turbo’ session that took place really close to my house (for those who don’t know, a turbo is a piece of equipment that you can fix the back wheel of a bike to and ride stationary, which is great for controlled sessions and training when the weather’s bad). 

The guy who ran these turbo sessions I started going to is Adam, who, when a few months later I decided to try my hand at racing, became my coach.  I trained hard from March onwards and that summer made my racing debuts both on the track and on road time trial.  A winter of intense training followed; my riding really improved and I put in some good racing/time trial performances this summer just gone too.  Sadly part-way through the race season I decided to take a step back to focus on my career.  Training for track racing is really intense; you have to give it 100% to do well, and it’s draining mentally as much as it is physically.  I think making this decision was the best thing for me at the time, but I still dream of getting back to racing one day!

Going to Lee Valley on Sunday made me think of the fact that this was the very place that inspired me to get into track cycling to begin with.  It reminded me that if you really put your mind to something you can do it: coming to a sport at age 22 I knew it was unlikely I was going to end up at elite level or anything, but I worked hard, did well and got loads of praise from coaches who watched me develop and progress over those couple of years.  Right now, although I’m happy with some elements of my career (mainly that I’m studying for a Masters), there are others I’m yet to find my feet with (I’m struggling to get myself paid work that allows me to work anywhere near my full potential).  Going to the World Cup at the weekend has led to reflection on what I’ve achieved over the last few years and gives me a little boost of inspiration to keep pushing and working hard; if I keep doing this then this will come right.

I’ve spoken in a previous post (The Stairway to Heaven…) about positives coming out of hardship, and that’s what I’m really trying to remember right now.  In some of my blog posts a bang on about things people can do to keep themselves feeling good, and in a challenging time I myself am having to work really hard to practice what I preach!  I’m always inspired by people who overcome adversity to achieve amazing things (see You’re the Inspiration) and this is the case for my track cycling hero Laura Trott. 

This girl never fails to make a race really worth watching and wins gold after gold after gold for Team GB; not only this but off the track she always seems bright, down to earth and funny.  I love the juxtaposition between this bubbly character that we see in interviews and the sheer focus we see in the lead up to a race!  Anyway, although Laura is one of Britain’s best female athletes, her journey hasn’t been without it’s challenges: she was born with a collapsed lung and later diagnosed with asthma, being advised to use sport to help regulate her breathing.  But physical training with a health condition isn’t always plain sailing: in interviews I’ve heard Laura talk about the fact that sometimes she ‘trains so hard her teeth hurt!’, and she can often be observed throwing up after a race (poor girl!). She defies these challenges, brushes them off and carries on, and is incredibly successful as a result. 

In the coming weeks and months, I may continue to face the same struggles I have done over recent ones.  But my recent visit to Lee Valley VeloPark has given me a little bit of extra motivation to push through and carry on working hard in the face of hardship.  I hope this has made for a decent read and that you enjoy my pictures from the track!