Running
In November 2023, I fulfilled my dream to complete sixty marathons. There was the elation of achieving a long-held goal but also a feeling of being untethered. Training for the next marathon has been such a big part of my life for so long that it is difficult to let go of schedules and just relax into my running as an integral part of my physical and mental wellbeing.
Years ago, in April 1993, I bought a book called Running Together, by Alison Turnbull. Although it was first published in 1985, it is still my go to for training and inspiration. Her training plans are old fashioned and some of her advice outdated but I love the simplicity of it, the encouragement to take up running at any age, shape, or fitness level. I also like her recommendation to keep a weekly tab of your progress and still note down how many kilometres I have run, how I feel and any other activity I undertake. I do it in a paper diary and now and them look back over the years and the distance I have covered.
One of the things she suggests is to note how you feel after a run. There are days where I feel tired, perhaps drank an extra glass of wine the night before and just want to stay in bed. Once I drag myself up and get going, it is always rewarding and I can honestly say, I have never regretted going out for a run.
Here are Alison’s suggestions to track the rhythms of your life. On each running day note the a few key measures using the following sample as a guide.
Date – 6 December 2023
Hours slept – 6 hours
Resting pulse rate - 77
How far you ran – 5km, 30 minutes
Felt – ratty – not enough sleep, ate too much at the birthday bash for Jill
She also suggests a weekly summary – here is a sample
Lowest pulse rate - 58
Total hours/distance run 2 ½ hours, 17km
Good things – I feel much better about my body even though I didn’t lose any weight. I’m keen to sign up for a 5K fun run
Bad things – work was busy and stressful, so I drank too much and didn’t get enough sleep
It is so rewarding to look back at what you have achieved, and you start to see patterns and where you could improve. I know that I need to get to bed earlier, to ensure I get more sleep. I also need to pull back more and schedule other activities when my hamstring starts to niggle.
Completing my goal of running 60 marathons has been an opportunity for me to reflect on my running schedule and to delve back into Alison’s book to focus not so much on events but on how my body is going after many years of endurance events. There are new and persistent niggles. I feel fatigued with some tight muscles that need stretching. A new year will be an opportunity to assess my running and change the focus from events to running as part of self-nurture.
The end of an old year and the beginning of a new one is an opportunity to reflect on what we did well and what we need to change or improve.
Happy 2024, however you choose to move and keep fit. And keep a written account. It will surprise you and help you to achieve your dreams.
Writing Pearl Number Five
Try something new
My first four writing pearls can be found in an in my earlier newsletters. Just head to my webpage if you want to read them. I adapted these pearls from a Chi running programme I did some years ago as the principals of endurance running and writing are very similar. I regularly apply what I learn through my running habit to my writing practice. I hope you will find a pearl to encourage you with whatever writing project you are working on.
Writing is an endurance sport that requires commitment and the ability to push through endless rewrites, edits, tough criticism, and rejection. It is enough to want to throw the towel in and give up, except that we don’t. We keep going, and going, hoping that the next rewrite will clinch the deal and get us across some imaginary finish line.
Endurance running is tough on your body and most runners will experience niggles or injury at some point. Injury is often the result of too much, too soon. Pushing through pain to meet the deadline of an event or ignoring the body’s messages to slow down for a while. During periods of recovery, the runner’s fitness is maintained by taking up other activities. Swimming, cycling, yoga, hiking, or dancing. It is an invitation to explore new and interesting alternative activities.
As a writer, it is easy to become bogged down. If you are writing a novel, it is months of turning up regularly to get a first draft done followed by endless revisions and edits. It is hard to keep your creativity fresh and your enthusiasm high when your progress is slow or seems to stop altogether.
This is the time to press pause and try something new. The only way to grow and develop creativity is to step outside your comfort zone. Again, and again. Add in some fresh flavours. If you normally write long prose, try poetry or a piece of flash or a short memoir. Search for a weekend or evening course to challenge your skills in an area of writing you haven’t tried before. Join the writers centre in your state or check out your local library for events. Queensland Writers Centre regularly run courses on a range of topics from self-publishing, writing poetry, writing through trauma or planning your writing year just to note a few. Most courses are hybrid, although attending in person presents opportunities for new friendships and connections. Sometimes just meeting a fellow writer face to face can unleash new ideas and get creativity flowing in wonderful and unexpected ways.
Writing is rarely profitable unless you are fortunate enough to write a bestseller or win a prestigious award. It is frustrating that a take-away coffee costs more than an eBook. Writing non-fiction pieces for a magazine or newspaper, however, is far more lucrative word for word and can be a great way to flex your writing muscles with more immediate and tangible rewards. When your writing starts to feel dull and you feel stuck, harvest your own experiences, and send a piece to your favourite magazine.
Our own lives give us unique insights and insider knowledge. It may be motherhood, living with a disability, your fascination with seahorses or gardening or any number of curious topics. Your day job is another potential source of inspiration. Tricks on how to juggle working from home with a toddler, navigating workplace bullying or a special glimpse into your area of professional expertise.
It is immensely rewarding to see your name in print, you get paid well for your efforts and when you do finish that novel and get ready to pitch or submit, you have a CV of articles published indicating that you can work to deadlines and are comfortable working with an editor.
Another way to expand your weary, creative soul is to read outside your usual genre. Sign up to attend the book launch of an author you don’t know, go a writing festival, or enter a writing or poetry competition.
Every activity involving words keeps your mind flexible, forces you to think beyond the walls of your comfortable and familiar space and ensures your creativity is nurtured.
It is easy to become disheartened if you put all your focus into one big project and you don’t see any results, month after month, year after year. You are not giving up when you place your big project on the back burner while challenging yourself in different ways. When you return to your long-haul writing with new pathways forged in your creative brain, you will see not only your work in progress but yourself in a fresh light.
Consider entering Not Quite Write in January 2024 or The Sydney Hammond Short Story comp.
Why not attend GenreCon Brisbane, or maybe book yourself in for a writing retreat to rekindle your passion for words.
There are endless ways to freshen up your writing routine and try something new. Go on, take the plunge.
GP Wisdom – You Are What (and when) You Eat.
January is a popular time to make resolutions and I am often inundated with patients wanting advice about diet, which in my opinion, is a four-letter word. I did promise some non-pharmaceutical ways to live well and decided that the new year was a good time to tackle the dreaded diet beast using the concept of chronotherapy, the idea of living in harmony with our internal body clock or in alignment with circadian rhythms.
In 2017, the Nobel prize for Medicine was awarded to Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W Young who discovered a gene in the hypothalamus that regulates the circadian rhythms found inside every single cell of our body. The impact of consistently ignoring our body clock has only recently been understood and is now recognised as having detrimental consequences that are long term, predisposing us to chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease,
A particularly fascinating area of research is focused on chrono nutrition which looks at the impact of nutrition on metabolism based circadian patterns. This has given rise to the concept of Time Restricted Eating or TRE.
Our busy modern lives increasingly dissociate us from our internal body clock. We often work late, eat irregularly, and use screen devices to relax late into the night. We override and ignore this delicate internal mechanism that is fundamental to our wellbeing. There are a multitude of disruptors of our circadian rhythm including shift work, irregular eating, excessive alcohol, screen devices, lighting as well as eating (and drinking) late at night.
In a randomised control trial lasting two weeks, it was demonstrated that consuming meals regularly, even over such a short period of time, has a positive impact on cardiometabolic risk factors with lower peak insulin and lower cholesterol, both in lean and obese women.
Studies have demonstrated that the positive health benefits of eating three regular meals within a time restricted framework include,
- Weight loss
- Better control of blood sugars
- Improved blood pressure
- Improved sleep quality
- Reduced cholesterol
Eating should be an enjoyable activity. It is central to social events, celebrations and provides a ready way to connect with others. Emotional eating doesn’t provide that satisfaction. It is rarely done socially, is nearly always secretive and followed by shame, guilt and yes, an extra kg or two.
My dietary advice to patients coming to me wanting to lose weight or needing to improve their overall wellbeing and health is straightforward and involves three guidelines.
- Eat within a twelve-hour window. If you eat breakfast at 7.30, try to avoid eating after 7.30 that evening
- Eat three meals per day the way our grandparents did. No snacks. Give yourself the opportunity to get hungry and give your pancreas a rest between meals.
- Watch your portion sizes. Our grandparents did eat roast dinners with dessert, but their portions were tiny compared to ours. Head to a second-hand shop and check out the size of the bowls and plates.
The beauty of adopting these guidelines is that it doesn’t matter too much what sort of diet you decide to follow. If you are committed to a plant-based diet, a keto diet, low fat, or low carb way of eating, it is easy to adapt each one so that you are eating in tune with your natural circadian rhythm. It is not a licence to live on unhealthy processed food, but an invitation to focus not only on when you eat but to make better choices about what you eat.
Eating should not be regarded as punitive or restrictive but joyful. It is an opportunity to self-nurture, to enjoy your body and what it is capable of. Your heart pumps on average 100,000 times per day. You breath in and out around 22,000 times per day, fuelling every cell of your body with oxygen allowing you to walk, talk and create. Nourish it with love and generosity.
I always add in one further suggestion. If there is something you love, be it wine, chocolate, hot chips, or fresh raspberries, try to include some regularly in your diet. Be specific. If it is chocolate, narrow it down to one you really adore. I really enjoy the dark chocolate Lindt block with hazelnuts and dark chocolate frogs or freckles from Junee chocolate factory (do check them out). I enjoy some most days. Likewise with wine. (my current fave is La Boheme – Act Two dry rosé) Choose what you love and enjoy it with a meal. When you pay attention to the things that really make your tastebuds sing and include them in moderation you are less likely to gobble and will not feel deprived.
It sounds too easy, but if you consistently apply these simple principles and include some regular activity (see my last newsletter) you will not only lose weight but will enjoy your food so much more.
Bon Appetit!
What I am Reading – Book Review
One of my favourite authors is Barbara Kingsolver and her recent book, Demon Copperhead is breathtakingly good. I listened to her being interviewed on ABC Books where she explains how Charles Dickens motivated her to place David Copperfield amongst the white working class in Appalachia, (pronounced, I’ll throw an apple atcha) America. Kingsolver takes her readers on a harrowing coming-of-age journey with the main character Demon. He grows up in Lee County, a region forced into social decline, poverty, and drug abuse by the indiscriminate immoral actions of large mining and pharmaceutical companies. The profound struggles of the socially disenfranchised is depicted with such sensitivity while the breadth and scope of the underlying issues are held under a microscope revealing the truths that entrench disadvantage.
Demon is such a loveable character, that even when he makes errors in judgement or poor decisions, I was turning the pages willing things to work out for him. Despite his ordeals, the book is filled with moments of immense joy and love. He is a character who will stay with me for a long time.
The book dovetails beautifully with the memoir, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, a Yale graduate who grew up in similar circumstances to Demon. His book is a no holds barred account of how the anger and fear of those who feel left behind has shaped the social, political, and economic landscape in America.
While on the theme of inequality, the lessons from these two books are just as relevant in Australia. It is sobering to listen to Alan Kohler’s discussion with Geraldine Doogue on the ABC’s Saturday extra, A National Calamity – Alan Kohler on housing inequality in Australia.
If you have some spare cash or time, donate to Micah Projects who believe, ‘… every child and adult has the right to a home, an income, healthcare, education, safety, dignity and connection with their community of choice.’
Hear, hear.
One of my Stories
While on the theme of disadvantage, I have decided to include my story ‘The Good Mother,’ in my January newsletter. It placed second in the Gold Coast short story competition and deals with the complex issue of fostering. In my job, I regularly see children and teenagers who find themselves living with foster families. I also see a few adults who talk about their experiences growing up and moving home to home. While there are many generous and wonderful foster parents, some of the experiences patients share are traumatic with lifelong negative impacts.
I hope you enjoy my story.
The Good Mother
Silas pulled up outside the block of six units and checked the address again – 6/78 Paradise Street. Someone had a sense of humour. They were non-descript red brick each with a small balcony. He hadn’t told anyone about the letter from the lawyer. Silas’ childhood experiences were still too raw, like they happened only weeks ago. He couldn’t trust how he might respond coming here. It was safer to come alone.
When the lawyer informed him his mother had died, Silas panicked. For a shocked moment Silas thought he meant Edith, the woman who raised him. Relief made his knees weak when he realised it was that good for nothing drug addled pisspot who had given birth to him.
It took Silas another few weeks to pick up the keys and find the bloody place, some bleak development in the middle of fucking nowhere. Even the sat nav struggled to find its way and took him on a bloody detour through his childhood, suburb by dreary suburb. He stared at the featureless block from the car, memories twisting his gut into a hard knot.
It started to rain, and Silas was tempted to drive away. Instead, he opened his umbrella, walked to the front door of unit six, unlocked it, and stepped inside. The place had an expectant air, as if waiting for its owner to come home. There was a vinyl two-seater lounge, a rug and a couple of prints on the wall. Everything was neatly put away in the kitchen, a kettle and toaster alone on the bench. It was not what he’d expected.
Silas felt his shoulders tense and knuckled his hands. He saw an envelope on the table with his name on it. Glancing over his shoulder, he picked it up and slid his finger under the seal. Before reaching inside for the contents he pulled up a chair and sat down, the steady drumming of rain outside an urgent second pulse chasing the one in his ears. When he pulled out a single scrawled sheet and a newspaper clipping, a photograph fluttered to the floor.
His mouth went dry, his thighs clenched. A rage threatened to explode from that hot unpredictable core smouldering inside him. He wanted to smash something, shove his fist through a window or add another slash to the tally of cuts scarred along his left thigh and forearm. One for each time she’d disappointed him, let him down. The false promises, forgotten birthdays and Christmases.
The last time he saw her was at an access visit thirty-one years ago when he was ten. She was too inebriated to take him. He nearly jammed everything back into the envelope, but curiosity prevailed.
Dear Silas,
It’s me, your mum. I know I stuffed up, big time. I am a shit of a mother, was a shit of a person. By the time I took measure of myself, it was too late. Sorry kiddo. I didn’t know I was pregnant, was still shooting up, just shy of twenty. You came early and had to go through detox. I’m not proud of that. It was a rocky start for a kid. I tried. I really did. Got off the hard stuff and moved to the grog instead. I was furious when they took you away, but it was for the best.
He took a breath, his anger a tight fist, remembered being moved between families, changing schools, not fitting in.
I fought hard when that couple wanted to take you. I know I let you down, wasn’t there for you, but that time at Maccas, for your birthday, I was so nervous I drank half a cask, was furious when Edith intervened. It was the last drink I ever had.
He remembered all of it. The access visits where he got excited, and his mother didn’t show or arrived blind drunk. Edith consoled him when he started wetting the bed again. She stood by him when he vandalised the school hall and graffitied Fuck Yous All on the side. Edith convinced her husband, Jimmy to keep Silas. ‘There’s a good lad in there somewhere.’
He never once thanked Edith, spat on her once when she insisted he return the CD’s he lifted from a store. Silas’ throat went tight when he remembered how close he had been to being sent away, yet again.
Edith sent me updates every week. I was so bloody proud of you. I kept the article where you played a part in the school musical.
Standing in front of the crowd as Bill Sykes in Oliver was first time Silas felt accepted, included as a main player amongst the cast. The audience cheered when he bowed afterwards. Edith came to every performance.
I wanted to make you proud, make something of my life. Some good people stood by me, and I stayed dry. I left it too late to raise you, to be family for you. I avoided facing up to myself. Too late I realised what was important. You never got to know the Mum who loved you and longed to have you back.
I got a couple of cleaning jobs, saved up and bought this place for you. I nearly made contact several times. Too bloody scared in the end.
It’s yours now.
Love Mum
The photograph was a picture of him holding a balloon standing next to his Mum at Maccas. She listed to one side. Edith’s handwriting inscribed the back. Mum and Silas
He let the picture drop to the table, his thoughts a tangled mess. How long since he had even contacted Edith?
He pulled out his phone, fearful he had left things too long, that she was fed up with him.
‘Edith? It that you?’
He pictured her sitting in front of the telly, the lacework of laugh lines crinkling with surprise to hear him.
His voice cracked. ‘Thanks. For everything.
