The Ultra voyage to 100 Miles starts.
2018 — the Solo-cial, Mindful, Present, Caring, Ultra Reformatted, Stretch goal focused Zodiak Winston.
This is going to flow like wine, like Diarrhoea that cannot wait to hit the pan. Because that’s how I feel right now in this mindful phase of this very minuite I write these prose.. (or maybe they are just words).
Ironically I write this on the 2nd day of my physical breakdown of sorts. Yesterday I got this message from my coach.
“Just gone over all of your data from all of the runs you have done that i can see. Basically you are totally fucked. Your body is in survival mode HR wise. The 28th (av HR is 170s for 42k!) and the 1st have taken a lot more than you can imagine out of you. I want to totally strip it all back now”
Hence in my days of rest, me realising I needed to start journaling again. I’ve missed my ability to offload the thoughts of my head. I need to be able to summise daily. It helps me cope.
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My 2018 mantra, stolen from my older 2017 mindset is ‘Run to the Light’ — It’s less a morbid vision of me running to heaven, and actualy a reflection on the mindset I have adopted which has seen me start on my jounrey to self actualisation (the more I read about what self actualiastion is the less I understand which makes me more curious and thus run faster towards it) —
The last 6 months have been amazing. Namely because I rebuilt the very foundations that were well and truly fucked after 39 years of zero shits given when it came to actually truly caring about being mindful, being in the present and looking up and seeing the light. That light is true contentment, is about apprectiating the now.
Appreciating the fact that each day I am alive I need to use it. (Try telling the person you’re with how much you appreciate them, do it out of the blue, or write a letter to tell someone what you really think about them, or just smile to someone on your way to work.. Damn, this stuff is in us all but we don’t do it enough. I am teaching myself how to give more recognition and respect to those around me. I am loving it..
Goodness gracious, I do believe I have allowed my mind to warp out.. Fuck it… feels good, laugh, stop reading.. delete, snigger.. whatever.. The fact is what I am writing is flowing.. and that means it’s real. And it makes me feel excited (or is that the coffee? I started allowing myself 1 cup a day (well maybe this is my second but I am ok with that) — coffee lubricates my already excited state to truly open up about things that matter..
I’ve not been journaling until now because I have taken 14 days into 2018 to rebuild parts of my routine and thus life. Step one of the rebuild — I’m just gonna put down all my changes in a list — Call me lazy.. I call it Listy.
What else matters? well what else matters is this..
- I used the break to watch every single amazing video on ultra runing and ultra amazing runners I could — it’s incredible how you can find so many amazing things on YouTube, it caters for every community, every whim, it’s amazing. I allowed myself to be completely immersed in them and thus start behaving like them, I made a playlist of some of the videos which really inspired me — they’re all filmed so beautifully.
- I worked out that running was my freedom, but that movement was the catalyst for true freedom. I wrote down all the stretching I wanted to do each day (for 39 years I have wished I was able to touch my toes or sit crossed legs, but my frustration for not being able to do it was actually just a self pitty wallow of lazyness. I say I want to do it, but I do nothing to achieve it.. the worst type of human trait ever, and I was polluting the world with my pretend go get it attitude — In 2018 I wrote down all the strtetching I needed to do, that I wanted to do, and realised it required me having just over 1 hour of time. I am obsessed with the way Tim and Ido here moves, it’s incredible. This is what I am aiming for.. and the music makes me feel.
- I then realised that I wanted to increase my core strength as this is crucial to running long distance, and thus I worked with my coach to build out a simple yet hard plank session. So after my one hour of stretching I then Plank (just you wait till the kids start doing this, remeber I did it first)
- Ontop of the stretching and planks, I also wanted to practice meditation. I’ve been ever curious about it since I decided to become a better focused me. I wanted to unlock the powers of a more present mind and wanted to calm my overactive brain before I entered the real world.
- So I commandeered the never used attic in our house and turned it into my mindfulness retreat. My spiritual zone. A place only I use. The Fam know it’s my zone and leave me to be me. I head up for 6am, and I don’t come down until around 8am every morning. I finish those two hours (two hours where I am not stressing about needing to be somewhere else but two hours where I am selfishly listening to mediative music, feeling ultra zen, and taking myself serious, wheres old mat would probably have laughed or not done it. (Gracie has since made me posters that I found stuck up around the room when I headed up one morning.. Love how my daughter takes the piss yet at the same time is now truly understanding the zen)
- When I am down, I drink a home made ‘elixir of life’ of spinach, ginger, spirallina, brocolli and carrot. So wet, so thin, so nourishing. It’s the reward I need for the 2 hours of body love.
- I decided to take my stretching one step on, so found a 1.5 hour bicrum yoga class that starts at 6:30am on a friday and started going (I’ve now been twice) and it’s amazing. So actual wetty. And the best thing is I can wear tiny little pants and not feel like a total freak. Tiny is embraced.
- I dropped my social media use from about 20 depressing sessions of total waste of life time numbness per day down to about 1 check every few days. This is a big change for me, who’s used the likes of twitter and instgram to help me be me, but the fact is it isn’t me. (well it is but it’s really just my promotional me) — and it had sucked the life out of me. Using social media the way i was was not fun, it was depressing. It was vacuous, and I wasnt’ enjoying it. In fact it was I suspect one of the worst things happening to me. So I stopped the relience I had on it. I do use it, but I don’t take it serously now. It’s not the be all and end (is that how you say it?) — its a load of platforms that have been designed to do exactly what they do well — steal your attention and sell to you, it’s literally modern day robbery.. (try not using it, you’ll soon realise that it’s not actually life, it’s not something we have to pretend is crucial in getting ahead)
- I stopped my email addiction. stopped replying to everyone and anyone, and now manage my emails with one check in the morning, and one check in the afternoon. And the rest of the day is now spent being present in the meetings. I’m embarrassed with how much I was checking my phone, my slack (I’m not using it anymore) or my email in meetings. Never actualky being present.. I am now focussing on the persons I am with.. this is new for me. — key is in terms of my business I informed people that this would be the way I did things going forward, that I wasn’t going to be contactebale every second of the day, that I was going to be ultra focused when we did talk, but my mind needed to settle.. needed time to enjoy the present.
- I got rid of all things that did not put me in an ultra mindful mindset. This was pretty simple for me. I decided to throw away most of my clothes (gave away) and bought a North Face (coulnd’t find a patagonia shop) jacket — I needed to be promoting the great outdoors. And decided that I needed to be wearing Nike Trail running shoes as my main daily shoe (be aware Trail shoes come up smaller as they’re more rigid). The simple tweak of adorning brands and products which reinforce you’re focus has a maximal effect on mind.. I feel pro now.
- Day one’d myself — spent 6 months getting into better shape, but that shape was just a starter for the main course. The main course being 2018 race to 100 mile ultra. This meant truly getting a gauge of where I was at. So I went to St Mary’s University in Twickenham for a series of Strength, movement, and V02 Sub MAx and V02 Max tests. This was ultra to the max. You have to try these tests if you are serious about understanding your body and ability. In short for the V02 tests you have to run to your very limit, while wearing all sorts of attahcments and giving various blood tests on the way. You’re in essence running until you cannot breathe (this is actualy the case as the test makes you run until you’re body can’t get enough oxygen) — It was scary, as with the strength tests, you have to push yourself to the limit.. You learn a lot. (I learn’t that I can push more than I thought but it’s still nowhere near I want to be)
- From the data my coach and I are devising 2018 to be elite. It’s worth noting that I also designed my 2018 work life to be about learning and to be about being away from most things I have been used to. I decided that after 14 years of 24/7 I was going to allow myself time to get out and run and run as much as I wanted. That fitness was actualy my main focus, and that work would be second. (I am telling myself this btw, key to continually reinforce this to myself) —
- It dawned on me that to be an ultra runner I actually need to compete in Ultra events.. So I booked in a series of prepariton races (ie more 100km challenges including an amazing Lake District Utra run on my 40th birdhday — who needs a party when you can have an ultra run on your own! (my fam are gonna be there to see me finish, and I can’t wait to unlock the tears of appreciation.
- I decided that 2018 is about getting to the 100 mile Ultra race. Sometime by end of the year I will have taken this challenge on, it’s going to be brutal but it’s going to be possible and it’s going to test me to my max. I cannot wait to eat my nut roast on Christmas Day 2018 knowing I am well and truly ultra.
- Critically for me I decided to rebrand myself, gone was Mills, gone was the person who only cared about work (I still care btw) and in the 2018 place was the new me, the focused, spiritualised, present and mindful me. That me goes by the new name of ‘ Zodiak Winston’.
Goodbye 2017.
Hello to the present future.
ZW
