Wednesday 10 November 2010

Work life balance

The cold continues to fade, and whilst the bloating/pain were still there yesterday they were significantly less than the day before. As Sue has had stomach ache last night and this morning I'm definitely thinking its a bug.

Diet wise yesterday was good in terms of quality and calories but bad in terms of timing i.e. almost all of my food was consumed after 6pm.

That was largely to do with running and work. Let me explain.

Generally I work from home but with anything from zero to four meetings a week where I could be anywhere in the UK. This week looks like being a home week whereas next week I'll be in Nottingham, Warwick, Poole and West Bromwich.

When I'm at home I tend to switch the work laptop on anywhere between 6am and 8am and switch it off anytime from 6pm i.e. a long day. However, I'm not sat in front of it all day: if I want a drink or snack I go and get one; if I have a doctor/dentist/physio appointment I don't take time off for it I just go and from time to time I'll do a short run essentially in lieu of a dinner break. Sort of unwritten flexibility.

Yesterday was one of those days. Initially I was going to go for a run in the morning so had only the lightest of snacks first thing but work was such that I found morning drifted into early afternoon with no run. Nor did I have dinner as I was 'shortly' to run and by 2.30 had got as far as kit and trainers on. Then work stepped in again, then the eldest daughter came home and a quick conversation on why she wouldn't be getting a Blackberry for Christmas (she's not yet 12) delayed further, then a quick check of the email caused another delay...until I got going about 4.10pm.

It was a strange run - dry but windy and cold - and I really felt the latter on my hands in the first few minutes but it soon wore off and I didn't think about it again. The run itself was 5 rather contrived miles plus 4 x running drills. The drills involved my running with my arms in a big basketball style loop in front of me and running without bending my knees so I was keen to get onto a rarely used single track dead end road to do them despite the failing light.

All good though and all done.

Today its 5 miles again but with hill repeats at mile pace (4 x 45s @ 6 min mile pace up hill). Gulp.

When do you run and how do you fit it in?

5 comments:

Alison said...

*Gulp* indeed!

Like you I have built in flexibility. So I tend to change the times that I run from day to day (same with gym). Usually I let work requirements dictate: I like to break up long periods of working alone, so will stick a run in there somewhere. Usually when my brain ceases to produce anything worthy! Sometimes though I'll let weather dictate, it it's particularly extreme.

The one exception is with weekend LSRs, which I would try to do at the same time each week, to get my body used to the shock of it!

Glad you're feeling better :-)

Unknown said...

I hate those days.. Annoyingly they seem to happen far too often.. I had one yesterday, walked the dog, went shopping with my gran and by the time I had actually eaten and digested something it was too dark to go.. I'm hoping today will be different but I've got a bad feeling it won't be! I've got a week off work and I seem to have less time than I do at work.. or maybe I'm just not planning my time effectively! When I'm at work if I'm on an early shift I get changed and go as soon as the shift is over and if I'm on a late I go mid morning, get showered and go to work... It works better than my last job where I was there 8.15-6 and not getting home til almost 7.. that left very little time for running or anything else!

Maria said...

I am lucky as I can be fairly flexible- as I teach I am at work by 8, so generally no early morning run. So I have 2 runs after work, and the long slow run at the weekend. But often I can leave early (say, 4pm) and take work like marking home to do later in the evening. So if I know rain is forecast for later, I would leave work quick, run, and then work in the evening. But no lunch time runs or anything like that!

RoseC2 said...

I can't fit in early morning runs as I have 2 kids to get out of the house by 7.15am and a hubby who leaves by 6.30am
so......
I go to running club on a Wednesday night
I do my long slow one with club on a Sunday morning and try to fit the other 2 around that!
I do try and do one at lunchtime so that it doesn't interfere with family life and the other 1 I try to do on my way home from work so I'm just a bit late back rather than getting in and going straight out again...it's always a tricky balance though and one I always feel guilty about...when I'm running I should be with family, when I'm at work i should be with family...when i'm running or with family I should be working.....lol!

on a diff note when are you in Poole? You should come to my running club for the night, it's not that far away!

Rosex

Running Rob said...

sounds like we all have some challenges fitting things in - and I'm lucky in that I can get the odd weekday run in daylight in the winter.

Rose - day early - I'm in Poole on Tuesday.