Running diary

It was a year ago today that I spoke with a friend about my running as I had been recording my runs on an iPhone app and measuring my average pace. As a result of that conversation, I decided to follow his example and enter a timed road race. My first event is my memory tag for 2 September 2012.

As I went through the review of the images pinned to the 26th day of each month today, two things struck me. Firstly, the pleasure of knowing where I was a year ago and what I was doing. This ability is part of my reality now, but the second thing that struck me was that on 26 August 2012, I would have been hard pressed to say where I was the year before. This new reality is new.

On the subject of running, I am now regularly taking part in group runs on Saturday mornings. Although I keep a record of the road races I enter (and souvenirs such as my chest number, the flier and the results list), I haven't been noting these group runs down. I decided to start doing so as I am experimenting with running technique - last Saturday I tried increasing the number of paces per minute after reading in a magazine that the optimal rate is 180/minute, according to some. My breathing could not keep up!

I decided to go through my app history and write down all of the past runs in a little black book as well - in the same magazine a famous runner had mentioned her running diary. I devised a set of headings and pulled up the details from the app: date, distance, time, pace. I thought the pace information would be useful to see how I progressed over time.

Among the figures, the 15 July 2012 stood out as particularly slow. In an instant I knew why - that was the day I pulled a muscle in my leg. It is the memory tag for the day.

It wasn't often the case that a run was my memory tag, but as I wrote the entries, I often checked my mental calendar to recall what I had been doing on that day to place the run within it.

Names

Remembering names is one of my challenges.

And so this is information I make a point of including in some of my memory tags.

Sometimes the repetition is enough to fix a name in my mind so when I see the person again, I can use their name.

But I have had some problems with confusing certain names, such as Monica and Maura, so something more is needed.

Now, I've joined a running club. Having started entering road races nearly a year ago (my first race is the image pinned to 2 September 2012), I've grown to love running with other people. The beauty of a club run is it is not a race so it is possible to chat.

Before I began this process, it would have been a challenge to remember people's names and I would have faced many awkward moments of meeting someone I had spoken to at length some days before and being unable to remember their name.

So I've decided to remember the names of everyone I speak with by including them in my image tags, reinforcing the recall through subsequent reviews.

Other associations are helping. I ran alongside Kimberley during my first run out with the club. She was friendly - and petite. Her name made me think of Kimberley diamond mine: she is a little diamond.

I find associations with other people with the same name also helps. On another session, I chatted with Martin, the name of a family friend. The friend, now deceased, was married to Pauline. There was a Pauline at the meeting I had the day before the run, whose name I also want to remember. This link between the days also helps me to remember the tags.

Using people's names when I meet them is also key to reinforcement. It often impresses them.

Though I do have to try hard to remember their faces as well.

Children and whisky

A long time ago I read a few books by Robert Ludlum and more than once he describes his heroes meeting colleagues and impressing them by not only recalling the names of their children, but offering them their favourite brand of whisky.

I found this intimidating as it suggested that a) I should choose a particular brand of whisky to favour over all others and b) I should then stick with it so that it somehow labels me amongst my circle of business acquaintances.

Perhaps it is fiction and people don't really do this.

Whatever. I am at least including the names of people's children in this process of remembering every day that passes. I visited an old friend recently and included his three children and their names in the image that is my memory tag for the day. Every time I review it, I remember their names, so next time I see the family, I will know the children's name without having to wait for my friend to use them.

Then I met my cousin for the first time in a couple of years the other day. I remember his son's name well, but I've added the university and course he is studying as words I say when I picture the image of meeting my cousin for lunch.

I suppose if any of my friends were sophisticated enough to favour a particular choice in whisky, I could choose to remember that as well.

Lost images - 13 and 14 October 2012

Yesterday was 13 August 2013, so in my recently adopted review procedure, I ran through the 13th of each month starting with January 2011 (before I began this process of remembering every day that passes, so I don't always have images for the early months).

When I reached 13 October 2012, I drew a blank. Checking out surrounding days, 14 October was also blank. I had all the days for the rest of the month and all the other 13ths in the review.

It teased at me all day. I tried running through all Fridays and Saturdays, hoping returning to this previous review method would invoke brain muscle memory and the image for Friday would trigger recall of the Saturday 13 October image. It did not.

I explored the surrounding images in depth and they brought up other memories, including for the 13th and 14th, but these did not feel like the images I had chosen to pin to my mental calendar.

I was a little frustrated to go to sleep without resolving the issue. It was the first time this has happened. But as I would be faced with recalling 14 October in my review today, I was at least assured that I would not forget the problem and move on.

I went for a long run this morning. Partly because one was due and partly because I notice there are some days when the review process is easier and I hoped the increased flow of oxygenated blood might help. It didn't.

Memory of the days had come back to me in quite a lot of detail. I was half sure that one of these events - going into town with my sister-in-law for the first time since returning to my wife's country a week before - was my image for 13 October. I decided to select one of the key images for 14 October and turn it into my memory tag.

My blog today was to be about this story - selecting a new image because I had forgotten the original one. But travelling into work the image suddenly popped into my mind with total certainty: we had met my brother-in-law (another part of the family) for lunch.

I'm not sure why it had not come to me before. I made a point of remembering the first meeting with different relatives since returning to my wife's country and had explored whether this had been the case for 14 October without it triggering the recall.

Although I have a slight niggle about whether the image for 13 October is the one I first selected, I am back to a full set. I'm not ready to retreat to a more substantial review to refresh the images more frequently, but I am conscious that strengthening associations between successive images would be beneficial.

At the same time, being able to remember the events of a day, if not the image I had selected as a memory tag, is not a failure. I still rememered the day that passed.

Muscle memory

Recently I've only been including one day per month in my reviews for periods longer than six months ago.

This had been progressing fairly well, despite having a few days where I struggled to recall one of the images pinned to my mental calendar as a memory tag.

The same happened again when I tried to recall 12 March 2012 - I was recalling the 12th day of each month, it being 12 August 2013 today. The image for 12 March was really eluding me, despite my being able to recall the images for days either side.

I've not yet let a day pass without finally remembering every elusive image. I decided to restart the review the process, this time recalling the 10, 11 and 12 day of each month.

The missing image for 12 March 2012 came back in a flash as soon as I pulled up the image for 10 March: visiting a nearby town. The image for 12 March was finding my wife's mobile phone, which she feared she might have left in the café when we visited that town. In fact, it had fallen out of her bag in the car.

I had remembered the image for 10 March in my earlier failed attempts to trigger my memory. There was something about the quick succession of images that was important. My brain seems to have developed muscle memory of stepping from day to day on my calendar when I review every day of the past month. This is not invoked if I try to recall a day in isolation.

It may be that I should make this three-day-per-month approach the norm so the muscle memory does not fade, but at present I'll hold it in reserve as an emergency technique. I would still like to become adept at one day per month reviews. They will be far quicker.

Diary catch up

I was travelling on a train last Friday and had time to spare - not least because my reviews of images pinned to my mental calendar take so much less time.

I had brought my diary along to continue bringing it up to date. I decided at the start of this experiment that I would not write down my memory tags; I would give myself no option but to remember them.

However, my current method for refreshing the images is to review those for one day per month of the period longer than six months and I fear this may not be above and gaps may start to appear. So I decided to update my diary, not as a crutch to remembering, but as a record of my life for my future self.

My diary involves far more than the events encapsulated in the memory tags. The tags were only ever intended as a trigger for remembering the day.

That said, for some days there is nothing much of note that happened, orther than something like, "Today I ran along the canal after work and stopped half way to enjoy the sun and eat some biscuits on a bench".

Other days fill page after page with details and refelections, just as if I was writing the entry that evening.

Yet the entries I am currently writing are for August 2012, a year ago.

Head space

Now that I have drastically cut back on the number of days included in my daily reviews of the images pinned to my mental calendar, I have more time to think.

For dates older than 6 months, I've gone from recalling two days per week, to one day per month.

In the past in odd moments, I'd try to pick up where I had reached in my run through.

Now in these moments, it has struck me I completed the run through early in my day and can think about other things.

The process dominates my day less and I am able to enjoy its benefits more.