London Marathon #10: 11 weeks to go

Remember Play School and getting to choose which window to look through? "What will it be today, will it be the round window? The square window? Or the arch window?" Apparently, there is now a fourth window, diamond! Windows are something we literally and figuratively see the world through, our perspective often depends on the window we are looking through. Tuesday's run took me through Diocletian's Palace in the city of Split, Croatia. The Vestibule (see below) is part of the palace. When you look up it provides an extraordinary, but limited, window to the sky above. This reminded me of the Johari Window, have you heard of it?

First, a window on the past week's training. I have been asked to provide a bit more information about the sessions i.e. distance of runs, duration of walks, so here it is...

• Tuesday: Tempo run, Diocletian's Palace, Split, Croatia. This run was 14km, done at a bit faster pace than I will be running the marathon.

• Wednesday: Walk, Cat Ba Beach, Vietnam. Walking at a brisk pace for 50 minutes. This helps with recovery for the next hard session.

• Thursday: Interval run, Arachova, Greece. Past groves of ancient olive trees, this run involved 8 x 4-minute intervals running at a fast pace, with 2 minutes of recovery between each interval. Distance covered, not including a 10-minute cool down, was 10km.

• Friday: Walk, Snagov Natural Park, Romania. Walking at a brisk pace for 50 minutes.

• Saturday: Long run, Las Palmas, Canary Islands and Fushimi Inari Shrine, Japan. This session has two different runs. I did this one as a progressive run, starting off easy and building to the pace I will be doing for the marathon for the last 60 minutes. Total of 22 km.

• Sunday: Easy, progressive run around the streets of town. This run is done at a very easy pace, 12km.

• Monday: Walk, Lake Tahoe. Walking at a brisk pace for 50 minutes.

The Johari Window technique was created by two psychologists in 1955, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram. They combined their first names to come up with the exotic title of their model. The Johari Window is a self-awareness tool to help us better understand the differences between how we see ourselves and how other people see us.

How does it work?

1. Using a list of characteristics, you determine which "handful" best describes your personality. Example characteristics include, adaptable, caring, accepting, brave, complex, calm...

2. The "other people" are also given this same list and asked to identify a "handful" of characteristics that best describe you.

3. These selections are then compared and allocated to one of the quadrants in the Johari Window (below).

   1. Characteristics identified by both parties go in the "open" quadrant.

   2. Characteristics identified by "the others" but not you go in the "blind spot" quadrant.

   3. Characteristics identified by you but not "the others" go in the "hidden" quadrant.

   4. Characteristics that no-one selects go in the "unknown" quadrant.

Luft and Ingham's theory was that the more characteristics allocated to the "open" area, the better the mutual understanding and the better the relationship dynamics will be. The "blind spot" quadrant is useful for increasing our self-awareness. It can give us insight into what others perceive about us that we perhaps don't recognise in ourselves, aspects we may need to work on. Maybe most useful of all, it's a starting point for authentic conversations with ourselves and with "others". If you would like to try the technique there are various options online.

"Our perception is our window to the world, and we need to wipe the dust off of our window often so we can continue to see though it clearly" - Joseph P. Kauffman