The Streak Ceases

 

So, after 33 days of running 2k every day, I have stopped. And I confess, after looking out the window at the branches snapping from the trees and the rain whipping itself into tiny vicious circles, I am relieved about the decision. Although, although, I quite happily ran in the same conditions earlier in the month.

There are a few things I’ve learnt from the running streak times, though.

1) It’s perfectly possible to exercise every single day. Indeed, it’s easier, because there’s no question about whether or not you might work out every day, for you know that you’re going to, so you just need to work out when in the day.

2) A month is all you need to get better at running. A month is enough to see progress in anything. I shaved minutes off the amount of time it took me to run 2k, and, by the end of the month, could reliably run 5k in under half an hour, which years of running a couple of times a week didn’t achieve.

3) When you resent things, it’s okay to shake them up and move on. What I think the important lesson for me here is, I needed to go straight into something else. Something I wanted to do, but felt I could do without any problem. At the moment I’ve two things going – a 30 day ab workout thing I saw randomly on Twitter, that takes about two minutes a day, but still gives measurable progress, and Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred. Both are easily achievable in half an hour, don’t require any things or prep or organising, and, this time around, I don’t even have to leave the house, so can easily get up early for!

So the plan is to shift things up every thirty days or so, as best makes sense. To try to stick to something for a full month so I can reap the benefits, both mental and physical, of measurably progress. I think it might be an idea to move between indoor and outdoor occupations, but we’ll see how I feel about that come March. The trick is, I think, to be as good to myself as I can be whilst being completely committed to doing something every day.

But, if you find it hard to regulate thrice-weekly workouts or so on, I fully advocate a crack at a streak. Less, daily, is more, weekly, and more overall. Which is a good thing. Obvs listen to your body a bit and all that, but I also found that, by the end of the month (except the bit where I fell over horribly, ripped my leggings and wound up with a bruise the size of an egg on my knee), I was experiencing precisely none of the niggles, aches and pains I had early on in the month. It was, it turned out, possible to run them all off. Which was nice.

The whole thing, in fact, was extremely nice. May it continue!

Greetings, from the morning…

Following on from last night’s post…I went back to sleep in the end, and had some strange dreams, about things I can’t really remember. But! Then I got up, and within an hour, I’d done my run, showered, made coffee, and collected together some of the many things I’d meant to. I’m quite pleased with that, even if I missed parts of the mornings I love. There’ll be other opportunities to see mornings.

Now we’re three days into January, I feel it’s time to admit one of my more hopeful resolutions. Or, not really resolutions. Curious attempts. I’m hoping to accomplish a yearlong running streak. A mile a day, and more if I feel like it. One of the best things about right now is that I’ve finally found somewhere…

…as you can see, this is from a while ago. This post was interrupted by a telephone call to say that my partner’s mum had smashed up her hip in a fall, and was on her way to hospital. A timely reminder of how the best laid plans, etc etc. For the concerned (and I’m very grateful to you, concerned, you’ve been very kind), she’s now had a full hip replacement op and seems to be doing well. That one can have an entire joint and socket replaced with plastic and titanium and, just HOURS later, be taking steps upon it all, leaves me in awe of medicine, and grateful as ever for the straggling remnants of the NHS, which, as every time in my extremely fortunate experience, acted above and beyond expectation.

Back to me, though, because, well, I haven’t thought about myself a great deal in the last week, and this is definitely the place for me to do it.

I am now nine days into this one mile running streak – or, as it goes, at least 2k every day so far. I’ve been enjoying it immensely, and, by being able to roll out of bed, into vaguely runningish clothes, and choosing a distance that is doable in under fifteen minutes (I’m not the fastest runner), it’s something I find myself quite happy about, rather than dreading, which is a good change from every other workout I’ve done, even those I’ve enjoyed. It’s not even really exercise, just…warming myself up inside, getting moving, giving the brain a chance to take in the general wonder of where I’m fortunate enough to be living, that sort of thing. We’ll see how it goes as time passes, but at the moment, it seems to be just what I needed.

My ‘blog every day’ concept has, alas, been lost.

In other news, further new year ventures have been slightly stalled by a mass moment of clumsiness in which I dropped a tray of tiny, tiny pieces, and mixed them up to the point of uselessness. I have a lot of sorting out to do.

 

If you were wondering, after the post from last week in which I ripped into Sherlock, what I thought of Sunday’s episode, know this: not much. If I wanted Sherlock: The Sitcom years, I’d have hoped for that. I don’t appreciate characters doing a 180 without grounds, or the gravity and depth of a show disappearing into nothingness without repercussion. I still don’t understand, genuinely, why people who loved what it was still love the show, but there it is. At least some people are enjoying it. Curiously, I have noticed that everyone who’s agreed with me has, with very little exception, done it offline, by email, text, Whatsapp and the rest. It’s like publicly admitting the show sucks is either too upsetting or inflammatory, and perhaps that’s true. I’m just not used to being the angry one, still, and it’s an increasingly unpleasant experience. Anyway. When Moffat and co. say they’ve already planned out Series 4 and 5, that’s great, but why didn’t they bother plotting out Series 3 whilst they were at it?

Let’s leave this on a brighter note, though. In terms of something marvellously plotted (but guilty of a bit of tailing off in later series too, heh), are you familiar with Journey Into Space: Operation Luna? This 1950s BBC sci-fi radio series was super close to my heart when I was a kid, and hugely coloured and inspired all my space-based listening, reading and viewing ever after. It’s a classic, and free to listen to: do, if you haven’t, or if you’ve forgotten it.