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30-day trial 1: how it went
By Paul | February 2, 2008
To my surprise and delight I had no real trouble in sticking to these resolutions. I can’t pretend that I always sprint flat-out for all eight “sprints”. In fact, experience has taught me to go easy on the first two while my muscles warm up. After that I sprint flat-out on at least one (and often all six) of the remaining 50-yard sprints.
My weekly jog has grown from a distance of a little over one mile to in excess of five miles (judging by my rough under-estimates from a road map). This is a very promising rate of increase considering my ambition to run a half-marathon this year.
The weather has generally been kind. What little rain there has been has been light and pleasant. Windy weather increases the challenge of both sprinting and distance jogging quite considerably. It can be terrifically hard to keep jogging on a windy uphill stretch!
Increasing the distance of my weekly jogs has not been too difficult. I think the third week was most challenging, but largely for psychological reasons. Naive to jogging, I did not realise that the hardest thing (at least at this stage) is resisting the temptation to stop jogging and start walking. The solution to this (for me at least) is to remove the temptation altogether by consciously thinking about something other than jogging!!
One approach that I have found particularly helpful when a “why-not-just-give-up-and-walk” mentality starts to kick in is to look far ahead, make a mental note of some “landmark” and then start mentally reciting something. I have several affirmations that I know by heart and recite daily, so I tend to resort to these, but I imagine mentally recalling a pleasant song or tune or focussing on (positive) ambient sights and sounds would work just as well. My affirmations successfully put me in a positive frame of mind and take my thoughts away from putting one foot in from of the other. By the time I’ve gone through my usual “mantras” I find that I’ve long since passed the once-distant landmark I had noted and that the jogging is seeming effortless. (Admittedly, my pace is slow and leisurely - if I were really intent on speed, I think I might need something more than just a mental distraction technique!).
The daily sprints are a real joy. They allow me to have achieved something even before breakfast. The 30-second rests between jogs give me an opportunity to recite my daily affirmations and spend a little time in thinking freely and positively about my day. On these cold winter mornings, I also have a wonderful inner warmth when I’ve finished (which I don’t always have when I get out of bed) and I believe the sprints have helped me maintain a high level of health and well-being - mentally, physically and emotionally.
The weekly jogs are obviously helping me gain the necessary stamina to complete a half-marathon this year as well as improving my fitness for sport. In addition, the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other persistently and consistently whilst setting my sights high is a weekly mental reminder of what can be attained by taking simple actions towards a goal whilst focussing on the outcome rather than the perceived challenges along the way.
I’m not sure if I mentioned the eating of at least 3 pieces of fruit per day in my original post. I found this incredible easy (despite having failed to consistently achieve this when I’ve tried it in the past). Most days I found I had eaten at least 3 pieces of fruit before lunch and on one or two days I must have eaten 8 or more pieces of fruit (counting a piece as being an amount of fruit similar in volume to a large apple - so a large wedge of watermelon (not the whole!) counts as one piece for instance).
I found myself eating a fruit, nut and seed based breakfast on most days and this usually accounted for 2 pieces of fruit. I was so enjoying eating fruits and nuts that on many days my entire breakfast and lunch revolved around them. I found it quite easy to fill myself up on bananas and nuts if I was feeling particularly hungry and this actually freed up a lot of time that might have been spent preparing or eating more formal meals. In fact, I tended to snack when I felt like it instead of eating specifically at breakfast and lunchtime.
I probably had more success this time than in the past because I am no longer accustomed to a cereal and milk breakfast. In fact, as I am currently eating a vegan diet, having a breakfast like two bananas (or other fruit), a handful of almonds (or other nuts), a sprinkling of seeds and raisins (or similar) and a dusting of cocoa powder or desiccated coconut proves so delicious it is almost impossible to consider eating anything else. I have gone for cereal or muesli with rice milk in the past but this is nothing in comparison with the fruit/nut/seed/cocoa combination that is my current happy addiction!
I’ve felt increasingly motivated and energetic over the last month (except for a half-week spell where my mood was low for work-related reasons). It is difficult to say how much this is due to the fruits and nuts, how much it is due to the jogging and how much it is due to other factors, but I am sure both the jogging and fruit-eating have been beneficial mentally and physically.
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