Pacing yourself
“I learned a long time ago that worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but doesn’t get you anywhere.” Van Wilder, Van Wilder.
2nd Feb – Days to go on 100 days dry: 69. Days until the Dartmoor Way: 102
Second run of week three last night. I have to be honest, I did not want to go out. But that’s what 6 hours on a virtual meeting will do for you. Similar to the walk at the weekend, I just got changed for a run, put my woolly hat and head torch on, set the music (Van Halen, 1984) and locked the backdoor. Before I knew it I was halfway through.
When I finished I realised that this was the second time I started with little to no motivation. I didn’t fall into the trap of congratulating myself on actually going ahead and doing what I set out to, but rather reflected on why the shine of this journey had come off slightly.
I guess, if I’m being totally honest, the real reason is that I haven’t seen life altering improvements yet. The scores on my digital health cards are moving in the right direction for sure, but there’s been no change to speak of that would be worthy of a Marvel limited series.
In order to inject some pragmatism back into this I reminded myself that I have more energy. (That’s been fed back to me from a few people.) I am no longer breathless when I run up two flights of stairs. (That was a concern before.) I can run for longer periods than I have since I was a teenager.
I like to cool down whilst drinking about a liter of water and stretching my shins and calf muscles now, (I know, I am turning into everything I mocked about people who exercise,) and ended up watching a video about a guy who opened a bookstore in the middle of the pandemic. He listed 12 lessons from his first 12 months. I am not going to list them all, but the ones that resonated were as follows.
- Have patience
- Get better as you go
- Think of it as an experiment
- Confidence is earned
- Behind those mountains in front of you are more mountains.
I think that was time well spent.
“We’re all travelling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do out best to relish this remarkable ride.” Tim, About Time
