My birthday is at the end of April, and around that time, I tend to do quite a bit of pondering. This year, I was pondering how I'd largely got out of the habit of exercise. Well, I'm not sure I was ever properly in it... but I was doing hardly any, and was feeling slovenly and unfit. I saw an advert for a charity event, where you signed up to do the distance of an IronMan race, but across a whole month, rather than a single day. It was free to enter, there was no set amount to raise for the charity, and the whole thing felt like a bit of a challenge, but not so unreachable as to be off-putting. I signed up. I started with a plan to space all the activity evenly across the month, but, well, May was rather a mess, and life got quite in the way. Still, I headed out on my bike whenever I could, mostly along the old railway trails. It was lovely to do some more cycling. I left the bike in the car, and stopped off at the trails on the way home from work, which isn't something I'd usually do, but was lovely. The swim was, surprisingly, the least hassle. It was 2.4 miles, which worked out as 155 lengths of my local pool. I went swimming each week, including when we were away in Llandudno, and this was the first discipline I finished. I think I was most worried about the cycling - 112 miles is a long way, and takes a long time when you're as slow as me. I did ten miles here, fifteen there, but by the last week or so, I still had 76 miles left. I had a couple of rather long rides, including what felt like a rather epic 36 mile day cycling around and near a reservoir. Some of that day was rather outrageously uphill. With a couple of days before we went to Scarborough (which took us into June, and I didn't want to take my bike), I still had 16 miles left. I planned to go out along the trails one night, but as I got home from work, a piece fell off the underside of the car, and I had to wait for the AA. I was busy being annoyed, when I remembered the exercise bike. I thought I'd get a couple of miles ticked off, but by the time the AA turned up, I'd done five miles, and as it didn't seem that bad, I figured I might as well do another five. The next morning I was feeling quite wobbly, and finished off the final miles on the bike in the living room. I'd thought the run would be ok - it was only 26 miles over a month, after all, and I was meant to be training for a 15 mile running race in June. Somehow, I kept putting off running, until I found myself with about fifteen miles left when we went on holiday. I took my running shoes, and set out for a long run both mornings, accepting that I was going to have to do quite a bit of walking. I made it, finally, and spent much of the rest of the holiday sitting down.
Overall, I raised about £300 for Cancer Research UK, and rediscovered my love of cycling along the trails, and generally being outside. I also ended up quite pleased with myself that I'd actually done it - I often leave race preparation to the last minute, but because this wasn't a single race, and it was impossible (for me, at least) to do everything on the last day, it was fun to have a tracker and add a few miles here and there throughout the month. Obviously, a fair bit did still get left to the end... but it gave me a great sense of achievement, like I could actually commit to something and see it through. I'm still carrying that with me now.
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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