I’m not doing it for Kudos.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the encouragement. I’m grateful to those of you who are so generous with your time as to bother with that little thumbs up for me.

I feel bad that I have neither the time, nor inclination, to return that compliment to you. It’s just that I’ve kind of gone off the whole social media thing, I have little inclination to be spending my time on that.

Thanks though to all of you on Facebook who encouraged me to get in touch with Simon about my log in problems on here. And thank you Simon for responding as quickly and capably as you did.

If I’m honest, life is difficult for me down here on the flatlands where I was raised. We have a challenging set of circumstances here. I find it hard these days to blog because what I want to blog about is life, but I can’t blog about life without going public with things I’ve been asked to respectfully keep to myself.

Blogging about life helped me deal with life across on yonder hills. The hills themselves helped me deal with life across on yonder hills. 

I’m not really saying that life is any more challenging here than it was across on yonder hills. I’m just struggling with it more, because the tools I used to cope with it are gone.

So all there is to blog about on this running blog of mine, is, well, running. And I’m not even that interested in that shit anymore.

Running’s not as interesting, not as stimulating, not as cathartic, or therapeutic, or just plain enjoyable as it was on yonder hills.

But there’s a marathon to train for, and after 6 whole months off with an ankle that is still giving me a bit of gip, I feel it’s definitely time that I got myself back into the habit of running.

Like I say, I’m not doing it for kudos.

I’m doing it to get back in the habit. I’m doing it to slowly but surely prepare my body for what I’m going to throw at it when I ask it to run that Snowdonia marathon one more time. I’m doing it to try and manage my injuries by running shorter distances more frequently rather than hammering my joints with big hits.

Toffee hammer, not sledge.

London marathon day seemed like the perfect day to get started on this new regime. There’s nothing revolutionary here, just the good old “mile a day till Mandalay” kind of thing we all know about from the great Ron Hill*.

It was another 4 days before I actually got going, but today, I’m pleased to say, I’ve hit that magical milestone of managing to get out and run every day for 3 weeks solid.

It won’t sound like much to many of you, but I’ve tried and failed so many times before to put together a run streak like this, that this is the first time I’ve actually managed to get as far as running 21 days on the trot.

Anyway, so far as kudos goes, Strava lies. Unless you start paying them extra money to display information they’re harvesting anyway from Garmin Connect. I’m walking for a warm up, cooling down by walking too. It’s only “lap 2” where I’m actually running, but Strava isn’t showing you that.

I feel like a bit of a fraud accepting plaudits from kind hearted folk on Strava, when the truth is I’ve only run a mile, but it looks like 2 and a 1/2.

So there it is. I’ve gone public with it now. Stated out loud that I am running every day.

In all previous endeavours at building a run streak, it’s been the day after I’ve gone public that has been the day when my attempt has failed.

Tomorrow’s gonna be interesting.

Tomorrow’s going to be very interesting indeed.

 

 

 

 

The great Ron Hill:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-38810882

Every day for 52 years!!