For the past few weeks I have been trying something that I’ve never done before in my life – jogging every day.[^1]
All through High School I was always the least enthusiastic about the annual cross country, greatly preferring sports that required a bit less in the way of actual physical exertion. And ever since university I’ve always tended to default towards cycling as my form of exercise.
This even worked pretty well for the first bit of my working life, especially when I lived around a 20-25 minute cycle away from work. The cycle to and from work kept me fit and healthy, and didn’t take too much of my life.
But then I moved closer to work, which meant that I spent more time changing and showering than actually cycling, which kind of defated the point, and then I moved far enough away that cycling to work was no longer an option anyway.
Which was, needless to say, not that great for my health and fitness levels.
So I found that I needed some form of exercise that I could do in relatively small bursts, was efficient in terms of the amount of fitness and calorie burning the 30 minutes or so I could afford each day could provide, and didn’t require a lot of overhead in terms of preparing equipment.
This lead, fairly inexorably to the depressing realisation that the long-loathed jogging might have to be the way forward.[^2]
As with all the things I do, I was aided in my quest by high tech gadgets: in this case, the Nike+iPod kit that gives you information on running speed and distance. So I can tell you that after 12 goes out, I’ve run a total of 26km, my quickest kilometer was 5:30, and I’m rapidly closing in on the fabled 10-minute mile…
All pretty mundane, but underneath all the gadgets, and the not inconsiderable discomfort as long forgotten muscles are called back into action, I’ve realised something – I don’t actually hate jogging as much as I thought. And perhaps, one day, once the puffing and stabbing pains in the calf have gone away, I could actually enjoy this.
Although for now, I’m still focused on getting that 10 minute mile.
[^1]: Of course, I did miss about a week due to the recent cold snap…
[^2]: No apologies for the pun.