One day at the beginning of December I decided I was going to join a gym, and in my usual eager (impatient) fashion, found myself looking up membership fees online in the wee-small hours that night, mulling over the costs, then arriving on their doorstep the next morning gym bag and bank card in hand.My plan at that stage was to mix up my fitness "regime" by adding some swimmimg and gym work to the zumba classes I was attending each week. A week or so later, having been swimmimg most days I decided that I better take the bull by the horns and do my gym induction.
I was a little nervous as I've not been in a gym for ahem... *cough*...about 20 years... *gulp*. It was fine until I had to get on the scales. We haven't got scales at home, and so I've not weighed myself in a very long time. In my blissful ignorance, I thought I was about 10 stone, so you can imagine my delight when I got on the scales to find I was 11stone! How did that happen? I'm still a size 12 so where is that extra stone? Obviously I've got really heavy bones...and my clothes and trainers must weigh at least half a stone... right?!?...Maybe the scales were wrong? Or maybe I needed to face up to reality.
Now I'm no good at controlling what I eat ( hey maybe that's how the extra weight crept on?!?!), and I find the idea of diets boring and depressing so exercise is my solution, but quite obviously I'd not been doing enough. Well now I'd got my membership sorted this was all going to change- no plan how , just a vague sense that it would all somehow get sorted.
A week or so later, Stephen, a twitter friend , and truly inspirational man ( if you're on twitter please follow him @nimblerunner) tweeted
"Im running 2011 Kilometers in 2011 and swimming at least 52 miles"
When I read that it simultaneously blew me away and inspired me. What an achievement that would be. I immediately decided I wouldn't be able to do it, but it kept niggling away at me. I know my knees arent that strong and I don't think they could cope with all that running ( approx 1250 miles), but was there another way I could acheive the same distance?
I came up with the plan of doing a mixture of running, cycling and swimming, this would mean I would be using different muscle groups, and the variety of activities would hopefully sustain my interest. But realistically could I do it? My impatience kicked in again... I shouldn't be starting the challenge till January 1st 2011, but when I want to do something I want to do it now! I'll also hold my hands up and admit I'm also quite fickle. I knew if there was any chance of me going through with this possibly amazing, possibly ridiculous challenge I needed to get on with it sooner rather than later. Leaving it till the new year could quite easily mean that it wouldn't happen at all. I decided I would go to the gym the next day and see how I got on on the treadmill and bike and use that to make my decision as to whether I was going to go for it or not.
I knew I needed to be relatively sensible and build up the distance over time, but equally because of the self-imposed time limit, I also knew I needed to be able to get up to 40+ km a week within a fairly short time. I managed 10 kilometer that first session ( a combination of cycling and running) and decided that was a good enough omen that I might actually be able to do this. I decided a progress chart must be taped to the kitchen wall to make it slightly public and to spur me on, oh and also that that was to count as my first 10k of the 2011k challenge.
So my 2011km challenge started on 21st December 2010 and will end 21st December 2011...watch this space.
