It’s been about a month since I last went running. I’ve been sick, and I thought it best not to push myself too much.
I’m not the best runner but I’m also not terrible. As a kid I would consistently come 2nd in cross country running events, my best friend Sam would come first.
I think it’s funny that adults expect all kids to run and compete in sporting events but don’t apply the same standards to themselves. The requirements for running are about as basic as you can get, running shoes and some clothes you don’t mind getting sweaty.
It’s obviously not the complexity of the task that stops people from doing it.
It’s the forcing yourself to go run part of it.
Kids don’t have that much of choice if their parents or school says it’s time to run. They can’t protest or if they do it won’t help, so they’re forced to just get on with it.
A lot of school is like that, and for some things like running, it’s probably a good thing. If I’d never been forced to run as a kid, maybe I wouldn’t be running now.
Now that I’m an adult, there’s no one forcing me to go running anymore. The expectation has to be self-imposed. I set a vague goal of 1000km for 2022, and I think at one point I decided to up that goal to 1825km.
That would be 5km / day.
Right now it’s 13th November and I’m sitting on 887km. That’s day 316 out of 365, so I’m sitting on an average of 2.8km / day.
Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.
Photo is from a run in the forest near Sigulda, Latvia in the Autumn of 2020.