#oneaday, Day 259: Home Again

I prepared the above comic in advance just in case I was too knackered to do a proper one upon returning from London. And I am pretty knackered. But I managed to get my ass outside and go running tonight. At 9pm. In the dark. In a country village. At least I remembered to take a torch with me this time; less stumbling wildly into darkness and a little more Alan Wake. Though with less of whatever that game has in it (because I still, to my shame, haven’t played it yet. I KNOW, I KNOW, all right?) and a little more… well, just running. And walking.

I’m following the Couch to 5K programme (again… I started once before) that was originally introduced to me by the fine gentleman that is Mr Calin Grajko. Given that I’m presently in the middle of nowhere (well… the nearest gym is seven miles away) running seems like a safe, easy option to get some exercise without needing any 1) expense and 2) travel. The thing with gyms is, they’re cool and all, but if you’re already feeling lethargic and not wanting to leave the house, then travelling somewhere that is going to cause you to be grunting, breathless and possibly in pain is likely not high on your agenda. Unless you have a favourite hooker at that classy brothel you like so much.

But with running, yes you still have to leave your house, but you don’t have to go anywhere to get started. The world is your gym. And rather than staring at your sweaty, gasping self for half an hour in those mirrors that gyms insist on putting absolutely bloody everywhere, you can take in the scenery. You can take different routes for variety and challenges. You can run in the dark. You can run in the middle of the day. In the cold. In the warm. In the wet. And you can use fancy-pants iPhone gadgetry to analyse your runs in a level of detail that you really don’t need to. Or, possibly, attempt to run a route which lets you draw a giant cock on Google Maps. (I haven’t done this. But having just thought of it, now I think I pretty much have to.)

So far I’ve completed Week 2, Day 1 of the programme. This meant that tonight was the first time I was running for a bit longer, but also walking for a bit longer too. The pattern for this week is run for 90 seconds, walk for 2 minutes, 6 times. Last week it was run for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds, 8 times. This week sounded like it should be easier. It isn’t! Although as I’ve found previously with exercising, it’s actually surprisingly quick to build up a little bit of stamina. I’m obviously not at the stage where I could even think about running a 5k without collapsing dead yet, but I’ve noticed a marginal difference between how easy it is to keep going since the first day I started.

Just gotta keep it up! Fortunately, there’s a good iPhone app to keep the motivation up. It’s called Get Running and it’s really very simple; it’s basically a glorified timer with vocal feedback telling you when to start and stop running, walking and so forth. It also tracks how far you are through the programme and suggests which day you should do next, as well as allowing you to tweet your progress. The nice thing about the vocal feedback is that it’s recorded by a real person, which makes it infinitely more motivational than some robot going “You have… RUN… One. point? SIX! Miles.”

Anyway. I have a bed to get to very shortly. And then lots and lots of things to write in this coming week. Adieu.