Skip to main content

Day one


Today is ‘Day One’ of the training schedule!

I have always been a sucker for ‘day one’.
‘Day one’ is like a ‘clean slate’. A new beginning. Fresh! Perfect! The start of something exciting!
Nothing bad has happened yet. Because it’s only ‘day one’. The future stretches before you on ‘day one’, unblemished, untainted with any notion of failure. 
The marathon training schedule I will follow is 16 weeks long and, it’s good to know that, on day one, I havent yet missed a single day of training. My record, so far, is perfect, on this very perfect day.
Today is full of potential. And possibility. The sky is the limit and the world is my oyster.
By the time I get to day ‘100’ I will have only 12 days to go. That’s when the shit could possibly hit the fan.
I suspect that, by then, all those days I didn’t get out of bed in time will be starting to take their toll. But not yet! It’s only ‘day one’ and all those days I ruined by cheating and making excuses haven’t happened. -  All those days that didn’t quite go according to plan for one (very good) reason or another. Well, they have yet to be. And, at this very early stage, I will not be giving them the time of day.
Because today I’m feeling good. 

‘Day one’ is like the swimming pool that hasn’t been swum in yet, (surface tension fully in tact). It’s like the cake that has yet to be sliced, the toothpaste tube that has yet to be squeezed, the marmite jar with yeast extract still smooth as silk. Not a knife mark in sight.

‘Day one’ is like the crispest sheets in town.  Just out-of-the-packet sheets that have yet to be slept in. Patiently they wait -  wrinkle free and fresh as starch on your freshly made bed. . . 

Day one is the ‘first day’ of the rest of my running life. It’s a ‘clean slate’ and a ‘new beginning’. Anything is possible on this very special day. Today, in the very distant future  I may ‘potentially’ be able to run a marathon.

‘Day one’ is the start of the school year with the new desk and the new teacher and the brand new exercise book that has yet to be written in. All that exists is today’s date, written with a freshly sharpened pencil and underlined painstakingly with my brand new ruler.
There! Perfect!
‘Day one’ is January the first and a brand new diary. The year has yet to happen. Resolutions have yet to be broken. February will be a different story but lets not go there yet. 
‘Day one’ is like the freshly raked garden with nothing planted yet.
It will never be ‘day one’ again. Because tomorrow will be ‘day two’ and what’s so special about that?!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Never too old, never too late

Never too late, never too old I have always liked running. Correction - I have always liked the idea of running. Unfortunately, for most of my life, (while my head may have been full of iron men and ultras), my body hadn’t actually moved a lot. A three kilometre trudge around the block was about the extent of my efforts. With the odd five km thrown in over the Xmas break.   Still. . . the intention was always there. One day I would run a marathon.   One day. Some day. . .   When there was time and space. And inclination. I obviously had the rest of my life to get to the start line, so there was no hurry. Right? But as the years jogged on by it felt like the ‘rest of my life’ was drawing close. And by the time I reached my 50’s I felt an increasing sense of urgency. If I was serious about this marathon thing I needed to get my skates on. Or, at least, shake the dust off the old blue pumas lying in the back of the wardrobe. And so, in 2019, with my 60th birthday looming, I...
Post a Comment
Read more

Time to taper

Time to taper The big day is nearly here. In the past week my training runs have gone down. And down. And down. Aunty Lydia (running mentor and creator of 16 week schedule) tells me it’s time to taper.   ‘Taper?” I am only learning about this aspect of training for the first time. In the schedule it appears alongside words like ‘easy’ and ‘rest’. The mileage has gone down, the rest days have gone up.   In the dictionary ‘taper’ appears alongside words like   - narrow; wane; die down; dwindle; lessen; recede; subside; abate; diminish; rescind; slacken off. Words that make me feel uneasy. Words that feel like the opposite of what I should be doing.   The crux of this ‘tapering’ lark appears to be to ‘slacken off.’   Which is obviously appealing after 16 weeks of ‘cranking up’. So what, I hear you ask, is my problem?! My problem, I am fast realising, is my need to over-do stuff. To over-prepare. To over-compensate. To always try and do just tha...
2 comments
Read more

The really long run

The really long run (getting ready to go the distance) This week I am preparing for the long run. 28 kms of it, to be exact. Which is a thoroughly epic distance for me. In honour of the occasion I have been preparing all week. Actually, the main thing I have been doing to prepare is NOTHING. I have prescribed myself ‘rest and relaxation’. The injured toe has given me the perfect excuse to do not very much.   But this weekend all that will change. If I want to run this marathon the long run is crucial. There is no escaping it.   During the week my toe has been iced to near extinction, bound in bandaides, and dowsed with anti inflammatories. After such intense treatment   I am hoping it won’t let me down. This practice run will be crucial in determining how my body will cope help with the 42 km challenge in October. Most importantly, it will help me sort out what I need to eat and drink to go the distance. So today I am shopping for supplies.   Fir...
2 comments
Read more