On 14sep, Daren called to invite me to do the double downhill loop, after a long absence. I did actually have a plausible reason for not being able to go, but what terrified me was that I was so out of shape, given a decline in motivation to even climb aboard the running machine, that the loop might actually have finished me off!
When we’re completely stuck like that, it pays to find a way to do something rather than nothing, and something which is simple enough that you can do it regularly.
My simple something was essentially ‘running for coffee’.
My hob-top quadspresso machine takes just under 4 minutes to brew and for many years I have used that time in the morning to do some simple qigong breathing and stretching exercises, along with a tiny bit of yoga, before sitting to enjoy the coffee.
But I often have one or two more cups when I’m working at home, and it struck me that I could use that time to gently run on the spot. I reasoned that this was about as friction-free as it’s possible to get, in terms of exercise… and that if I couldn’t manage something this simple, then there was likely to be a more fundamental problem!
I started that day with two cups of coffee, and have managed to keep it up across the intervening 7 weeks, sometimes setting a timer for four minutes when I didn’t fancy a coffee. However, I’ve not been slavish about doing it every day as, for example, it’s not so easy to do in front of other people when I’m on campus.
Using my dodgy mental arithmetic, I reckon that 63 stationary runs equates to around 3 hours of running… not bad considering that I would otherwise simply be waiting for my coffee!
