A mile is enough

Someone suggested that maybe I should stretch my experiment to two miles a day for 2011.

What works about one mile a day is the fact that I can complete the whole process in fifteen minutes, so when I have to get up at 5.00 a.m. (occasionally), fifteen minutes earlier doesn't seem like that big a deal. Twenty-five to thirty minutes earlier would be a lot tougher.

When I look back at last year, in 365 days I ran a total of 699 miles. By my reckoning my average daily mileage was 1.9 miles anyway.

So I'm sticking to my AT LEAST a mile each day, but I can do as much as I like.

I have the seeds of another goal potentially sprouting roots at the moment. This is nothing to do with running or even fitness but it's not ready for me to air yet. The roots are still too flimsy to take the idea out of my internal greenhouse into the big wide world.

I'm not sure where that analogy came from but it fits quite nicely with my "growth is critical to happiness", which I wrote about yesterday.

Growth = happiness

Oh joy. A sunny morning instead of the fog that's hung over us for the past days. Colder again yes, but nothing like the temperatures of the last several weeks.

It feels great to be out with what feels like a new experiment, a new challenge, especially with one so successfully achieved. I know it's just a continuation but it feels shiny, new and exciting.

I languished in bed before I strode out this morning, luxuriating with a cup of tea and reading a book. In the course of my reading I came across the following quote from William Butler Yeats:

"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing."

This explains what I have gained from my mile each day experiment. I feel like I have grown on a daily basis with each additional day and mile I've added.

Although I have to all intents and purposes achieved my goal of running every day for a year, with each new day I'm adding at the start of this new year, I feel like I'm growing even more.

So Happy New Year to one and all, and here's to a year filled with growth for all of us (and I don't mean the type of growth we've just been through from overindulging at Christmas.)

Choose possibility

A complete year.

I did run on New Year's Eve last year but I've never really counted that. But whichever way you look at it, I have now run at least a mile on every single day of 2010. A cause for celebration I feel.

So, how have I celebrated it so far?

I ran just over 5 miles this morning, which is the furthest I have run since I don't know when. And it was absolutely fantastic.

My thought on this morning's run was that I always have a choice. I can choose possibility or I can choose being right at someone else's expense.

If you add up how many times I choose possibility over being right, I am still somewhat lacking in the good column, but it is always a choice.

I also think that if I make an effort to consciously choose possibility at the beginning of a conversation, a meeting, a day, a month or even a year, then I have more of a chance of success. Not guaranteed, but better odds.

So, for 2011 I choose possibility.

I'm intrigued to know how I do in choosing it and what difference it makes to my life.

Bye 2010. It was nice knowing you.

It's just a line

With only two more runs to complete a year of running at least a mile every day for a year, my mind seems to be focused on the achievement of the goal.

While I was in the shower this morning I thought of my finish line of achieving my goal, completing my 365th consecutive daily run of a mile or so, and I realised that it isn't a finish line, it's just a line.

Isn't that actually true of all goals and objectives? When you have reached your target in the past, can you remember a time when you then thought, "That's it now. I have no other target to aim for, no ambition, no vision or objective"?

My guess is that when you reach that point, you have pretty much given up on life and are preparing for the downhill drift into oblivion. Blimey, that sounds a bit dramatic, but at least I know what I mean.

Part of the fun of life is to have challenges, goals, targets, objectives and especially inspiring visions to aim for.

So while I can enjoy my self-created game of trying to complete a mile of running every day and feeling like I'm about to cross the finish line, once I get across it I know I'll be aiming for the next line with excitement.

Don't get me wrong, I'll celebrate crossing the line in two days and I will thoroughly enjoy the achievement, but it will be time to change the game for more fun and capers.

Thoughts on achievement

Nine days left to complete the full house of running a mile each day of 2010.

As I suspected, the elements have reconfirmed my belief that when you get close to achieving a goal, your commitment does tend to get tested that little bit more. It's good for the character to dig in and plough on through.

What I like about this goal is that it is purely about a sense of achievement. Goals that involve material possessions often fade into insignificance once you have achieved them, and you're on to the next one. Non material achievements generally have staying power.

I can still remember winning the 100 yards, 220 yards (showing my age I know) and triple jump at school sports day when I was 12, and completing my first marathon in 1988. I also clearly remember the birth of all three of my children.

Anyway, I haven't achieved the year yet, and it's always worth remembering that nothing in this world is guaranteed, apart from death and taxes so they say.

So, time to stop dwelling on the achievement that I haven't yet achieved and to put my energy and my presence back into today, which is definitely here now.