10.1 miles: Know Thyself or My Life is Like a Zillion-page Paper

I've read a lot of advice columns, blogs, and lists; and went to a couple talks, regarding creating systems for doing the things you wish you did, but never seem to be able to establish in your life. I've tried some of them.

There's writing things down. There's doing things at the same time every day. There's not missing more than (1, 2, 3) days in a row. There's doing things first thing in the morning. There's doing things in a class or group or with a buddy. There's starting out slow. There's starting out fast. There's eliminating 'bad' things entirely; there's giving yourself small treats. Some advice is contradictory. Some is centered on morning people. None of it ever seemed to work for me...

This 1000 mile challenge is working wonders so far...so, why? Why am I excited about this, instead of resigned (which I was every other time a workout plan remotely worked for me?) Here's my theory.

I realized earlier this year that the usual time-management and organization advice, to create a schedule and a routine, doesn't work for me. I've never liked schedules...they make me want to rebel against them. Well, that's not entirely true. I like having a few things in my schedule that relate to other people...class, lab meeting, coffee date, delivering drawings to the machine shop; they get me out of bed in the morning. The reason for me to be there, then, is largely that others expect my presence.

On the other hand, when it comes to individual tasks, I need enough time to be flexible, to make mistakes and to catch up. At the same time, I need to feel crunched...crunch time for homework begins 2 days before the due date (flexible depending on class). Crunch time for a paper or presentation begins a week before. Crunch time for running 1000 miles begins...now! A better analogy is actually that running 1000 miles in a year is like a whole semester of class; one week, or one assignment, can be made up by performance on other weeks or assignments. The difference is that I know I can do an assignment passably in 2 days or write a paper in a week. It usually involves several continuous hours each day, though. I am equally aware that I can't run several continuous hours in a row.

So, where does that leave me? I can't measure my exercise in minutes per day, or even miles per day. I can't measure my process. By the same token, I can't measure a side effect; I can't measure my health in pounds, or by how many pounds I can lift... I need a task. I need a challenge. I need to run 1000 miles. I need to climb 10,000 feet. I need to accomplish something.

I think this is important to know about myself; about how I can motivate myself. Now to figure out how this applies. Hmmm... :)

1000 miles

A lot of you know that I once wrote a story called "100 Miles" It's a cheesy prom story. Guys love it. Or at least they tell me they do. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, it can be accessed here: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2180126/1/A_Hundred_Miles.

What just a few people know is that years later, I was jogging along and listening to Blink 182 and I had an epiphany. Kind of a sad one, actually. It went there are no happy endings. Actually, since it wasn't exactly articulated in words, it would be more like there couldn't have been a happy ending for them in high school. And so, the short story continued into a potential novel...a cheesy break up & put yourself back together story. (Sorry for the spoiler, but really, it is pretty predictable in that way, and I'm not apologizing for that.) The thing is, one tenet I wanted to put into the novel is a "mileage" of its own...after consulting with cross-country runners I knew, I thought 1000 miles over the course of a year was a nice round number...actually low for a runner in training & competition, but probably not too low for one who is heartbroken at least 1/3-1/2 of that time.

I was out for a run-turned-6-mile-walk the other day and I had a thought that's been steadily growing on me: I could run 1000 miles in a year. My typical run right now is about 1.4 including warm up/cool down walks of about 1-2 blocks (south to the park, around it, then back home). I can do that in 20ish minutes, 30 including getting ready. That's where I am now. I hope that with time and practice I can improve (or there is something seriously wrong).

If I were to spread 1000 miles evenly over the year, that's 2.7 mi/day. About twice what I run now, and I can't run every day; you need recovery time. 4-5 days a week would be ideal. That's 19.2 miles a week; almost 4-5 miles a day. Seems daunting. But if I bring it down to 10mi/week to start, say for the first month or two, that becomes 2 miles a day, 5 days a week....very much doable. I can even do 1.5 miles 4 times and then the remaining 4 miles on a weekend when I can cut out a longer chunk of time all at once.

I'm still fleshing out a few things about my plan:

• As I learned from the 'run-turned-walk' that started it all, some days I just can't run. It hurts. In various places. Obviously if I can't put in miles on those days, it will set me back lots, especially since these times sometimes last a week or more. On those occasions, and those occasions only, I'm thinking about logging miles by walking, at an 'exchange rate.' like half or 1/3 of the actual miles. This article references a study that says running vs walking uses 2x the energy per mile, after subtracting an estimated resting metabolic rate. Therefore I'm inclined to count 1/3 of the walking, to give myself a penalty, i.e. encouragement to run. I'm thinking if I find a place to go hiking, I could count 1/2 that because of the extra challenge of terrain...


• Problem 2: I don't know when I want to start...I want to pick a pretty round date so I can celebrate it at the same time next year if I succeed. May 1 seems really close and I have a presentation May 3...finals are in the teens of May, but after that I have a review of my research coming up so the extra stress of starting a new 'project' seems ill-advised. Though having a fitness "program" to stick with that I've already started may be helpful to my well being those few weeks.

I think that's about it for problems...I intend to go out in the mornings, because chances are taht otherwise I wont and because in the summer, mornings will be way cooler than afternoons.

So, what do you all think? Suggestions? Anyone want to join me?