The extra mile

I need to start getting my hair cut on a Saturday morning. For no other reason than to ensure a “normal” person can automatically ask me “Have you had a good week?”, to which I’ll reply “No.”

And then, when they’ve finished trying to catch their colleague’s attentions by rolling their eyes, I shall continue “My week has been amazing!”

I might tell them that I’ve run every day, I’ll certainly tell them that I’ve joined a group of two-hundred-odd (or two hundred... odd) people that are trying to run every day in January, sharing their journeys each day; but I probably won’t tell them how far I’ve run.

A couple of hours ago, I would have been buzzing to tell them I'd notched up my century, but that was before I logged onto RunningFree, and found that fellow Janathoner Jenks had pulled out all the stops, ventured out into slutting rain three times today, to achieve the same target for himself (and possibly for his proud sons).

So why does this change anything? Am I disappointed that he’s on the top of the leaderboard at the end of week one? Am I disgruntled that he too has cracked a hundred?

Quite the opposite, I'm stoked!

At the end of the week, the scores on the doors showed that both Jenks and I had individually gone out in the dark, and pushed our totals up to 101. I can't tell you how good it made me feel to see that neither of us had limped our way to 99.6 to let the miles be rounded up, we'd both bitten the bullet, ran further than we’ve run for days, and still went the extra mile to really make it stick. From my perspective, whilst both efforts were solo endeavours, just knowing that the goal was combined creates a very rounded feeling of achievement.

And this is the greatness of it all. We’ve both found ourselves within reach of a target we probably would have thought crazy just seven days ago. We’ve both privately fixed this as our goal, and gone for it, run by run. From my perspective, irrespective of the mileage, this is the essence of this whole enterprise: whether we’re using our totals alone, comparing ourselves to our peers, or responding to the support we’re receiving, we’re all facing our own challenges.

Thanks already to Jenks, Auswomble, and Jules, all of whom I’ve never met, but are some of the most motivating runners I know, and Pyro, Vinsta and 2shoes, who I know all have their reasons for doing this, and inspirational in meeting their own challenges head-on, and of course SeanAudioFuel for roping me into this, and Cathy for her creative prowess, and fabulously sweary blog!

Insanely positive. Positively insane!