The Begining of the Year

It is odd but I never think of the New Year beginning on the 1st of January; I’m more in tune with the 12 Days of Christmas. On Sunday the decorations were taken down and everything returned to what passes for normal.

So my resolutions have begun – well not exactly resolutions, more guidelines and plans. My wife and I had one of our normal coffee house meetings to work out what needed doing over the next year (basically all the stuff we thought of last year but did not get round to), and there was something reassuring about this beginning-of-the-year ritual as there are always things we didn’t do last year.

If I am honest there is only one resolution each year and it is always the same: to keep on going, keep on trying. Everything else is orientation.

The running/fitness plans (i.e. the subject of this blog) are divided into two parts: exercise and food. All I can say is that I am three days in and that so far so good.

For exercise I am keeping to my plan of trying top build up general strength and fitness, whilst running for short distances at a higher speed. We will just have to see how this works out as it is part of a long term plan.

The food part is very simple: eat only at meal times, have three meals a day and try to eat as little processed food as possible and eat more slowly and savour the flavours. That’s all there is: eat real food but restrict the quantity. (The Guardian managed two whole articles from a book that said just that here and here). I have always wondered how people manage to write so much about diet when it is mainly a matter of eating your greens.

There again you could say that about running - it is just one foot in front of another, endlessly. But I look at this blog and realise that somehow I have managed to witter on about it for three years – so perhaps it is possible to find ways to talk about a simple basic truth.