Daily exercise, be it jog or gym, accompanied by daily stretching (I’m trying a month of doing all of my stretches rather than alternating halves, even though this is a huge time impost) are part of my day. When I’m being good, that is, and lately good is what I’ve been. After starting Covid iso on Friday, that’s now two days of no jogging, plus not being able to venture…
A month ago, in affluent darkness, I jogged six kilometers, the first time above five in a couple of years. It had taken me close to a year to work back up to a regular five kilometers, and when I reflected on how I used to run ten kms four times a week at age sixty, just a few years ago, my new distance set me afire. I daydreamed steadily increasing my distance, that hazy longer-distance haze…
For much of 2021, my jogs were so short or slow (to the point of half walking) that when I logged them on Strava, I defaulted to Strava’s “morning run” or “afternoon run” or whatever. But recently I’ve been tackling a run I call Hawthorn Short. It’s called Short because a few years back, its 5-kilometer distance was indeed puny. I head down my relatively…
In my fourth Nightcliff Parkrun over three years, I ranked 151 out of 186. I part walked the final kilometer out of five.
It felt pathetic (five years ago I regarded Parkrun as a doddle) but also, let me tell you, magnificent! Screw ageing! I aim to run the whole route without stopping. I have three saturdays left.
After jogging, with little flair or speed but with consistency, for half a century, I’m in a pit right now. I can do 3½ kilometers at a pace of 7¼ minutes/kilometer, feeling uncomfortable in terms of breathing the entire journey. At age 60, I could jog 10 kilometers four times a week, at a pace of 6¾ mins/km; I was sore and tired when finishing but in a much healthier way. I’ve never…
After a half decade of Big Years, from age 60, I’m now in a different mode, less frenetic, less obsessed. It’s a “slow glow.” One of the many aspects of life that I’ve chosen to zero in on is my jogging. After all, I’ve now been running (slowly, oh so slowly) for half a century! And running gives maximum cardiac exercise per minute, is great for bone density…
At the start of this new year, the role of exercise in my life remains strong, if only because a period of lockdown lethargy and overeating reinforced how much I enjoy feeling reasonably fit. This concern doesn’t seem to be mirrored by many of my contemporaries, who seem keen to deteriorate far too fast, but my aberrant desire to be active and alert remains strong. Call my five-year journey…
Journalist Séamus O’Reilly’s sparkling Guardian article “I run to keep fit, but I hate it” zooms in on the dilemma posed by regular exercise: it’s tough to enjoy. Oh, we all swoon when reading about a famous athlete’s love of her sport, but for us hacks, exercise is mostly grind. As O’Reilly (pictured below, photo from the article) puts it, “the…
Who is that bent figure lurching along a path? It’s me and I’m doing a Parkrun, only 5 kilometers, and I’ve slowed down to a shuffle and even so I end up halting and walk-running to the end at an overall pace that shames me. That was a fortnight ago. All my running goals for Darwin, vague as they were, have floundered. I thought being away from pandemic and home hassles would let me move, over a…