A rush and a push and the land is ours

The scales have gone in the loft.

I had an epiphany - last time I lost a significant amount of weight (around 2st), the point where it went to pot was when I appeared to stop losing weight.  No matter that I felt great, might even allow that I looked quite good.  As soon as I wasn't seeing that weight dropping, I got disheartened, and here I am 18 months later having put more than a stone of it back on again. I see people who go to Weight Watchers talking about how they've "lost half a pound this week".  Eh?  My weight can vary by 3-4 pounds simply depending on whether I've had a big breakfast and a dump.  Obsessing over weight is, on anything but a macro scale at least, meaningless.  With the scales next to the sink in the bathroom, the urge to stand on them is too great, so in the loft they've gone.  Maybe I'll get them out at the end of March, just to check where we are.

Yesterday was the foulest of weather, so I was very careful to fully observe the advice about rest being a very important part of any triathlete's training plan. True, I don't yet have a training plan, but if I were to have one, rest would be top of the list of activities, so I feel it's a good start.

Today was a day out with the kids - a decent walk around Corfe Castle, but any walk with the kids is inevitably a dawdle punctuated by spontaneous ladybird adoptions, or repeated sign reading, or generally complaining at how far they've walked.  So all in all it wasn't particularly energetic, and I felt a need to do something.

I decide to go out for an evening run, just around the block.  For the most part, running actually feels great, and subsequently I have a wonderful image of myself when I run, something like the white Mo Farah. As I consider this, I realise that I almost (almost) certainly do not look like this (although it is true that I have great legs, the one part of me that isn't fat).  I am just another hapless plodder hauling their bloated corpse around the streets, barely able to peel their rubber soles from the tarmac long enough to propel their not insignificant mass forward.  To top it all, it's January 2nd - I may as well have a large neon sign above my head proclaiming "Happy New Year!".  I half expect cars to toot as they pass, their occupants passing judgement on the likelihood of me still doing this by the end of the month.

By the end, I've run 1.1 miles, at a plodderly 10.57/mi, but it'll do for starters, and I wonder what it is that's stopped me from just doing this for the past year.  Just stick some trainers on, round the block and back in time for Eastenders.  The mental training is just as important as the physical.

Also, note to self, get some running clothing that has pockets.  Running whilst carrying front door keys in one hand, mobile (for Strava) in the other is not going to do.