Oh Janathon, oh janathon ... How you have taken over my life!
So what do I really think? Well secretly, fully acknowledging my own stupidity in signing up when I was starting a new job, and accepting the true whinginess of rather too much of my blog, and noting that it would still even now be far from appropriate to describe me as a runner ... yes, despite all these things I have to confess I think it has been good for me.
It is a long time since I have been forced to exert such self-discipline, and have stuck to it. The blogging ended up feeling harder than the running, as I searched desperately (and increasingly unsuccessfully) for a new angle on the same couple of miles of tarmac.
Right at the beginning I secretly decided I wanted to try and do at least a mile each day. I didn't own up to this on my blog as it seemed a target of dreams, and one that I could only fail as success was an impossibility. One month down the line I have run at least a mile every day (and not as many as I thought only 1.1 mile either, so I've usually pushed it that one or two extra tenths!). With a total of 63 miles I've also managed to run just over 2 miles a day on average. Ok, only just over. But that's a great feat in my world, and one I wouldn't even have set as a target at the beginning as it would have seemed as if I was dooming myself to failure.
I'm not sure if I'm fitter - I'm certainly no lighter - but I must surely somehow have benefited so I'm going to argue that I am. I feel I have finally convinced myself that while I'm still not a runner, I am someone who can run (although my last-minute dashes for trains which are all too regular don't noticeably seem any easier, which is rather depressing! I blame the shoes ...).
Overall, it has been a great thing to do. And I am pleased I did it (even if I wouldn't have said that at every point on the way through!).
Thanks so very much to Cathy and to all who have faffed around on our behalves, supporting and organising and administering and occasionally sending out bracing get-on-with-it messages. I loved the blog-reading too, inspired by the dedication and tenacity of all my fellow Janathoners. I was also touched and amazed by the comments on my own blog - presumably some folk have been serving some kind of prison rehabilitation where reading very boring pieces about nothing is part of your reintegration into society!
Janathon is a real online community event. Few of us would get through if left to our own devices. And yet with the gentle support, pressure, nagging and nurturing of our fellow heroes/victims we keep ploughing that furrow. It's been my first time in such a group and I am glad to have met you all, and touched and excited to have been accepted as part of the great Janathon gang.
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