Welcome to the first of these posts where I’ll review how I’m doing against each of the seven goals I’ve set to change my life over the next seven months. Each week, I’ll give a quick star rating and one-sentence progress report for how I’m doing on each, and then tell you a bit more about one of the seven goals.
Training for the half-marathon: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I did all six runs my Garmin programmed for me last week - the last three on a treadmill in the air-conditioned gym because it’s been boiling here lately and I’m not built for it.Master’s dissertation: ⭐️⭐️
I had a big unexpected brainwave towards the start of last week that means I need to change direction for the main analysis part of my dissertation - causing lots of extra work! - and then it was just too hot to think for most of the second half of the week. Oh well, it’s a new week.Look after the space I live in: ⭐️⭐️
I managed two of the five days of the ‘The Organised Mum’ cleaning schedule that lives on my fridge (no, I’m not a mum, but I love that the printable I found for the schedule actually tells me what to do beyond ‘living room’), and sold six things on Vinted (totalling £51).Screen time below 3 hours: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Average screen time for last week was… 3 hours and 2 minutes. I started off the week well and then fell off a bit as the week went on.Read the books I have: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It was a great reading week (thanks to the heatwave I spent a lot of time lying in a cool bath) - I read three physical books from my bookshelf, and a Kindle book that’s been unread on my digital shelf since 2014. I did buy three books for my dissertation - the uni library didn’t have them and they look to tie in perfectly with what I’m researching. They are: The Shock Of The Anthropocene, More and More and More, and Chaos in the Heavens, all by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz (ad - all commissionable links from Amazon). I’m blaming this LRB review by Adam Tooze, and I’m very grateful for my Waterstones 5% student discount.Draft 1 of the Unhinged Fiction Project: ⭐️
I managed one writing day this week. Given my lack of productivity on the Master’s dissertation, it was hard to justify spending brain space on this. But it’s bubbling away in the background.Knitting progress: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The blanket for Baby G is progressing well - I’m into the penultimate ball of yarn, and I’ve got about 18 inches of blanket length (compared to 24 inches of blanket width). I’m going to finish this ball of yarn, then measure and most likely move onto the border. The baby is earthside but - as mentioned - it’s too hot for him to need a woolly blanket yet!
Weekly Focus: Running Training
In a nutshell, I’m training for next April’s London Landmarks Half Marathon, and raising money for Alzheimer’s Society, a cause extremely close to my heart.
Here’s my fundraising link on JustGiving - I’ll be sharing it repeatedly over the coming months. On one run last week, I found a full stamp card for one of my favourite local coffee shops on the ground, so when I go and redeem that for a free coffee, I’ll pop the cost of the coffee into my own fundraising pot.
If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know I have a bit of a complicated history with exercise and my body - and I’d be lying if I said that picking up a running goal was totally separate from goals I have for my body size (which I won’t talk about much here; I know that can be difficult to read). A huge benefit of focusing on my running is that I’m spending way more time and energy thinking about my running training than I am about the numbers associated with the size of my body and what I’m eating, and I have a very real reason to make sure I’m eating enough.
So, back to the running - I’m a big fan of Phily Bowden (Love the grind!!) and I’m consuming more and more running content in my media bubble. I’m really enjoying spending the hours each week moving my body and vibing to my running playlist. I’m using my Garmin watch’s built-in running coach and I like how it encourages me to keep my base runs easy and then really work hard on one or two tempo or threshold workouts per week. My time goal for next April’s half marathon is pretty audacious compared to my current running paces… let’s see what happens!
Best
Lily