Will this make me run?

New years is a great opportunity to re-start.

However, I re-start a bazillion times a year.

Somehow I crave the safety of routine, yet have a) a terribly short attention span and therefore a propensity to get bored quite easily, and b) terrible habits.

I keep convincing myself that if I have the right habits, then the right routine will come and I will be safe and happy and satisfied and exactly the person I dream I can be.

Yet a lot of these wonderful habits I wish to acquire are either a) impossible to maintain at the same time, or b) against all elements of FUN.

I was quite excited about this new year, being as I love RESTARTS (they make me feel like I am trying more than I am because, if I really was trying all that hard, I would have landed one of these goshdarn healthy habits by now). BUT I have been down with a cold since Day 1 (well, day 2, day 1 was a hangover). SO I am a snotty, exhausted, itching-to-run mess.

But, I have not been hungry, nor craving caffeine, so apart from a semi-embarrassing drunken-text-episode (again) to the boy, I have been pretty good to myself with the sleeping, and eating spinach smoothies for breakfast and fruit all day long and the more sleeping. Not, however, with the push yourself until it hurts because you’re a hardass so run with a cold anyway that we’re all pretty used to seeing from me. Because, whenever I push myself like that, I end up with pneumonia, or bronchitis, or MRSA, or whatever (true stories). I can’t afford that this time. The marathon is all of 13 and a half weeks away. And I haven’t run in three. OOPS?

So, new plan. Today I brought a bunch of clothes in with me to work and my goal is to go home, do a long slow yoga session, eat some veggies, go to sleep, wake up, meditate, drink some coffee, and run to work.

Work is all of 6-7 miles from home, so if I leave at 7 am I will get a good run in and get to work in time to towel off (if I don’t find the shower, which I am presuming I won’t. They disappear whenever I look for them – not my fault!) and change before I am supposed to be sitting at my desk for the rest of the day. The advantages this has over the other three options (running at 6am before work, running directly from the office and then going home, or running once getting home) is that I will probably do it. It does not entail getting up at the buttcrack of dawn so I can eat and shower and get a measly little 3 mile run in. It does not entail wandering around at dark bumping into well-suited men getting drinks (I don’t mind that too much – the monuments at night are LOVELY). It does not entail the evaporation of any free time I would have. It also does not demand that I go to sleep at 9 pm. Nor does it demand any more time than I would have spent getting to work in the morning ANYWAY. AND I get to eat breakfast. Boo. Yah.

However this does take planning. Like bringing in clothes on Monday for the rest of the week. And if I forget a pair of underwear, then, well I’m screwed. It also has the potential for a hungry Annelies, as bringing food in is nixed – although I have found the answer for that too in a box of oatmeal and a bag of bananas that will be carted in on Monday along with the garments.
Anyhoodle we shall see. I’ll keep you posted.