I found myself feeling a little sore and heavy this morning when I started off on the run. Again, I have found myself starting a little later than I had hope, being on the road by 5:40am but with me being on holidays, I don’t mind the later start. I can probably attribute the soreness in the muscles to yesterday’s activities, I went to Treetop Adventures in Yanchep National Park and spent a few hours climbing various high ropes obstacle. It was awesome fun, but think it has had an impact on the body having moved in ways that it is not used to!

I knew that the run was not going to be as fast as yesterday, not only because of the soreness but because the first kilometre came in quite slow at 6’20”, almost 40″ slower than yesterday. However, once in routine it got a little better. I was thinking about the longevity of the run and the known hurdles that I will have to come to ensure that the full challenge is completed, I think the first big hurdle will be the first weekend – how am I going to get a run in on the weekends, and what will this look like? Will I commit to trying to doing another 12km run, or treat the two days as more recovery / easy days and do a lesser amount to give the body time to recover a little?

I found my attention turning to this research paper that I am going to be writing on TIPE. I have started collating the ideas for the various segments. My intended approach is to try to start it either tonight or tomorrow night, probably by first laying out the subheadings and starting to write one of the sections. This will either the introduction looking at Pastoral Care and Welling structures, they important roles school can play in delivering programs that enhance wellbeing due to their unique role in society in provision of a holistic education and confusion / challenges in implementing and delivering programs due to an unclear definition of wellbeing and the complex challenges faced by students, staff and school administrators, or looking at the role parents and fostering supportive relationships plays. I am setting myself a deadline of trying to have the paper done by Friday week, fingers crossed I can get it done!

The third day into the challenge proved to be a good one.
After a couple of hiccups early, a later start due to a disrupted sleep throughout the night, and then having forgotten to do a few tasks around the house I managed to hit the road by 5:45am.
The run felt good, I tend to know inside the first kilometre what sort of run it is going to be by the pace, my first one came in at 5’45” which is a good 30″ faster than I have run the previous two mornings. I managed to keep good pace for the entire run, completing the 12km in 1:04:24 which is an average pace of 5’22”.

I also managed to hit a new milestone today, bringing up the 1,000 km for the year. The funny thing is that I might be able to come close to running another 1,000km over the course of this challenge if I manage to keep up the pace!

The run was spent thinking about a research paper that I have been working on that looks into the benefits Trauma Informed Positive Education (TIPE) practices in schools and the benefits to this approach not only for students who experience complex trauma, but every student and also the benefits to the wellbeing of staff in schools. This morning I was specifically thinking about the role of parents and developing an effective partnership with parents to support the growth and development of students in schools and the obstacles that could possibly be present in developing these partnerships. I am hoping to start writing this paper in the next day or so with it being completed by next Friday.

Tomorrow morning will prove another opportunity to grow in my running journey.

This morning was a struggle, there have been many days like this in the past and I know that there will be plenty of more in the future. Basically, most things that could have gone wrong this morning did go wrong, which seems to be the way when starting a new challenge – getting forward momentum in the initial weeks is the hardest part!

The challenges started this morning when my alarm went off at 5:00am and instead of getting up I pushed snooze. Normally, this is ok and I’ll be up 10 minutes later however this morning I pushed the wrong button on my alarm which meant instead of being on snooze it just muted the alarm and it kept going silently. It pushed the start back to 5:45am instead – not ideal. The fun continued when as a consequence of that my phone which I use to map my distance and track my progress was on 1% battery…seems that I wasn’t the only one on low battery this morning! I decided to push though regardless of whether the phone went dead or not, I wasn’t going to fail in the challenge on only second day!

Once into the run, it was quite pleasant, not an overly fast pace, mirroring pretty much to the second the run from yesterday at a 5’52” pace over the 12km. I did manage to take a moment on my way back when seeing some short-billed galahs to appreciate the contrast between urbanisation and nature. I also had the realisation that if I do manage to complete the challenge I’ll be needing another pair of new shoes before the end of the year. Doing the calculations, if I manage to run comparatively to the first two days (which I can’t see why I won’t) I could be potentially running 1,080km over the course of the challenge. It will be interesting to see how close to this mark I hit, I don’t have a distance goal but it will be interesting to see where it ends up.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for energy levels, I think that really monitoring my bedtime will become an increasingly important of ensuring success in this one.

Bring on Day Three.

Over the past few years I have continued to get into my personal running. I can hand on my heart say that incorporating it into my weekly routine has change my life.

When people find out that I run, they ask “what is the purpose? Are you training for an event? How can you possibly commit to do that regularly?” My reply seems to always astound them. I don’t train for an event or to race, in fact I have never competed in a race, it’s not the reason that I run, putting it simply I run for me. I get up between 5:00 and 5:15am each morning and run for me, it is my time to myself to process the day ahead and what things I might face in my work day. I have found that running enables me to be centred, grounded, and present in the current moment focusing on nothing but my breathing and the sound of my feet hitting the pavement in front of me. Putting it simply, it has helped my overall mental health and wellbeing in ways that I did not think was possible when I am made the move from the gym to the outdoors back when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t always easy to pull on the shoes and start, there have been days I have missed – winter is especially a challenge when you’re starting and finishing in the dark and it’s either cold or raining. However, all I try to come back to is how good it feels once I complete the run. The accomplishment always out weighs the cost.

Setting goals is something that I have always liked to do, it gives me something to work towards and to finish off 2023 I have decided to set a new goal – a 90 day running challenge where I will run everyday, rather than my target of five days a week with two rest days that I have tried to do throughout the year with variable success. Starting today, will see me finish on the 30th of December – a great way to see out the year.

This morning saw my first run completed of the challenge, doing 12 kms in an hour and ten minutes. I left on my holiday circuit at 5:15am, running along the freeway before circling Lake Monger and returning. It’s not the fastest pace that I have done, with it sitting at an average pace of 5’52” per km – but it won’t be a matter of pace in this challenge. It’s about the consistency and commitment every day. I will try to write a short post each day to share any reflections and thoughts I have on the run…we’ll see how that goes.

This morning when running I had an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my life, the people in it and the opportunities I have. It has made me think about remembering to show gratitude and name things that I am grateful every day, I have some thinking to do as to how about I will action this…it might be through a gratitude journal each day…

Looking forward to what comes tomorrow 🙂