Being persistent…

When I was younger, I was never the patient one. I remember having ideas of starting or trying stuff out but after a while I would get bored and simply stop them. I have a list of such activities like joining a swimming pool club, a tennis club, a book reading club or starting painting lessons, writing a diary, joining the gym for a month or two at a time etc…

Lately however, I see that I’m getting more persistent and I do keep doing hobbies / activities for a longer period of time. It’s not easy to admit it, but maybe it is an age thing. You get more patient the older you are. For example, I’m a member of the same gym for more than 3 years and I do have the same personal trainer for almost 2. Last summer I’ve started writing down my weight fluctuations in an excel spreadsheet and it is still going, although the numbers are more depressing than before. If I find the nerves I will publish the graph. This blog is a good example as well counting a decent number of months.

Another activity than has evolved into a bug, is running. I can’t remember when I first tried it out with my friend ‘gb’ and whose idea was it at first. I do remember however that we started somewhere close to his house and after only running 0.7 miles I was already out of breath and in the verge of collapsing. He had to drag me along the route to finish a 2 miles run. Since then, things have changed.

Because of other things going in the way like friends or family visiting, the weather, my recent course and its exams or holidays, I haven’t been running as much as I would like. I have managed however in almost two years to finish 3 10k races and a half marathon. I’m happy to say that I’ve managed to raise some funds for some charities I find trustworthy in the process.


Poor ‘JJ’ had to be dragged into this. It wasn’t my idea though and he says he likes it. He is the one who drove me and ‘gb’ to do a half marathon last year in Bath (as described here) and it was simply a matter of time since he joined me around Thames for a short run. After that, we finished together a 10k run for ‘Cancer Research UK’ last October and we registered together for another half marathon coming in two weeks! Yeap, the race is on the 10th of April, in two weeks! Scary…

In order to get ready for this race, we are trying to properly train. There are things in our way but according to plan, last Saturday we did something very close to a full half marathon here, in London. We started at Richmond, ran through Richmond Park to Barnes, then Putney, Wandsworth and finally arrived at Wimbledon. The route was a bit hard since there are some steep hills in Richmond Park, however seeing rabbits, wild deer and falcons even in the heart of the city was worth it. It wasn't a fast race but I am happy we did it.

My legs were a bit sore the next day but nothing too serious that two days rest can’t fix. With that race under our belt though, we are one step closer to Edinburgh in 2 weeks! It will be so much fun…

PS. I am not sure how the Garmin link will look... Let me know if it's not right...