I don’t do Veganuary or RED January, Stoptober or whatever the one for wearing a cape and not drinking is. Oh, and the ridiculously named Februdairy that I saw on Twitter this weekend which is about NOT having dairy, but sounds like it’s encouraging you to drink a cheese milkshake with a side of extra cheese, and just in general made me want to eat cheese.

But I can see why it’s helpful to have a hook if you’re trying to motivate yourself, so this month I’ve decided to do my own little hashtagable challenge – #fitnotshit February.

Yesterday I ran 10 miles for the first time in a long time; in fact the last time I ran anything in double digit mileage was last April when I ran the London marathon. After the marathon I had various extremely dull injury and overuse issues and I wasn’t able to run properly for most of the summer. Since September/October I’ve been steadily building back up and I’m now running 20+ miles a week again.

In the meantime however I’ve lost most of my healthier habits, like drinking enough water, eating actual food rather than eating roughly an ok amount of calories but without much quality to them, and getting enough sleep.

In short, although I’ve been getting the running in it’s felt pretty tough, and overall I’m left feeling just a little bit shit. Tired, lots of headaches, over sleeping, not feeling especially strong.

A couple of years ago I had a few months where I could really focus on all the things that help with feeling fit and relishing the running, and I was on top form and happy by the end of that process. So I know what I’ve got to do, I just need a push to get on and do it.

My plan is to try to spend this February making genuine steps towards getting a bit healthier again, rather than what I’ve done throughout January, which was wilfully misinterpreting treating myself as ‘self care’ (yuck).

Recent adventures in Runderland

I’ll aim to do a weekly update, which should also get me back into writing again.

If you’re not interested and you’ve already had quite enough of seeing pictures of me after a run, feel free to mute or unfollow me for the month – I still love you and I quite understand.

Equally if you fancy joining in (maybe you did RED January and want to keep the motivation up), please do.

Just to be absolutely clear, the #fitnotshit tag is not intended to imply that anyone not achieving an arbitrary level of ‘fit’ is therefore in someway ‘shit’. The two terms are either end of a very personal spectrum; we all know what it feels like for us when we’re firing on all cylinders and in a great place with feeling healthy and happy, and we all know how it feels to be run down and moving through treacle and at what point we decide that we’re feeling a bit shit. This is absolutely not about pace, weight, or numbers of any kind. It might be as simple as one extra glass of water a day, or getting some stretching done in front of the telly.

This is what it looks like for me – #goals! 

Off to a grand start this morning by NOT oversleeping because I had an early night, and resisting the urge to put honey on my porridge to avoid spiking my blood sugar. I’ve also got two days worth of lunch in my bag so I can start dispensing with my daily Pret habit, which is frankly becoming embarrassing.

It might not seem a very Earth shattering game to play, avoiding Pret and drinking more water, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to roll the dice.