Ok, so as I’ve been reminded, the last post that I made promised updates on my progress. It is probably apparent to some that my progress was not what I had hoped. Unlike Niall at Disrupting the Rabblement, I found it very difficult to take time everyday to log my progress. This is probably a habit that I need to develop. My personality doesn’t lend itself well to keeping track of things. I’ve been a runner for more than 20 years and am probably one of the only runners that I know that doesn’t keep track of mileage, times, races, etc. I’ve tried but I lose interest after a couple of weeks. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to compare where I am now as a runner to where I was 20 or 15 years ago but it doesn’t really concern me on a daily basis. Same goes for this daily tracking of habits.

After a couple of weeks of tracking my habits, I realized that it was more stressful than I wanted it to be. Forcing myself to do things rather than letting them flow and doing them because I want to leads to a modicum of stress. I posted a new photo on my blog for two plus years. It was a great experience and really helped to improve my photography. After awhile though it gets stressful to constantly be looking for a shot that is good enough to post on a daily basis. I have considered in the past few years running another marathon. At some point, the tress of knowing that you have to run takes the enjoyment out of running. I didn’t want this to be stressful, I wanted it to be rewarding.

After some thought I decided that there were two things that I really wanted to do. Train for a marathon and practice Spanish. On those two fronts I did pretty well. With the exception of the few days that I was ill in January, I have run at least five days a week and have worked my long run up to 14 miles. Given the weather in the US this winter, it is probably obvious to many runners that many of these miles are on the treadmill. On the Spanish frontier, I have been using a program called Duolingo. Using this program I practiced for 28 days in January including a streak of 19 days in a row. I highly recommend the program and love the back story especially its roots in Pittsburgh. For no cost you can practice online or on the iPhone/iPad app. 

The one thing that I would like to get better at is limiting the television more often. When I got sick early in January, the only thing I wanted to do was lay around. I didn’t feel much like reading, writing, photography, etc. So I watched TV. The northeastern weather hasn’t helped much either. The snow doesn’t bother me so much but the frigid temps have kept me on the couch more than I had hoped. Excuses, I know. 

The other thing that has kind of slipped is my decision to read more. I have no excuses for not reading more. I’ll get to it.

All of that being said, I’ve decided not to be Niall but to be Jeff. The habit I am going to track are Reading, Running, Spanish, and No TV. I will try to update more often and post photos.