5th Decade

I turned 40. It wasn't terribly momentous. "What are you doing to celebrate?" "Pretending it's not happening." .....You generally already know if you've read my blog for the past few years, I've spent years and years of my life talking the talk, but really just 'waiting' for change. I try for a bit, sometimes succeed, then sabotage myself, fall back into old ways, before getting super motivated again, and onwards goes the yo-yo. Up, down, up, down. So my 5th Decade needs to be better. Better? Different.

How did I 'celebrate' my birthday? I booked a hotel room on the Isle of Arran, took a couple of days off work, and booked a return ferry trip. I told very few people where I was going, and off I went. I used the time (4 days) to think about what I need to do differently, and to give myself some honest truths. You already know I'm self-aware in general, but sometimes I hide the obvious from myself. The week or two before my birthday I was upset by a social situation (lack of invite) I felt I didn't deserve, and couldn't understand, and as I walked along a beach at Arran I realised it was still eating at me. So then and there I told myself to let it go. I will spend time this year on figuring out reasons for my social isolation and how to fix it, but right now, the important thing is to stop my negative emotional responses to it.

Anyway. I didn't want to write a 'woe iz me' post, so lets talk positives. And I started writing this post today because I feel VERY positive about the coming year, and indeed my coming decade - I guess I needed to put the context in first, haha. I decided I need to challenge myself, and over the weekend away I wrote out some 'plans' for things I want to achieve and experience over the next year or two. I told myself no idea was too silly or big to write down, but any idea I DID write down had to have a plan for how to make it happen. Nothing ambiguous, nothing vague, nothing idealistic. No more "lose weight!" - no more "get fitter". Plans had to be made, and written down to make them real.

Arran, by the way, is stunning. Simply breath-taking at times. I saw seals up close in Lamlash Bay and Clauchlands Point, admired the coastline at Brodick and Whiting Bay, and explored (ish) the dark Kings Caves near Blackwaterfoot. The weather was - unsurprisingly for the time of year - dismal, but it could have been a LOT worse! I walked coastal paths and forest trails in mild drizzle, and drove round the entire island in an eerie and beautiful fog. Thing is with mild drizzle is that when the sunlight breaks through the clouds and mist it creates the circumstances to allow rainbows, and I saw a handful over the weekend that made me stop in my tracks. Once or twice, I wished I had someone beside me to share in the experience, but most of the time I told myself how fortunate I was to be seeing things that, right then, not a single soul on the planet was looking at.

I also told myself Arran has some future adventures for me to take on. When my injured knee is better, I'll climb Goatfell. When I'm able to run again, I'll run on the coastal path. When I'm fit and light enough to cover long distances, I'll take on the entire Coastal Way (65 miles). I see that "when x, then y" can be seen as putting things off, but it's a 'when', not an 'if'.

The blog will change a bit this year. I have ideas and plans I'll be working on, and my general mantra is going to be 'actions speak louder than words'. It's no longer going to be about the "I should... I need to.... I must.... I wish... I will.... I have to.... I want..." - it's going to be "I did.... I got... I can... I achieved... I could...." Veni, vidi, vici.

So, yeah. I got a bench press PB in the gym a week ago, pressing 40kgs for the first time in my life, on the day before I turned 40. While my knee is still recovering, and all impact activity is out of the question, my trainer and I are working on what we CAN achieve. Focusing on rehab (knee-hab) and a lot of upper-body work on the major muscle groups (chest and back, as well as arms and shoulders) - it's helping me to focus on the success and progress I can achieve, rather than the things I can't. I'm really happy with the bench press progress I'm making - there's definitely more to come.

Surprisingly, with running totally off the table just now, my anxiety about that has completely disappeared.  When the plantar fasciitis was holding me back, every day I stood up off the side of the bed and the pain flared in my foot, felt like a failure. And 13+ months of PF is a long time to feel like a failure. Getting the knee sprain shortly after starting to run again was initially horrendous, mentally, to deal with - but once the sprain flared again 6 weeks later, and a doctor told me it's likely to take a couple of months to properly heal, something in my mindset just 'switched'. I felt I'd been given pressure-free time. There is now ZERO pressure on me to run a marathon in April, a half-marathon in March, my 100th parkrun, whatever it may be. These things will happen again in the future, when I'm able. I feel like this is an opportunity to strengthen my body and spirit in such a way that when I can run again, I'm 100% ready for it.  

So that's where I am. I'm in a strong place for change, I think, and I'm getting re-energised. And a tiny part of my heart remains on a silent beach in Arran.  x