Step change

2015 - "Hello". I have been meaning to blog all year and somehow time at the keyboard has not quite been enough. There are a few things to say, a few things to comment on, and new plans afoot.

The New Year has seen me into a new training plan, an 8 week progressive little ditty that I discovered during a somewhat speculative (read 'random') google search. Somehow I've ended up following the "Shape" - 'Train for a Half-Marathon in 8 Weeks' - plan....

http://www.shape.com/fitness/training-plans/train-half-marathon-8-weeks

...and frankly I have no notion of who or what "Shape" are or do normally, but weird the search engine bots found it and it didn't look half bad.

Now if you follow the link to the plan you'll see that it is an intermediate plan, hmmm, am I a beginner or an intermediate? No clue honestly, it looked like a training load I could handle, it looked incremental, and it was 8 weeks long (all the time until my first event of the year, the Bath Half). Done deal! Two weeks in and I'm doing okay.

For a change my plan seems to have me moving in the right direction

To be fair the last two years have seen me jump on the odd fitness bandwagon, against my usual judgement but the running plan looked to be a good one... what wasn't was the resurrection of the plankaday twitter meme challenge thing. Within two weeks I found I had angered the plantar fasiciitis that has obviously been sneakily hiding and waiting to pop out. It is all about the way I plank, I tend to move my feet about as the hold gets harder, and low and behold the day after my longest plank of the year my right foot was in agony. So that New Year challenge has been binned, which is not to say I won't plank - just not everyday... or to the point I get all wobbly!

The treatment method of choice for my plantar fasciitis - plenty of rolling under my foot after each run

Changes have even led me to the door of Strava, the GPS tracking app / website that acts as a diary, microblog, and motivational tool. Several friends were on there and so in the end peer pressure (I joke guys) made me sign up. Seriously a friend is on there that I hope to be running the Berlin marathon with and so it offered a simple way of tracking each other along with the opportunity to prod each other if need be I suspect. He is tackling London and Berlin marathons in the same year, is blogging over on Runaround!, and is raising money for Save the Children in London.

Runaround! - Don't be put off by the Google+ profile image, haha

Steps? Oh, yeah 2015 has seen my taste in daft post titles unabashed, sorry. I have been on the move for 20 good days and I have noticed the stairs in work are that little bit easier. In fact as little training as I actually really have under my belt, as little weight as I have lost, I am feeling that bit more lithe and nibble. Its not huge, but I've noticed it and it feels great. Roll on a couple of months time when I'll skip up them like a youthful mountain goat chasing the last patch of fresh moss.

Only when I'm planking

The New Year brought many things and one of them was planking, I have even been chased a few times by the plank police. Right around now you might be wondering, "What the heck is this guy on about?" or alternatively you might be feeling the spark of recognition of the social media meme that is #Plankaday

Its a challenge to do a plank at least once a day and tweet about it. Core strength is often overlooked as we go about our daily lives, and a strong core can be aided by using the simple plank exercise (as well as many other exercises). The beauty is that a plank is simple, and that Twitter keeps you accountable (and likely to keep doing it).

Really?..... Who? What? Where? When? Why?... go really see what it is all about go see Sherry Pagoto's page at -  http://www.fudiet.com/plank-a-day-revolution/

I like my life simple and straight-forward so laying down with a timer is hardly difficult to organise on any given day. It seems to be paying off and my times are improving - follow my Twitter account to see the stream of (almost) daily efforts - https://twitter.com/AndyHollins  [there's a link over there on the right too].