A few days ago I wrote about turning the clock back with my weight. Today, Tuesday, I seem to have turned another one back.
I went out intending to run 5km. Nothing dramatic, no event, no medal and no particular performance target. I simply wanted to get out, move, and see how I felt. Instead, I reached the point where I could have stopped and realised I didn’t particularly want to. So I carried on, and for the first time since January 2019 I ran 10km.
That means considerably more to me than the distance probably suggests, particularly because it didn’t come at the end of a carefully planned, rested week. In the days beforehand I’d put in a hard 5km, raced on Zwift and finished 18th out of 24, and yesterday I rode almost 24 miles. Today should probably have been one of those gentle recovery efforts where I went out, plodded through 5km, ticked the box and came home.
Instead, I just felt good.
There was no dramatic moment where I decided I was going to run 10km. I didn’t suddenly feel invincible or start chasing a pace. I simply reached the point where I’d done what I intended to do and realised I was enjoying myself enough to keep going. In many ways, that is probably more encouraging than the distance itself.
For quite a long time, running has required far more mental preparation than the act of running. I’ve put it off until it was dark, or waited until a time when I thought fewer people would be around. A lot of that came from being conscious of how I looked and conscious of how far removed I felt from the runner I remembered being.
I don’t really feel like that at the moment.
I’m not pretending I suddenly look like an athlete, nor am I pretending I’m anywhere near the end of this journey. I know exactly where I am and how much work remains, but I’m no longer particularly bothered about being seen doing something about it. If somebody sees me plodding along, then that’s exactly what they’re seeing: somebody out running and trying to improve himself.
I’m not ashamed of that. Quite the opposite.
The interesting thing is that while running and cycling are increasingly becoming things I naturally want to do, I’ve actually been struggling a little with motivation to get myself into the gym recently. I suspect much of that comes from my normal training partner not being available when I am. It’s another useful reminder that motivation isn’t some permanent state that suddenly unlocks once you decide to change your life. Some activities will feel easier at certain times, while others will require more effort to get started.
Previously, I might have interpreted that as the beginning of things slipping again. At the moment, I’m trying to be a little more pragmatic. I haven’t suddenly stopped wanting to become fitter because I’m finding the gym less appealing. Running and cycling are simply giving me more of what I need at the moment, so I’m trying to follow that momentum while making sure strength training doesn’t disappear completely.
The weight side of the journey is moving quickly too. When I started properly on 17 July, I set targets deliberately around a fairly conservative rate of progress. At the moment I’m already 21% of the way towards my overall target, despite still being very early in what I always intended to be a long-term process.
My planned rate of progress was around 0.5% per week, which originally gave me a target date of 23 August 2028. Based on the latest 28-day trend, I’m currently moving at around 1.08% per week, which brings the projected date forward dramatically to 24 June 2027.
That is obviously encouraging, but I’m trying not to get carried away by it.
August finished at 236% of the weight-loss target I’d set for the month, while July had finished at 290%. Across the whole third quarter I’m now at 167% of the planned progress, and I’ve already completed around 77% of the weight reduction I originally targeted for the whole of 2026.
Those are satisfying numbers to look at, particularly given how much I enjoy measuring progress, but I don’t expect them to continue at that rate indefinitely. September has only just started, so the monthly progress figure is effectively back to zero and the next period begins again. I actually quite like that. It’s a useful reminder that each month is another opportunity to focus on the process rather than becoming too attached to the headline number.
Early weight loss can move quickly, circumstances change and the body inevitably adapts. I’m trying to keep my food intake realistic rather than turning this into a short-term punishment exercise. If the rate of loss slows — and I fully expect it to — that doesn’t mean the process has stopped working. It probably means it is settling into something more sustainable.
The overall weight target I’ve set myself may even prove a little optimistic. I don’t think I’ve been at that weight since I was around 20 years old. But one can but aim.
The important thing is that the number isn’t really the whole destination anyway.
My ambition isn’t to turn up at parkrun one morning and win it. I’m not trying to become the fastest person on the track, the strongest person in the gym or the highest-ranked rider in a Zwift race. The performance numbers are fun, and I’ll always enjoy chasing them, but they’re a consequence rather than the ultimate objective.
I want to feel the difference in myself.
I want to become healthier and more capable. I want to get some of the mental benefit that comes from being active. I want movement to give me energy rather than feel like something I need to negotiate with myself to do. I want to feel increasingly comfortable in my own skin and increasingly confident in what my body can do.
If I keep doing those things, the weight loss and performance improvements should follow each other naturally. Lose some weight and moving becomes easier. Move more and fitness improves. Fitness improves and activity becomes more enjoyable. Activity becomes more enjoyable and consistency becomes easier. That consistency then helps the weight, fitness and confidence move again.
None of it will happen in a perfectly straight line. There will be weeks where the scales barely move, sessions that feel terrible and periods where motivation isn’t as easy to find. That’s normal. The important thing for me is that the general direction continues to be the right one.
Which brings me back to today.
“I only went out for 5km” sounds almost dismissive, but I think the word only is probably the most important part of the whole story.
A few months ago, I wouldn’t have described 5km that way. Five kilometres was something to prepare for, something to think about and something that represented a genuine test. Now it is beginning to become a distance I can simply go out and run.
Today it felt normal enough that when I reached the point where I’d achieved what I set out to do, I simply kept going and doubled it.
Ten kilometres. The first since January 2019.
That doesn’t mean I’m suddenly back to where I was, and I don’t think “getting back” is really the objective anymore anyway. The person I was in 2019 was different. Different circumstances, different priorities, different pressures and a different version of me.
Perhaps the aim is to build something that works better for the person I am now: something more sustainable, less dependent on short bursts of motivation, less concerned with what anybody else thinks and more centred around enjoying what my body is becoming capable of doing again.
The progress chart currently tells me I’m 21% of the way towards one target.
Today’s run tells me something else is changing too.
I only went out for 5km.
I came home having run 10.
And for the first time in a very long time, that didn’t feel extraordinary while I was doing it.
It just felt good.
