Last week I was reading a chain of emails on a women’s sports network that I am a member of. The buzz was all about a challenge called the Marcothon. I had never heard of this before and so I googled it. It turns out that this event was set up by Marco Consani in 2009 when he challenged himself to run every day for the month of November. His wife Debbie liked the idea and jumped onto the bandwagon for December and wrote about it on her blog. The concept has gathered real momentum and has become an annual event. The idea is now either to run 3 miles or to do 25 minutes of exercise for 31 consecutive days throughout December right through Christmas and finishing on New Year’s Eve. One of the women on the network I am part of said that she had started the challenge and had lost 1 stone in weight!

I am always looking for fun events and challenges and different ways to inspire and motivate myself to be active. Over 2015 the chosen method of inspiration has been to buy the brightest lycra possible, but as my attendance records at the gym and pool will prove, that idea hasn’t been a winner.

You may have read my previous blog post about New Years Resolutions. In the past I have used Resolutions  – usually ridiculously unachievable goals – to scare the bejesus out of me and into lycra. All that does is to demotivate me more when I fail miserably or history records a DNS.

The Marcothon got me thinking whilst the kettle was boiling in the kitchen at work. I was way too late for the Marcothon, but the concept seems so simple and actually quite do-able. A SMART goal in fact. So, I have decided that I’m going to do it in January  – the Janathon. And, because old habits die hard, I’ve entered a 10Km run race on 31 January just to seal the deal. I haven’t run further than 8km in 12 months or longer…

I’ve found an on line 5 week 10km training plan and I’ve printed it out and started plotting it in my diary. It looks sensible. It sets out three runs each week with a threshold run, a technique and speed run and a long run. In between the run sessions I will need to do one session of cross training, one session of strength training and a stretch/yoga session. in theory this gives me one day off each week, but as I can’t do that during January, I’ll add a swim or another yoga session. I’ve even got my lycra out and put it in my gym bag… and I’ve charged up my Garmin. Not only that, I’ve had buy in from a work colleague and we’re going to keep each other honest by going to the gym together every day. Blimey, I must mean business. I’m feeling SMART. I’ll post at the end of January to review the month.