If you have been taking in part in the December Marcothon, what will be your next challenge?
Running 5km or 25 minutes each day for a month during the Marcothon really helps to focus the mind, as well as providing an excellent motivator for fitness during one of the coldest, darkest and busiest months.
I have learned lots of things during the Marcothon challenge and with just five days of running left I am wondering what to do next to keep up my running motivation.
I find that January can be even worse in terms of incentives to run or do physical activity each day because it’s often such a dispiriting month. Here are a few ideas to keep you running or active during January
I have been Marcothoning every day in December. Now on day 28.
1 Keep on Marcothoning. There are runners who have run 5km or for 25 minutes every day for years. Why not Marcothon through January as well and the try to keep going for as long as you can?
2 Run 1000km in a year. A friend has achieved this in 2016 and it seems to me to be a great idea. Running 19km per week would do it.
3 Run 1000 miles in a year. Sign up to Trail Running mag’s 1000 miles in a year challenge. That equates to 2.8 miles per day for the year, or 19.5 miles a week. You don’t need to run every day but you do need to keep track of your miles on Strava. It seems more achievable than I’d imagined.
3 Do the 5×50 challenge. This is 5km or 30 minutes of any kind of physical exercise every day for 50 days. The official 5×50 doesn’t start until March 2017 but you could start early with your own 5 x 50 days of exercise.
4 Join the Viewranger 2017 challenge. The aim is to get walkers, cyclists and runners to complete between 250 and 6,000 miles throughout 2017, using the app to keep track of their mileage and share their adventures See my blog about miles walked by ViewRanger walkers.
5 30 minutes per day pledge. Make a pledge to walk, run, swim, cycle or do a sport for a minimum of 30 minutes per day. It’s a lot easier than you think. Even just a 15 minute walk to and from the train station for work adds up to 30 minutes.
Anyone have any other ideas?