My new Mile

One thing I brought back from my trip last year to Seattle to do Twenty First Century Leadership was the Mile. The Mile was a ritual I started practicing last July; doing the Mile was going for a jog around the park. It started off as a goal just to get out the door in the morning and do it. Then it became a goal to do it daily throughout the week. Once I succeeded in making it a regular habit, I measured my progress by how many laps I would do.

I kept up with this habit until around October. I got up to around four laps. By October the days were much shorter and the weather got colder so it became too difficult to keep going with it. I got off my Mile last fall, and my body sure felt it.

I'm living in a different place now than where I was last year. One of the joys I had in settling in was finding a new route to be my Mile. I have found a park near by and have adopted it for my new Mile. I don't know if the distance around the park, one lap, is longer or not than my old Mile. I don't even know if it's longer or shorter than one physical mile. It doesn't matter to me what the actual distance is, it is still my Mile. It is the ritual of it more than the actual physical distance.

I had been doing my Mile regularly on a week to week basis until last month when my life got really busy and I was staying up a lot of late nights and decided that my body needed the extra sleep in the mornings more than it needed the exercise. Well I might have been fine with that decision for a few weeks but it just doesn't do for me to keep avoiding. So I gave myself a kick in the ass and got some support from a member on my men's team and recommitted. Right now my goal is to get out and do my Mile three times a week. I hit that goal last week. I did Day #1 for this week tonight so I am tracking to hit that goal again.

My old Mile was all on flat ground; my new Mile has some hilly area. That suits me fine - that means I am training myself to run uphill. There is something about that which reflects my personality.

On Sunday I went out with the goal to break three laps. During my final lap I realized that I had lost count; I wasn't sure if it was my second lap or third lap, and I wasn't up to doing an extra lap just to be sure. This evening I went out with the goal to do three laps and to remain aware of my lap count. I can happily claim that I accomplished that tonight.