How do you adopt a new habit? This is the question that preoccupies me as I take up jogging. What I do is actually a movement that is between walking and running, and sometimes looks a bit like fast shuffling, but still, it’s better than sitting on a couch. This is all in the interest of giving my heart a workout. High cholesterol runs in the family and I am hoping this can help.
I’ve read Atomic Habits by James Clear and so I know I need to “habit stack”. This is when you already have one settled habit and then attach a new habit to it. It’s like clamping a bike rack to the car, or so the theory goes. The main issue here is my general lack of routine, but I do have a regular habit of waking up and so I’ve attaching jogging to that. I’m doing my early-morning habit from home as I’ve tried to love the gym but it never seems to be a good time to go.
In case you’ve been living in a bunker, the NHS “Couch to 5K” is a nine-week programme of 30-second “runs” that starts with mostly walking and ends with all running. Or that’s the idea. I did it during Covid but, after a brief triumph, I kept redoing week five until I stalled. This time I’ve chosen the Olympic heptathlete Denise Lewis as my virtual coach: I like her unbubbly demeanour. One unexpected bonus to being out and about at 8am is that it makes me feel quite smug. I love that.
Plog on
The other morning, when “jogging” round the local field/sports pitch, I spotted a man who was not accompanied by a dog. This alone made him unique. I felt like congratulating him. Everyone else has a dog. It’s clear that dogs make their owners walk and probably save the NHS a fortune. The man did have some sort of stick, though, which could have been a metal detector, but then I saw that it had pincers and he was picking up a crisp packet with it.
“Are you doing this as a good citizen?” I asked (anything to stop jogging). He claimed he wasn’t. He said it made walking less boring and asked if I’d heard of “plogging”. This, it turns out, is when people jog and litter-pick at the same time, thus adding in some deep knee-bends. It was invented by a Swede and the name comes from “plocka upp” (Swedish for “pick up”) and “jogga” (you can get this one yourself). Not an Olympic sport yet but you never know.
Time for some Floyd
I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when space really did feel like the final frontier. We watched various missions, at first on those small old TV sets, topped with rabbit ear antennae, in grainy black and white. Neil Armstrong’s first moon walk still thrills. The whole endeavour brought awe into our lives which, in these corroded days, is generally lacking. I was surprised to be moved, almost to tears, by the launch of Artemis II and its wonderful historic mission to the dark side of the moon. Will they play Pink Floyd to mark the moment? I do hope so.
Close to passing out
Last week I wrote about my phone being stolen while I was going through the barriers at Monument station in London. The adrenaline lasted for a few days but now the whole “recovery” process has become a haze of passwords and codes. Password fatigue should be a recognised condition. I have even started experimenting with new “special symbols”. Time to lie down (or go for a jog).
