The 40 Days of Health Challenge

People are creatures of habit aren't they? As I sat down to write this, I glanced back to see at this time last year I was in a similar place; still looking to shift the post-Christmas excesses and generally feeling a bit demotivated.

Of course, this time last year I was preparing myself to get married, and had a few big races on the horizon. I was a lean machine by the time we got hitched, and in the couple of months that followed I ran my best ever half marathon and equalled my 10k PB too.

Check out the feet

I'd started to have some problems with my feet around the time. If you look closely at wedding day pictures, you'll see that I ended up wearing Lizzie's (three sizes too big) flat shoes and she went barefoot. I put this down to the fact that I never wear high heel shoes and can't even walk in the bloomin' things but the pain was really intense.

The feet gradually got worse, becoming so painful when road cycling that I would be hobbling for a few hours after a ride. A scan revealed that I had a Morton's neuroma in each foot, basically a thickening of the nerve tissue which then causes pain as it's compressed by the bones in the feet. I immediately went to see a podiatrist and got some orthotics made for my runners trainers, which did alleviate the symptoms when running.

Cycling, however, was still painful. I tried changing the cleats to bigger ones, then I bought stiffer, carbon-soled shoes. I had another pair of orthotics made for the bike shoes too but the pain was getting worse, the constant pressure of the pedal was too much. I stopped cycling for a few weeks but still had a half ironman triathlon to get through.

Just so glad for the race to be over, had done crying at this point!

Originally I had been aiming for a half ironman PB. It was a gently undulating course, my spring bike training had been good and I was running faster than ever. Unfortunately the race was a complete disaster as my feet were immensely painful on the bike - so much so that I stopped several times and contemplated giving up. I kept telling myself I'd be more annoyed with a DNF so pushed on. As soon as I hit the second transition it was a huge relief to get the shoes off. The run was a hobbling plod but I finished it, the whole thing was very emotional and I just broke down at the finish.

My favourite thing of cycling around eating up hills in the countryside was no longer enjoyable. That race was the catalyst that saw me pack up the roadie. I've only been out on it once since.

Since then, my motivation levels have definitely sunk and whilst I've been ticking away with some running, the running is still painful, particularly on tarmac. It's a sorry state of affairs, I can't even flex my toes properly to lunge! I've now been scheduled for surgery and can't wait to be on the other side, I miss those long runs and rides so much.

This is all a bit depressing, and to be totally honest that is how I've felt, it's been a low time. So what's the best way to get back up? A challenge!

The 40 Days of Health Challenge

Nothing to do with lent, just happens to be around the same time. The 40 day challenge is designed to be a motivational boost to get back into activities I can do, to refresh the mindset on eating and to get out of some really bad habits. It also coincides nicely by ending the day before we pick up our new puppy (more on that another time), so a time to focus on getting back in the game before I'm distracted with puppy cuddles and cleaning up poo/chewed items etc.

The other benefit of the challenge is to get me into doing some activities that I might be able to keep going with whilst recovering from the foot surgery.

The challenge involves:

• One hour of daily exercise activity that is totally non-running/cycling related. Could be yoga, strength training, swimming.. anything. A chance to try some new things.
• One hour per day TV limit. TV has become a really bad habit, instead of doing stuff in the evenings, I've turned into one of those people that just flicks through TV channels, it's going to stop now.
• One day per week drinking rule. The other bad habit we've developed is drinking too often. It's totally unnecessary and expensive. All that wine money can go on puppy toys instead. 

Throughout the 40 days, I'll be generally aiming to eat healthy meals and cut out pointless snacking too. I'm not banning cake completely but no cake/chocolate/ice cream etc will be purchased during the challenge (and don't worry, I haven't stockpiled any either).