Week 1 of Plan and Cuba Virtual Challenge Done

May 13, 2026 Jess GuthLeave a comment

It will come as no surprise to those of you who know me that the challenge went right down to the wire. I could of course have changed the finish date on the app – that seems like a thing people do but somehow that didn’t seem right. So I went into the last two days with about 28km still to do. The only answer was to use the bike. On Saturday I had a little virtual pedal round London – nice and flat and about 13ish km. And on Sunday I did another 13ish km on Watopia – another fairly flat route. I actually enjoyed the rides. I didn’t really push, I just sort of pootled around really. I still can’t quite get over how much of a puddle I turn into on the bike even when I don’t feel like I am working that hard. Why? Anyway, I finished the bike with just under 2km left to do. I deliberately finished short on the bike – for two reasons. First, I still had a run to do on the Week 1 Plan. If I had finished the challenge on the bike, I might have decided that doing so was enough and it really didn’t matter if I didn’t do my third run. But I do want to run more consistently so I needed to do my third run. Second, I started the challenge to help with consistency and when I started it I knew I would use the bike a bit but it was mostly about running so somehow finishing on a run was important to me. And it worked, I got out for the run, I enjoyed it and am still feeling a little smug about biking and running yesterday. The run was good – I did got mostly downhill but actually the running segments felt a little less clunky that they have, not quite fluid but certainly better.

Doing big chunks of the challenge at once means there were some big jumps though. I sort of bypassed Viñales almost completely and landed in Havana without fanfare or even gentle introduction. That’s ok though – I still spent time looking back at photos.

Can we talk about pineapples for a second – I had never given much thought to how they grow but if you had asked me, my answer would not have reflected reality. They do not grow from trees. I don’t know why I assumed they would. I also always assumed I wasn’t that keen on pineapple but freshly harvested pineapple – game changer. We went to Viñales towards the end of the trip, sort of on our way back to Havana. It was a hot day. The pineapple stop was welcome for a brief moment in the shade of a hut and the sweetest juiciest pineapple I have ever had. We bought some coffee beans from the farmer, too. Cuba is where I learned to drink my coffee black. Initially the coffee always tasted fairly awful – we were putting milk in it. But quickly we noticed that most Cubans were not so we tried the coffee without milk and it was so much better. I never went back to adding milk after we got home and I also turned into a proper coffee snob. Of course we also saw the traditional methods of growing and drying tobacco and rolling cigars. I do remember at this point being utterly fed up with a couple of people in our group. I remember a very posh woman from Kensington (yes, Kensington, never just London) who still wasn’t quite sure whether or not our tour guide was joking in his response to her question after a stop at a church: ‘What happened to all the nuns’ when he said ‘We killed them all in the revolution’. She’d pissed me off at one of the dinners by complaining that more dishes were needed. There was plenty of food but the family had only recently started the business so there were literally no more dishes – just one big rice bowl that kept being re-filled. All that was required was a tiny tiny smidge of patience. She didn’t seem to understand and went on about the need for education to lift the country out of poverty… I had given up trying to argue but I was irritated that even after nearly 2 weeks in Cuba she still didn’t really get it. I think I was pretty rude to her.

Anyway, It was hot. We stopped briefly to watch a local baseball game. I had always associated baseball with the US and was interested to hear more about it as a popular sport in Cuba. Then it was back on the bus and onwards. So then, Havana. I have photos from the start and end of the trip. I have really happy memories of Havana. I remember it as a city full of life and kindness. I remember warm sun, sea, impressive buildings and nature reclaiming old falling down ones – just one of the many contradictions and juxtaposition the country, but Havana in particular offered. I remember impressive home made wiring and makeshift repairs, I remember people wanting to chat, people proud of their city and wanting to share. I remember feeling welcomed. Kath and I explored a fair bit both before we met the rest of the tour group and then in the free time in the afternoon/evening. I don’t really know what to say about it now. I am sure my memories are the sort of memories you have of an overall really special holiday. They are coloured by the passage of time and mediated through things that have happened since. What remains is a feeling more so than the recall of specific events. And it is that feeling and the sense of the place, the fact that through connections and the wonderful ways of the universe, that trip, Cuba, will always be special, that makes me feel current events so deeply. Since I last wrote, US Congress has warned the Orange One to rule out a takeover but there are no real signs that things are getting better any time soon. And if they are not getting better, then they are getting worse for Cubans.

So anyway, yeah, this was a running blog wasn’t it… So the question is, did the virtual challenge help me at all. Well I think the answer is yes. It made me get out and start, then it made me keep going and do something. It made me get my backside out and finish it. Without the challenge I would undoubtedly have moved less. I am a bit irritated by the big random jumps from place to place – but I guess that makes sense – if you don’t do that, you can’t cover the key spots in 70ish miles. It just feels a bit discombobulating. Maybe for real places, I want real distances. I think it helped that I chose Cuba – it was something I wanted to take time to think about, to look back on, to learn more and the Challenge and this blog alongside it also provided some space to do that and to feel all the stuff that comes with it. Anyway, once the challenge has finished you just click a button to claim your medal, confirm address and that’s it. Mine arrived really quickly and it’s lovely. You can also do challenges without getting the medal at the end. And maybe that is a sensible way forward – although for now I continue to be a medal whore. I want the brain tingles of holding the physical thing.

As soon as I finished that challenge I started thinking about whether I wanted to do another one. I deliberately didn’t do it immediately – it’s easy to rush in and get caught up in the excitement. I wanted to think about why I would do it. What would I hope to achieve. I thought about it and I think it is currently a good way of cajoling my brain along this running journey. I need action. I am not motivated at all but I also know that motivation follows action so it will come as long as I can get my arse out. So the plan is this: Berlin Wall 30 mile challenge starting tomorrow and to be completed by the end of May with running only. No bike in this one (that reminds me, I need to change the automatic upload to the challenge). It’s very doable but given recent form, it’s also a real challenge… and I might even share some Berlin pictures from our trips.

Oh and I did the first run of week 2 today. The run was fine. The dash for the toilet at the end could have gone either way but thankfully my dignity is intact.

How do you build consistency?

April 13, 2026 Jess GuthLeave a comment

Consistency. The mythical thing that will make everything fall into place and become joyful and easy… . Apparently. I spend enough time scrolling on social media to have read several idiotic takes on consistency and on how habit not motivation will build consistency. And I get it. I remember (vaguely) a short period of time where running was just something we did. We didn’t really think about doing it, we just did. It wasn’t a decision to make. But that time was brief and also, it might be fictional. Perhaps it was never like that. Perhaps getting out the door has always been the hardest part of running. My brain is good at making shit up and maybe remembering a time, whether it actually existed or not, where getting out to run was easy, isn’t a bad thing.

Anyway, there I was scrolling like we all know we shouldn’t and the claims about how to get your shit together were just getting more and more outrageous. Advice that seemed to boil down do ‘you just need to be disciplined and get up at 4am and exercise and drink your electrolyte infused water and eat the right macros, take the most expensive supplements on the market and here’s some guidance on what to say so you’re not seen as weak at work and then here’s your evening relaxation and skin care routine and and … I am exhausted and bemused just seeing the posts, never mind reading or engaging with any of it. It does however bring me back to a question – how do normal people get their shit together? Like not 4am runs every morning and mapped out to the second daily routines (It is now 19.02, time to relax for precisely 19 minutes) but normal. Normal as in, my job can be a bit random, sometimes the cat pukes on the bed at 3am throwing everything into chaos, or I was so busy that I am both completely dehydrated because I didn’t drink anything and desperate for a pee because I haven’t had time for a toilet stop or I am not going to the gym for love nor money today because – ew people or the world feels wrong and I need to hide under a blanket and cry. That sort of normal. Which reading it back might not in fact be normal. What I mean is, how, in all the chaos that is normal life and without the desire or will power to be really regimented, how do you build consistency? How do you get to habit, to where the brain just assumes you’re going to the gym or for a run so you don’t have to do battle with yourself each time? How do you get motivated enough to get past the need for motivation?

I know, if I could really figure that out and bottle it, I could stop with the academic nonsense and retire ungracefully. I don’t think there is just one answer though. I read a post that suggested you set an alarm with a motivational quote to get you up and out of bed – yeah that will elicit a sleepy string of expletives and not much else while I turn off the alarm, turn over and go straight back to sleep. Another post suggested sleeping in your gear. Yeah – the only time I will sleep in a sports bra is if I am too exhausted after a run to attempt getting out of it. Other suggestions included telling yourself you can come back if you still really don’t want to be out after ten minutes. That also doesn’t work because that is a given for me. If I am miserable I won’t force myself to push through. I am too old for that shit. Hard – sure. Miserable, nope. More suggestions – same time each day for exercise of some description – hello chaotic schedule. That might work if I went really early in the morning but anyone who has met me will know that that will go wrong very very quickly. If I don’t get 8 hours sleep a night for a period of time, armageddon will ensue. I am being negative. Sorry. Of course I will eventually (and into the summer it’s easier) get up early more consistently and run after work more consistently and just the line between doing hard and being miserable will move so I will do more. I know this. I just find all the social media stuff annoying and unhelpful because none of it strikes me as realistic but I also can’t quite shake myself free of the expectations that my ducks should be more in a row and I should be able to be more disciplined. (I know! I’m paying for therapy, I am working on the people pleasing good girl thing)

Anyway, given that I am too old to take the influencers seriously and too intelligent to believe the nonsense around fitness and health and wellbeing and getting your shit together that fills my feeds, I had to come up with something else to try and keep up motivation while re-developing habits. And what does work, always has worked for me, is a challenge, a medal and some sort of game. Ideally all three. The challenges we had set haven’t kept me going. I haven’t been able to work towards them and they haven’t provided the kick up the arse required. So just entering another race or setting a park run target or whatever isn’t going to work – its not immediate enough. So I decided I would try a virtual challenge, something that tracks as you go along rather than something that is just an end goal; something that provides interest over time and an incentive to reach the next thing and something that allows me to go at my pace. And of course I need a medal at the end. A quick google and I landed on the Conqueror Virtual Challenges. I signed up for a challenge (I’ll tell you more about which one and why that one etc next time) to see if it might just work and keep me motivated through the really hard bit of starting again.

Well, it did its first job which was to get me out today when I really just wanted to curl up and stare into space and work out how I managed to work all day without having anything to show for it. I went out only because I wanted to see if the app worked, if my strava would sync to it and what the look and feel of the app and challenge would be. So yeah – gamification works. For me anyway. I did 2 miles again. Run/Walk at 30/30 intervals. This time for the full two miles. I went the same mile out as previously but ran past a guy I know who was out chatting and we had a friendly exchange but I really didn’t want a second interaction on the way back so I turned off and went down hill. So I did run a slightly easier route in terms of slopes but I kept the run/walk going until the 2 mile beep on my watch. Then I walked the .70 of a mile home up the hill. Happy with that. Oh and me not wanting another interaction had nothing to do with the guy, I was a proper no people zone after work today.

Einstein receiving instructions from the Dino gang

Anyway, I will tell you more about the challenge and the app as I get into it but for now there is one thing I want to mention because it pissed me off as I was completing the registration on the app. It’s a distance challenge, right. You can count all sorts of exercise to contribute, all good. I like that because it makes it really inclusive. But then the app asked for me height and weight. Annoying in itself. It doesn’t need that to track distance travelled. It’s irrelevant to the thing the app is designed for. And then, as if asking for weight wasn’t bad enough, it asked for ideal weight. So there it is. Just like that we have again made the assumption that exercise and signing up to a challenge must be about weight loss. Had they asked these questions before I signed up for the challenge I wouldn’t have signed up. It annoys the hell out of me. There is no reason for the app to need the information. The challenges are based on distance traveled, that doesn’t change based on how much someone weighs. I am not doing a challenge to lose weight. I am not running to lose weight, I am not going to the gym to lose weight. I am not doing anything to lose weight. I am doing the things I am doing to be fitter and stronger and so I can keep having adventures. My weight bobbing about a bit is a side effect of that, not a driving force. Anyway, I had already bought the challenge, so I completed the app registration, gave them my current weight as both the current and ideal weight which might fry their algorithm a bit at least and got over myself.

Next time I will tell you where in the virtual world I am and why I chose it and any other musings. For now, I have some more marking to do – you know, academic and that time of year!

Yorkshire Dales running day

April 26, 2025 Jess GuthLeave a comment

I went for a little run today which felt a bit silly because Kath was on a big run. It was the Due North Burnsall Half. So while Kath was making her way over 13 and a bit miles of up and down some Dales bumps, I plodded along the river for three quarters of a mile. Not quite the same but still a stroke of genius on my part. In my head today was always about Kath’s run and me supporting her. But I also hadn’t run yesterday because I somehow just ran out of steam in the afternoon. I also didn’t run on Wednesday or Thursday because I am utterly useless at getting my arse out the door after work at the moment. So I sort of felt I should really run today and for ages I couldn’t see how I would make that happen. Until yesterday evening when it dawned on my that if my run is 30 minutes and Kath is out on a lumpy bumpy half, I will have loads of time to see her off, go for my little plod, get back, have coffee and cake at one of my favourite cafes and welcome her back at the finish.

So that’s what I did. I’ve done 3 runs of running a minute and walking 90 seconds 8 times now so it is time to try the next set of intervals on the plan. I’ll see how I feel because my knee started niggling again the other day although it was mostly fine today. I probably turned round one run too early as I ended up with a bit of a random loop but had I continued I would have been that really annoying person who comes past you on a path and then almost immediately stops and turns round. So I turned before I got tangled up in a group of hikers. After my run I had coffee and banana and pecan cake at Riverbank Burnsall. If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, pop in. The cake is always excellent and I have had worse views drinking my coffee!

After coffee and cake I went back to the finish area, wandered around a little, read through a paper that I need to revise and resubmit to let it whirl round my brain a bit and watched the first 10km runners come in. After a while I got bored just sitting so walked down to the river and back. There was now a steady stream of half marathon finishers coming through so I stood at the finish and clapped them in. I heard lots of mutterings about ‘bloody hills’ and the run being hard, oh and those ‘bloody hills’. There was some shaking of heads as people crossed the finish line – mostly in disbelief rather than disappointment I think and a few ‘I’m not doing that again’ or ‘I did not like that’ comments. One poor guy who wasn’t local had done all his training on the flat. He seemed a little overwhelmed (as well as knackered). All those initial ‘fuck that was hard’ sentiments seemed to quickly melt away into exhausted but happy chatter all around me. Everyone seemed to agree that it was a brilliant but brutal course.

I spotted Kath coming over the iconic Burnsall bridge – well it is iconic if you’re from round here – you see the bridge, you know its Burnsall. Anyway, I saw her run across the bridge and make her way into the field and down the finishing stretch where I met her with a big hug she didn’t really want. (I should know this. I mean the last thing you want when you are trying to work out whether you are going to puke, fall over or cry and in what order is someone giving you a big squeeze hug – but I was excited to see her and didn’t think). It was a hard fought one for her and I am very proud of her. She’s so good at doing hard things. We picked up her goody bag and her well earned Cornish pasty and sat for a little while. Then I drove us home and have tried to help with recovery by providing food, an ice pack, water, cups of tea and kind words. Somehow I am very tired now. I shouldn’t be. I had a little plod and then spent most of the rest of the day doing very little.

Anyway, I can highly recommend the Due North events and now that there is a 10k option I might have a go myself. Those hills scare me a bit, the runs seem way more impossible than a road marathon but if I can get myself running fit then why not? Why not add another impossible thing to the list of impossibles I would like to do.

Review: There is No Wall

December 24, 2024 Jess GuthLeave a comment

I logged off from work for the year on Friday, spent Saturday in the kitchen baking and cooking and cleaning which was a great brain re-set and then spent Sunday not doing much at all really. Kath was still working yesterday but we did the Christmas food shop early and then I curled up on the sofa to finally finish reading Allie Bailey’s There is no Wall. I started this a while ago after we listened to Allie talk at the Ilkley Literature Festival and then bought the book. Kath read it first and then I started it. Then I got busy at work again and as so often happens, just didn’t read for pleasure. I picked the book up again last night and went back a bit.

The book is phenomenal. It made me laugh, it made me cry quite a lot, it made me breathe deeply, be thankful for what I have and at the same time ask questions of myself that are not entirely comfortable. The book is and isn’t about running. It’s a lovely and at times brutally real antidote to the social media and new year new you nonsense. It’s about mental health, addiction, faking it, asking for help and accepting it and, to me anyway, it’s about finding your values and recognising them as fundamental to everything really. I love the honesty in the writing. I love that the swearing isn’t edited out, that the tone of the book isn’t polished into a beautiful narrative that sort of glosses over how dark Allie’s story really is. The writing is good, really good but it’s gritty and real.

I will need more time to really reflect on the book but there are a couple of things that really stand out to me

The stories we tell ourselves. Allie notes that that the stories we believe are the ones we tell ourselves (or are told) most often but reminds us that we have a choice what thoughts and stories we believe. We have a choice. That’s really fucking powerful.
External validation doesn’t get us very far. Our self-worth has to come from us, not from what we think others think of us
Values are key to EVERYTHING
There is a big knowing-doing gap. I had never thought about it as a knowing-doing gap before (I am probably late to the party here as always as apparently this is a pretty well known idea – it just wasn’t to me) but it is such an obvious way of describing it and applies to me all the time! As Allie notes, it’s really hard to bridge that gap and not just shout back as you fall further down the huge crevice the gap can create

I am feeling the knowing-doing gap particularly keenly at the moment. I know consistency is key to almost everything. I know good fuelling is key to being healthy, I know stretching and strength work are crucial to staying healthy, I know I need to focus on the stories I tell myself about running, I know I need to do the hard work and I know I need to start doing it now – with kindness and love, but now. Doing it is so much harder than knowing it though. And I think that is why I like the book so much. There is no pretence that any of this is easy. Getting your shit together is hard and it stays hard. You don’t just suddenly get your ducks in a row and then they stay there and you live happily ever after. Or maybe other people who have never experienced poor mental health do. No idea. I have been nowhere near as ill as Allie and I am grateful for that but I also expected running, at a very very different level of of course, to save me. And for a while it did. I got fitter, so much fitter. I could do things. I could view my body in terms of what it could do rather than what the number on my clothes label said and somehow that all helped.

But I haven’t really done the work on me, I know this. Because when the running fell to pieces because of Covid and busy-ness and toxic workplaces and all the shit that life can throw at you and personal bests and races well run or at least struggled through to claim mental victory were replaced by DNF or actually mostly DNS, running was (is?) just another problem. My body is now not delivering, I am not strong, I am not fit – so how should I see my body, myself, now? Allie is right, running won’t save you from whatever demons you have but I also think she is right that running can buy you time to save yourself. I think through most of my running I have been both running away from stuff and running towards who I want to be, the balance has just varied. And who I want to be is not far off who I am right now in this moment sitting here writing this. I am happy. I am relatively healthy. I look forward too much and could do with being more in the moment and I know a lot of stuff that I am doing fuck all about. But I am aware and I am taking tiny little baby steps to start building a bridge across the knowing-doing gap. Running helps me meet my black puppy with curiosity and kindness every time it appears, it helps me make better decisions day to day, it helps me accept things as they are so I can start from there, it helps me breathe deeply when I need to and it helps me be kinder, most of all to myself. Those are the things that save us – if we do the work.

Read the book. Even if you think you’re fine, even if you don’t run. Read it because it is just a bloody good book about a remarkable woman. And somehow it is a book of tremendous hope.

2023

December 31, 2023 Jess GuthLeave a comment

So that’s it, as the clock ticks over, we take down old calendars and put up new ones, 2023 is done. We draw an arbitrary line and start again in the morning to welcome 2024.

I’m not really sad to see 2023 go. It showed me the worst of people, how broken some people are and how many really only care about themselves. 2023 renewed my disappointment in people, made me bin more role models and discard more heroines. A lot about 2023 confirmed to me that really, most people are completely overrated and you are almost always better off with a cat.

2023 also showed me the best of people. I met, worked with, chatted with, ran with, taught, was taught by and laughed with people who showed me and others genuine kindness and warmth and who restored my faith that there are good people out there, some even approved of by cats.

In terms of running, 2023 has been…, not quite sure how to put this really. 2023 has not been a running year. According to Strava I have run 63 miles all year. I’ve tracked walks of about the same distance. I’ve done some yoga and pedalled about in zwift a bit and only recorded 78 days of activity of one sort or another. In terms of exercise, well, the less said the better! I finish the year the heaviest I have ever been and unfit, very unfit. But that just is fact.

I am usually reflective at this time of year but this year I am not very focused and can’t quite get the words so here are my reflections in photo format. One from each month, all from places that hold memories – old and new. Make of them what you will and I hope some make you smile.

I hope 2024 brings you happiness and peace