Well? Did I Do It?
I’ll keep this short since I’m guessing you just want to know if I actually held the plank.
The plank that I willingly spent the entire month teaching myself to maintain for 15 minutes. It’s kind of a stupid thing to try, really. And probably not the best thing for the lower back. But then again this challenge was never about physical fitness.
It was a crash course in the art of willpower and endurance, and I’m walking away from this month with many lessons, but none more important than this:
Oh good lord how cheesy am I?
Well, I suppose it’s worth mentioning that when I decided to embark on this plank challenge, I was pretty certain I was in way over my head and would fail in a spectacular way. But I did some things along the way that made me change my mind:
I set a goal that was specific and had a time frame.
I enlisted the support of my *fabulous* trainer who could guide and support me.
She made a daily training plan for me so that I would physically get stronger.
I made a mental training plan to learn how to cope with the pain and the clock.
I tracked my progress and tweaked my plan a long the way (like eliminating the burpee challenge).
I learned the importance of focusing on a singular goal, because to attempt too many things at the same time is to set yourself up to fail.
I learned to focus on the process, not on the largeness of the challenge.
Finally, I learned that in order to succeed, all I needed to do was follow the program every single day which, incidentally, was hard in itself because it still required the actual doing of things.
So.
Did I do it? Well, you can see for yourself.
P.S. I am so very happy to not have to hold a plank for more than 60 seconds ever again in the foreseeable future.
P.P.S. I still think that running a marathon would be an infinitely more difficult thing to do.
P.P.P.S. The insanity continues in November.