My main fitness goal at the moment is to quit smoking. But I feel enough pithy comments have been made. I actually took up jogging again recently after over a year and a half. I've done a few 5km-ish runs at night, and discovered the joys of night running; the calm, the stars, the darkness - though the latter can bring on paranoid visions of a serial killer jumping out of the bushes. Actually I think one of the problems I've had with jogging is a total lack of goals beyond "keep jogging, maybe a little more next time". A marathon is a bit too far out for me right now, but running a 20k would be a good place to try to get too. Congrats on meeting, and exceeding, your goal!
Haha, yes KB, but there's a difference when it comes to breaking a sweat! I've been fairly sedentary ever since then. Time to get out of the rut and off of the couch.
I used to smoke socially. Then, while in China for a while, I started smoking quite a bit more. One day sitting in the tub in China, listening to Tom Waits, I decided that I was going to do things in life that were more difficult than quitting smoking. So I quit then and there, and it's been sort of a litmus test for my resolve.
I love that way of thinking of it! I have bigger hills to climb than this one, takes the sting out of it.
I think that's excellent you've taken up jogging. Hopefully it helps a lot with quitting smoking! I remember talking to some rugby team mates who used to smoke and they said something along the lines of "eventually it made no sense. Smoking and trying to keep fit just don't work, one had to go." Being able to bust out a 5km while still being a smoker is impressive! I feel you on the goal issue with jogging though. At a certain point I just get bored of the running. Weightlifting is at least done very quickly in that sense!
Yeah, they're completely incompatible. The problem is that people sometimes reward themselves for jogging with a big fat cigarette (I used to go jogging with a housemate who would follow up a 10k jog with a trip to McDonald's, in the same vein).