“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” Jonathan Swift - Day 10

A week and a half in, and I had a pass/ cheat (your pick) this Saturday.

Friends had organised a beautiful birthday lunch for my wife at Le Foote, a fashionable restaurant in the Rocks.

Full disclosure, I have a second and final pass/ cheat for my own birthday party- my big 5.0 – which I jointly celebrate with a good mate in mid-May.

Both these events had been organised before I had decided to embark on this 21 week sober-curious project.

Trust me when I say that I have had plenty of discussions regarding these two passes/ cheats with friends.

The discussions split the room and can all be summarised as “it’s cheating/ you’re not doing the thing properly” vs “mate, you’re fucking nuts to try in the first place, so absolutely not cheating if you drink to celebrate your 50th / your other half’s birthday”. Needless to say, I was always going to take the more pragmatic path...

The long lunch, as boozy as expected, left me with an almighty hangover the next morning.

A few days have passed, and despite Saturday’s lunch, I’m starting to notice little changes.

I have run twice since, clocking up a respectable 17km. My running performance has started to improve. My speed is increasing whilst my heart rate relative to effort is decreasing, although that could be because I’ve started to lengthen my long runs whilst simultaneously including elevation.

I’m sleeping way better and waking up more refreshed. To be fair, that change began almost immediately. I imagine that this will plateau out shortly.

My resting heart rate has dropped to below 50 bpm, down from mid 50s.  As with the increase in sleep quality, I don’t expect this to change much.

My waist measurements (around mid-riff, just above the belly-button) hasn’t shifted. Whilst I am just on what is considered to be out margins of healthy, this is the metric I want to see change. Why worry about your waistline? - Harvard Health

Anyway, jusqu’ici tout va bien!

North Bondi 10 April 2024