Remember my #40By40 Challenge? When I turned 39 last year, I decided to come up with a list of things I wanted to achieve by my 40th Birthday. The list is specific to fitness and running with a huge dose of travel and adventure, friendship, giving back and personal development. I gave myself two years to get it done which I thought was plenty of time! Of course, I never could have predicted a global pandemic that would wipe out all my travel and racing plans! But in today’s post, I want to update you on the five things I’ve managed to check off my list so far.
Run a Sub-30 5km: When I started running, doing a sub-30 5km time was a far-fetched dream. But when I suddenly got a shocking PB of 30:34 at a race in September, I knew it was within reach. I set the date for 15 December 2019, challenged my friend Kitso to a race, roped in my husband as my pace-maker and my cousin Ndiye and sister NJ joined in for moral support. I chose a familiar 5K route in my neighbourhood. What a tough run! It was a furious fight to the end and with Kitso chasing me down and Ditiro urging me to keep going, there was immense pressure on me the whole time. Just when I felt I had nothing more to give my watch buzzed 5K with 8 seconds to spare, 29:52! I was under 30 minutes for the first time in my life.
Complete a 40 Day Plank Challenge: As I was training for my 5K, I had also started a 40 Day Plank Challenge. The rules were simple, a plank every day for 40 consecutive days. This was such a daunting task but I started to have so much fun with it – planking in different locations and even in Botswana’s traditional gear on the day of my cousin’s wedding. I gradually worked my way up from 20 seconds and made it all the way to 4 minutes (which was a separate goal of mine!). I completed the challenge on 29 December 2019. A few weeks ago, I posted some of the benefits of planking and why I’ve made planking a part of my fitness routine.
Hold a Plank for 4 minutes: On Christmas Day after a whole lot of food, I got to 4 minutes! As my brother-in-law was visiting from Australia and is pretty handy with his camera, I asked him to record it a couple of days later. I was so nervous that the first time had been a fluke and I wouldn’t manage a second time with the cameras rolling. But I did and have this video as proof!
Race in Shorts: It’s not that I didn’t wear shorts or skirts outside of running. For some reason, I had it in my head that running shorts were for “real runners” with “runners’ bodies”. But in October 2019, after 3 years of running, I finally ran in shorts and wondered why I hadn’t done it years ago! I also started thinking, “What if I did a race in shorts?” and that’s how this made it onto my list! So on 23 February 2020, a month before the wave of race cancellations, it happened at the Pretoria Half Marathon surrounded by thousands of runners. It felt amazing and liberating. If you run, you are a runner and you have a runner’s body. Full stop!
Complete a 40 day running streak: My longest running streak up to this point was 10 days. For the last two years, I’ve taken part in the annual Gaborone Striders 10X10 challenge where we run 10km a day for 10 days. I thought it would be fun to extend this to 40 days with a minimum of 4km per day. Initially, I was going to do this after completing my marathon. But when that was cancelled, I decided to suspend training and do this running streak challenge instead. The first 11 days were smooth-sailing but then we were hit with heavy lockdown restrictions with no running allowed outside the yard! So I ended up running the remaining 29 days in the yard, either on my wonky treadmill or in tearful circles in my yard which I’ve spoken about here.
It wasn’t the way I had expected the challenge to go but at the same time I think it is what kept me running at such a difficult time. In total, I ran 202.61 km with my shortest run being 4 km and my longest 12.15 km. 127.45 km counted towards the Mzansi Lockdown ULTRA Marathon Challenge and 8 runs were done as virtual races for The Un-canceled Project which I blogged about here. Both challenges come with medals and I can’t wait to show them off!
So that’s FIVE of 40 done. I was well on track to achieving my first marathon in May, I’d reached 7 of 15 Half Marathons, my ticket to Norway to run in my mum’s hometown was booked for August and my 20 Race Challenge was well underway. Sadly, that wasn’t to be. HALF of the remaining 35 things on my list involve racing or travelling. Realistically, those things won’t happen this year. Am I disappointed? Terribly. But life must go on and I’m focusing on the other half of things on my list that are within my control. The biggest goal I’m working on now is a sub-60 10K time. My first attempt will be on 11 July and hopefully I’ll manage some of my shorter-distance speed goals along the way. The rest will happen, just not now. And I’m okay with that.
“When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.” Zig Ziglar
I’m joining two amazing runners, Kim from Running on the Fly and Deborah from Confessions from a Mother Runner for their link up, the “Weekly Run Down”. Hop on over to their blogs and others, and be inspired!
The Gaborone Runner 
I love reading about your goals, what you’ve done so far, and how you’ve adapted them to current conditions. There are so many things that we *can* do right now, even in a pandemic. I’m going after a sub-30 5k this summer with a vengeance, and I can’t wait to hear about your sub-60 10k!
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I’m behind you all the way on that sub-30 5K!!! And if you can get a pacemaker, even better. Mentally, that helped me so much.
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So amazing! Keep up the positivity! Behind you all the way:) when you get to achieve or accomplish the rest of your 40 it will be all the sweeter. Xoxo
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Thank you Nins! Exactly, those hard fought challenges are always the sweetest victories 😁👊
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5 out of 40 done! Even an awesome 40-day streak! In a lockdown! That’s great!
I really hope you get to do the 35 other things soon, even if only in 2021. Actually, that’ll give you a lot to look forward to, especially all the travelling.
You’ll crush the sub-60 10K! Just wondering – why did you pick the 11 July to do that?
Keep us posted on your plans and progress!
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5 done my friend!!! So glad that I have myself 2 years (even before the pandemic) so at least I have until October 2021. And if some spillover, so be it! No significance to 11 July, other than that’s the last day of the 10-week training plan I’m on! 😁😁
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Brilliant achievements, bloody pandemic coming and spoiling the others: boooooo!
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Who would have ever imagined a pandemic of on such a global scale!! But at least I haven’t had to postpone a wedding. I know 2 people who’ve had to do that and that’s far worse.
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Love this update! I love the things that you shared so far – you’ve had some really great accomplishments so far. A 4 minute plank is super impressive – congrats on hitting that goal!
Sorry about the pandemic ruining your travel plans…maybe you can aim for a 41 by 41 list to include travel in 2021!
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Thank you Kim! So crazy how everything turned upside down almost overnight 😂 But as I had a 2 year timeline, I think I’ll still manage. It just means swopping so many things around and then spending all of 2021 travelling and racing 😂
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Congrats on your sub-30! It’s been amazing to see your transformation.
I’m sorry you can’t go after all your goals this year, but you’re not giving up and that’s the most important thing!
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Thank you! And so glad I gave myself two years so I can work on those in my control now and spend next year racing and travelling like crazy 😂
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Slow & steady always wins the race. 😊
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wow I love the goals you have set for yourself and it’s been fun to watch you crush them! Carry on and nice job girl. Thanks for linking up
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Thank you Deborah! I’m happy with what I’ve done so far and looking forward to all the rest.
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I say this to you a lot but it is so exciting to watch you continue to improve! I just love it!
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Thank you Wendy and for all your encouragement always. I’m excited about trying the speed goals I have lined up.
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Amazing work! This was so fun to read. I’m so impressed by your 4-minute plank. You have a very strong core!
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Thank you! I loved my planking challenge especially as I could hardly manage 20 seconds when I started. 🙂
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You did so great chasing after those goals! And you had to cope with a serious lockdown — not like ours where we could go outside whenever and stay out as long as we wanted (we just couldn’t park at trail heads). You are such an inspiration!
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Thank you so much! I can’t tell you how happy I am now that restrictions have eased and I can run anywhere again!
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Congrats on what you’ve achieved so far! You will be checking those others off soon, I’m sure of it! Gotta say – I love those shorts of yours. Very cool! And WOW, 4 min planks. That is amazing. Well done!
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Thank you! I can’t believe it took so long to wear shorts but I’m loving it now!
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It has been so inspiring watching all these goals get ticked off your to-do list 😉 Your running has been on a steady upswing, and that planking!!!!! YOWZA! Keep up the awesome work 😉
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Thank you Kim! The planking of course was inspired by you!
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You’ve done so great with your goals! I cant believe you did that run streak when you weren’t able to run outside. Incredible!
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Thank you! That was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do but it kept me running! Don’t think I would have had the strength/motivation to continue running during lockdown if I didn’t have that challenge 😂
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You are doing an awesome job with those goals! I have yet to hit that sub 30 5K, but I hope one day I can do it!
And good for you for donning the shorts! I was like you for the longest time – I didn’t think I was worthy of wearing shorts to race or run. We were both so wrong. Because we are real runners ❤
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Oh you will! It’s something I never thought I would manage but I think the trick for me was deliberately doing more speed work. I’ve always been happy to go long but not necessarily fast.
So glad you understand what I felt about shorts. We really were both so wrong! It’s winter here now and I’m back to long leggings and I can’t wait to get back to my shorts again!
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I love this update! A 10k under an hour is a great goal. That is something I would also love to do. I know the other things on your list you cannot do because of the pandemic. Will you replace them with something different or add another year? Just curious. By the way, I LOVE running in shorts. Glad you are enjoying it too.
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Thank you! Even before the pandemic, I had given myself two years to get it all done because of all the travel so that takes us to October 2021. So luckily I still have a bit of time. 🙂 Let’s see how much I get done by then. And if I still have a couple left I’ll just roll them over to 2022.
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Great plan!
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