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My Motivator for the Marathon des Sables, 2011

(closed account) says:
So, last year, I got a confirmed place for the Marathon des Sables, 2011; a 7-day running race, ~150 miles across the Sahara Desert. This event has been my big dream, ever since I started running around 5 years ago. The trouble is, I somehow need to find around £3000 to cover the cost of it. My wife and I were discussing various fundarising and sponsorship ideas, when an obvious solution occured to her. Stop smoking. I smoke a 20 pack every day. I knew I was going to need to quit well in advance of the event if I was going to stand any chance of completing it, but using the money I saved from not smoking to fund it had not occured to me.

So today I start. Around 640 days to go, saving ~£6 per day, should leave me with more than enough to cover the cost.

As a motivator, I thought, why not set myself a daily reminder of how it's progressing. So I've created a daily repeating task for 9am every day (so I get the push notification to remind/motivate me), and each day I'll change the task title, incrementing the day count and money I've saved. So it looks something like this:

MdS funding: day 1/640, £6, 0.16%

Now I can watch these clocking up, as the day I fly to Morrocco draws closer; knowing that if I want it to happen, then I need to stay off the smokes.

Rrrrggghhh! Come on Delaney!
Posted at 8:56am on June 30, 2009
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
Haha, that's excellent! Use RTM to encourage good habits and to kick bad ones. :)

Good luck in the marathon!
Posted 14 years ago
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