It's silly, in the big scheme of things, but here's my top accomplishment of 2021 so far: 100 consecutive days of planks.

"Planks" is either (a) just planks, but about 3.5 minutes of them, or (b) this 7-minute routine with planks and side planks and a back bridge. The 3.5 minute version is the buildup of a weekly ratchet: weeks ago it would have started with 60 seconds on Monday, then add 5 seconds every day until Sunday, then start over the next Monday at 65 seconds, and add 5 seconds every day until Sunday, and so on. This week's Monday started at 220 seconds, although I typically do the longer sequence.

I feel like a bro posting this here—but what the hell? This current 100-day run started in November, and there were a few much shorter runs that started in October when I was trying to pull myself out of a dive. It was a pretty miserable summer and fall, virus or not, and if concentrating on a simple habit helped get out of that—great. Fantastic. Super.

Everyone gets down, but getting stuck down is a horror show. There was a saying in endurance running that I thought was trite at the time, but now it seems a lot more pertinent: if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, walk anyway.