I Run

After the success of my scooter endeavours, if you overlook the hypoglycaemic episode, I finally decided that it was time to dig out the track suit bottoms, oversized top and trainers. 

Running was one of my favourite activities when I was in my twenties cough years ago so it seems logical to me to start this up again. 

So I made the decision yesterday that in the evening I'd start running and then I'd have one of those new Pizza Express home cook pizzas that only have 450 calories as a reward. 

Once I'd decided on this plan of action I couldn't wait to get started and spent most of the afternoon looking forward to my new adventure...flash forward to 1900hrs. 

I had made plans on what route to take quite a while ago as my trainer from my boxing days had given me the best advice about starting off running which was: never over do it to start off with or you'll not want to carry on and choose a route that is easy to expand upon in increments as you get fitter; I therefore chose Woolwich Common as my venue as it's riddled with paths and I had seen a nice little route on Google maps. 

After a warm up I walked to my starting point, started my new app MapMyRun and set off at a slow pace that I hoped would let me run the route without stopping or walking. 

The first thing I noticed was that my head seemed to be bouncing around quite a bit and my legs didn't feel very coordinated; luckily I soon forgot about that, unluckily this was because I'm not very fit and it felt like my nose was collapsing each time I breathed in! 

I was about half way round, I was coping, just, I was coaching myself in my head with "just keep going", "nearly there" and the like. I could now see how far I had left and used that as a marker and started almost saying to myself through the out breaths "keep going nearly there, nearly there". 

I'd done it, I stopped my app and looked at the results - 0.80 miles in 7 minutes and 47 seconds, it felt like I'd just finished a half marathon, sweating profusely, gasping for breath but happy that I'd achived my aims and had an app full of stats to look at; I think I will enjoy this rebirth into running once my fitness levels are a bit higher!