gemdilem

25th April 2012

Post

Running

I finally got my new running shoes out of their box a few weeks ago. The box they had been sitting in untouched since I purchased them way back in January. On March 18th, when I was 31 and one day, they managed to make their way out of the box and onto my feet. Nothing like the early 30s to scare you into exercise… well that and the fact that I’ve agreed to participate in 2 fun runs:

1. Memory Jog - 7.5km - Sunday 6 May
2. Sutherland 2 Surf - 11km - Sunday 22 July

It has been many years, at least 5, since I’ve done any form of distance running. Actually in the last few years I’ve done very little exercise, prefering to spend my spare time on the couch. There was always an excuse - too busy with work, bad knees, too tired.

No more excuses.

My first run was quite daunting but went much better than I thought it would. I worked out a distance of 3km flat terrain (1.5km there and back) and set off to see how far I could run. Amazingly I managed to get to halfway (1.5km) before I needed a break to catch my breath. Then on the way back I alternated between running and walking. I repeated the run / walk a few more times later in the week, after a week I was able to run the whole thing! I was completely stuffed after it but it felt pretty amazing to achieve so much so quickly.

Since then I have been progressively increasing the distance and can now run 6km. Not comfortably and it’s by no means pretty, but I can do it! So I’m not looking that bad for my first fun run which is only 11 days away. Mostly I don’t want to embarrass my fun run team which consists of Jonny and other awesome runners (who can do marathons - crazy / CRAZY).

Although it’s hard, really hard after so many years of no exercise I’m still enjoying it. The awful pain in my legs and lungs eventually makes way for that endorphin rush happy feeling. I’m still sticking to relatively flat terrain, as I don’t want to put any extra pressure on my dodgy knees. Now my biggest problem is trying to find enough flat terrain near my house to run on!