Training

My friend Linda ran a 5K a few months ago. We were chatting about it together and she explained what a great motivation it was for her to start exercising. It planted a seed in my own mind that resulted in me signing up for my own 5K run yesterday.
The reasons are simple. Since getting married and relocating I have gained half a stone - 7 pounds - and mostly around my middle. I am veering dangerously towards looking like one of the potato heads. As anyone who reads anything about women's health knows, all this weight around my middle is not at all good, and as anyone who knows me would know, dieting is not good route for me. I end up eating more when on diet - and more of the chocolates, chips and ice creams that have been my comfort friends for years. I know that exercising is a good route for me, but have not managed to get a routine going here in England. So, with the summer holidays upon me, it seemed like a good time to start. The fact that I happened to find a 5K run at the beginning of September (which co-incides perfectly with the school term) gave me little excuses to not sign up.

I spent most of yesterday planning my training and researching on the internet. I found two good sites for my 5K challenge: www.coolrunning.com and www.runnersworld.co.uk . I've taken both of their schedules and adapted them to my needs and also adopted some of the stretches.

This morning at about 8am I woke up and began my first session (I know, I know, it's not a dramatic 5am start, but that would have killed this sensitive project before it even had a chance to breathe!). I searched out my gym clothes, my knee support (necessary because of an injury about 6 years ago when I was at the height of health) and my sneakers and began with the stretches.

It wasn't too bad. Day one asked me to run for one minute, jog for one minute. This meant that as soon as my legs were about to collapse from the burden of my potato head stomach (which was jumping up and down like jelly on the run) I was given a chance to walk. I'm doing the same thing on Tuesday. (This plan allows for a day of rest in between training, which seems insane with six weeks until a race, but I'm going to trust the people who know better than me. My last personal attempt at exercise resulted in a bad knee injury which has been more damaging to my health in the long term than a day of rest in between training will be).

The tough thing was the barrage of negative thoughts that hit me as I was heading back home after my exercise. I had just done a good thing, but all I could think about was the reasons why I had let myself go like I had and how bad I was for doing that. My husband pointed out that this seems to be becoming a pattern whenever I try to exercise, and of course, has prevented me from keeping on going with it. Hopefully this 5K goal at the end will prevent me from quitting.

I'm going to attempt to keep up a blog while I do this. Right now, after a good shower, some encouraging words from my husband and a cup of coffee I feel fine. My body feels worked out, but not sore and I feel optimistic.