Beginning Running

Hello Lovelies,
I've been thinking about blogging about my other hobby for some time now. I realise it's not going to be that interesting to a lot of you but I've decided I want to share my love of running this year
It's partly to inspire myself and record my feelings and maybe it could inspire a few of you too.

I will understand if you want to leave now ........... but do pop back soon for my latest crochet project...I'm writing a tutorial to go with it :0)

As you know I love lots of pictures in my posts so I did a little experiment when I was out running on a lovely sunny day  back in January . Would I be able to take pictures as I ran along ?  Amazingly the answer was yes :0)  I took loads and it was great fun. I see lots of great things when I go out and often wish I could share them with you or just take a picture for my own record.
So here are the least blurry .....along with some words ( maybe lots ) about my running journey so far.

Right, where to begin? Well, as a child I was in no way sporty, I hated P.E. with a passion and was a virtual non swimmer.I still hate competitive sports as I always get stressed out about letting the team down or making a fool of myself. That's not to say I hate exercise though.

Two years ago when  I started my little  blog  I was enjoying walking and wrote about it in posts like this.
The other fitness I did was the occasional aerobics class...step was my favourite...I enjoyed getting sweaty to some fun music .

Then in July 2010 I was talking to my friend who is a runner , saying I enjoyed walking but could not run...... I had tried a couple of times and quickly given it up as too strenuous and generally unpleasant . Her reply was " There is no reason why you can't run Jacquie...except in your head."
That really made me think . I am fortunate to be in good general health and my friend is a few years older than me, she only started running in her late forties. Maybe I should try again ?

So I started very gently. Just adding little jogs into my walks. Gradually , oh so gradually , increasing the time spent running.It was hard . Everything wobbled and I would be bright red and gasping for breath within a very short distance.But with reassurance/guidance from my friend I kept going.

After a few weeks I found this  and worked to the 5k training plan you can down load.
I went out every other day , just doing short jog/walks. I still couldn't attempt even a small hill but I was gradually getting better at running on the flat or downhill :0)

Eventually I felt ready to take part in a 3k fun run. Of course you don't need to take part in organised events at all but they are wonderful motivators. Knowing you have to be fit enough to cover a certain distance by a certain date really focuses you and the atmosphere on the day is great. They may be races but just enjoying the atmosphere is my main aim. I don't really care how long it takes me ...O.K. I would like improve in the future but it's not that important . I'm never going to be really fast , but I can still enjoy taking part.

So far I've completed two 10k  events ( that's 6.2 miles in case you were wondering). My highlight so far was my first half marathon ( that's 13 miles ) last Autumn . Thirteen miles ...THIRTEEN MILES ...it's a flippin long way to run don't you think ? But managing it gave me such a wonderful sense of achievement. I was on cloud nine . All those events were with my running friend for support.
I'm certain I would not have attempted such a big distance without her encouragement.
I don't tend to take risks or challenge myself very much so being able to run that far is a very positive thing for me.

How do I feel when I'm running these days.....well, sometimes really shattered !! sometimes bored to death ( I often plan blog posts in my head to distract myself ) but overall I really enjoy being able to finally do it ....the best bit for me is when you round a corner and see a beautiful view after miles of slog and get a wonderful elated feeling, you suddenly have loads of energy and feel like you are speeding along , well , relatively speeding :0)

This year I my running firsts will  ( hopefully) be completing a 10k then half marathon without my friend for support. My first solo 10k is coming up soon and I'm a bit concerned I will get my pace all wrong ....I don't want to get swept along with faster runners and then collapse before the end !

I'm also conscious I'm lucky to be healthy enough to enjoy running . So another big part of my motivation will be raising money for charity.Loosing my friend to cancer earlier this year gave me even more incentive to run for a cancer charity.

Well done if you stuck with this post .....I'm happy I recorded all this for my own reference in years to come. I do hope some of you found it interesting .
Jacquie x