Exercise, Excuses and Energy

I am not a natural when it comes to exercise. I always dreaded P.E. at school and I'd rather have been on the chess team than the netball team. It didn't matter what sport it was - I wasn't interested.

I have joined a few gyms in my time - always with good intention. The cross-trainer was my go-to machine and I'd spend 40 minutes sweating my face off on it and then head home.

I did classes (Legs, Bums and Tums; Total Body; Circuit Training; Body Pump) quite regularly at one point, but as soon as I moved away the classes became a thing of the past.

And then I met a boy. A boy that liked to run. To run for fun. The thought of running for more than 30 seconds brought me out in a cold sweat and I couldn't think of anything worse than running for 13.1miles of pain just to get a medal at the end. He was quite determined to get me to try though, following plans here and there and eventually persuading me on to a treadmill.

So thank you, Mr Runner for pushing me when I needed to be pushed.

I would not say that I was a good runner. Nor a strong runner. Not even a fast runner.

But I don my headphones, my running tights and gloves and can cover a distance not to be shrugged at. Granted, it's often not more than 5kilometres - but I can actually run for more than 20 minutes without dying. If you are an iPhone user I strongly recommend the C25k app. I only downloaded it about a week ago and have used it 3 times in that time.

 (Please don't judge me by my taste in music - I always find pop music gets me moving)

It lets you select the music you wish to listen to (from your iTunes) and then plug in and go! A lovely man (or woman if you so wish) will tell you when to start running after your warm up and when you are half way through, and when you have a certain number of minutes to go etc, You can then record how you felt about the run too.

I am aiming (as you may have seen in this post) to run a 10k at some point in late 2011. I'd like to be able to do it in less than an hour (please don't laugh). 

So I am quitting. Quitting on the excuses.

I could find excuses from anywhere. I will only get there by training often and will only have myself to blame if I don't!

Paula Radcliffe watch out!!

Here is to fewer excuses, more running and a mountain of energy...