Running

Saturday I decided to finally get out of my fat arse and actually do some kind of exercise. When I moved to Birstall I noticed there was a Running Club, literally, a few yards down the road and I wanted to be part of it as I had been playing regular football anymore. But it was like, I 'll join, I'll join but you just never do.

Given recent events, changes and transformations, big or small, since my birthday I've been rethinking and addressing certain things in my life. Work included. One of them was to get out of the house. On Saturday I finally rang the Running Club, the lady scared me as the standard they weer expecting seemed quite high and quite daunting and I thought I would have to do a lot more work on my own first. We chatted for a while and we agreed that I would come in on Monday and give it a go.

To test myself and not feel really bad, I got up early on Sunday, beautiful morning, and went for a quick run down to the village, which was very pleasant. At the end I ran back for about 11 minutes and I thought that was my limit, and that I would feel less bad on Monday.

Today I went through with it, I had been looking forward to it up to the moment I put my shoes on and then I was dreading it. I had no real idea of what to expect, how far I could do it because playing football is so different and I had even done that for ages and meeting these complete strangers was quite scary in a way.

But I did. The lady i spoken to on Saturday, Angie, was very very patient, and she assured me that as she had just come back form an injury she would run with me and to pay no mind to others. She was terrific, always encouraging me, I actually did not feel that bad at all, and I coped a lot better than I expected. More than that, I must have ran about 5 times what I had done on Sunday to the point that Angie admitted she didn't even expect to have done much today and that she was really surprised with me. Not as surprised as I was!!! About an hour later with only two or three stops we finally got back to the club and I was quite elated. Of course, having someone telling you all the way, for about an hour, how well you are doing and how determined you are helps a lot.

So thanks to Angie, and Tom and Angie's husband for being so nice and making me feel welcomed.

I am now doing exercise!! My chest feels a bit tight to be honest, I don't know how legs will be tomorrow, but all I care now is hoping I will be ok to return Friday. I am excited and pleased to have taken this step. (M I hope you're proud of me, you've been telling me to this for years!)

P