Running has taken me by surprise, in a couple of ways, so I would like to share my story with you.
I hated sports at school, my reports always said C - could try harder, I think my sports teacher despaired of me to be honest. I was always the fat kid who got picked last. I hated PE and sports day with a passion. I think I was the only person pleased in my second year when we were punished (because no-one would own up to putting someone's coat down the toilet) and had to stay instead doing sums instead of taking part in sports day.
{side note: I do think she was somewhat of a sadist as she did take great delight in tearing everyone's work up and putting it in the bin when we were told we could go}
Fast forward to my twenties and I have managed to put on a few more stone, and exercise is certainly not on my agenda. My friend asks me to be her bridesmaid. My two inital thoughts were to be touched that she had asked me but also what the hell was I going to look like in the photos?!
So I decided to join a gym - had my induction and went quite religiously, I lost a couple of stone for the wedding and although I was in the over-weight category I had managed to lose a couple of stone.
I think I spent the majority of my twenties, yo-yoing - I'd attend the gym for a while and probably lose a bit of weight, then lose enthusiasm or get off track and it would come back on again.
Fastforward to 2 years ago and myself and friend decided to do Race for life (purely in a walking capacity). We walked it in an hour (apart from the last 100 yds we did run but that was mainly because we were embarrased and also because the last person to the ice-cream van paid!)
I did joke that I might run it the following year but I might have mentioned it to too many people as last April I suddenly realised that if I was going to run it I had better get some training in!!
So I printed myself off a training plan and started to run on the treadmill - I think I managed ten minutes of running/walking a minute and though I was going to die - but I got better. I managed to run at a continous pace for a couple of miles so I was feeling quite confident when it came to running my second race for life last year.
The day came and I was starting to feel frustrated as a)I had the remains of a cold that would not go away and b)it was raining. I was also very nervous about running it on my own. But as it happened I got talking to someone and we ran. I found it hard going but finished it in about 40 minutes.
I decided to sign up for a longer run and signed up for an 8K run in Windsor - in the September, giving me another couple of months to train for this. So, I was back on the treadmill - at one point I managed to clock up 6 miles on the treadmill. I think it's safe to say I was feeling pretty confident.
Race Day arrived, it was a lovely day - everyone lined up - as we set off I was feeling quite elated, running for about 5 minutes until I got a stitch, I had completely misjudged how fast I should be running at and the fact it was up a hill. I walked/ran but struggled for a while and eventually got round (with the help of a kind lady who gave me words of encouragement) and finished in 1:04 ...
I had a bit of an epiphany - running outside was a completely different kettle of fish to running on the treadmill, and my training wasn't going to prepare me for these races. I had to run outside - but I had a bit of a phobia about it.
To be honest, my training trailed off after that - it got colder, I could think of more reasons to not go to the gym - commuting into London was taking its toll - and the weight came piling back on.
Fastforward to April this year - and most of the weight I had lost had come piling back on (lack of exercise, poor eating) but I finally managed to conquer my fear of running outside.
I found a website that meant you could plot a route so I plotted myself a route that was 1.5 miles and decided to give it a go. I ran for a bit (nearly collapsed) walked for a bit, ran for a bit and so on ...
I felt quite good about it - I wouldn't say I enjoyed it so much, but felt quite virtous!
I plotted myself a longer route, I christened the KFC run, mainly because it was a circuit and the cross roads at the furthest point had KFC on the corner.
I started running regularly 2-3 times a week, early in the morning - I was finding that I was still run/walking - largely governed by my heart rate- if it seemed to be getting high I'd walk for a bit until it came down and then ran a bit.
I subscribed to Runners World - partly because I wanted to read all the articles on the website and on the recommendation of some runners on the website bought a book called Heart Rate Monitor Training for the Complete Idiot - it certainly appealed to me.
It was a completely different way of going about it - what it was telling me to do was to spend the majority of my training sessions on easy runs, and one day a week do a hard run - train and improve injury free said the book. I liked the sound of that.
So - I worked out the figures - I took my maximum heart rate as being the highest I had reached when I first got my heart rate monitor (being 191) and added my resting heart rate to work out my "recovery run" ceiling - i.e. the figure I shouldn't go over - in my Case 152.
The next morning I set off, confident that this was going to really good, the book warned that runners would be frustrated, but my theory was that I was such a slow runner I wouldn't have this problem.
WRONG, oh so wrong. To keep myself under this ceiling I had to keep walking, even if it was only for a few seconds, it was incredibly frustrating. But the book had warned of this, so I kept with it - I spent a couple of weeks doing this training and I found it incredibly difficult.
Then one morning in June, as an experiment, I decided to see how high my heart rate would go if I just ran at a slow steady pace, so off I set - at a steady pace that felt comfortable - and my heart rate went over 152 - and levelled at around the 160 mark, because I wasn't worrying about the numbers, just running, I was able to loose myself in my thoughts and the music on my ipod and as I ran along the green (about 2/3 into my run) I suddenly realised I was enjoying it ....
What a revelation that was!!
I do plan to go back to the heart rate monitor training, and perhaps see if my max HR is higher than I thought it was, and follow it properly - but at the moment I am just enjoying running.
I never, ever, thought I would say that. But I am finding a release in the running, getting past the toxic 20 (when my body realises that I am not going to stop and just lets me get on with it) is letting me let go of some of my frustrations.
I am so glad that I took that first step to run outside instead of keep training on the treadmill.
