A long long time ago...

About a year ago, on the 3rd July 2013, I wrote the following blog post.  I was about to enter my first ever organised 10k race and I wanted to set out why I had taken up running.

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

Running up that hill.

I'll admit it.  I'm not getting any younger and I'm certainly not getting any fitter.  Quite the reverse in fact.  That I haven't managed to any sustain any kind of exercise regime since I was 18 hasn't helped matters.  Before going to university I used to play Rugby Union, but I didn't fancy getting involved in the "Uni Club" lifestyle.  Instead I started making serious inroads into developing a drinking habit.

I've had the odd dalliance back into getting fit but nothing ever stuck.  I joined a gym and went a couple of times.  I only found out that it had closed down when I went to cancel my membership.  I bought badminton rackets and shuttlecocks but I didn't really look too hard to find an opponent.  I did manage to lose some weight after somebody mistook me for Jack Black but that was through diet not exercise.

I am an avid sports fan, but exercise for the sake of it just isn't something that inspires me.  Then, last summer, I had an epiphany.  We had had some friends visiting for the weekend with their little girl.  It had turned into a nice afternoon so we took a trip to the park to let the tiddlers run off some steam before bed time.  We also took a football with us, admittedly for the benefit of the dads and not the children.

After twenty minutes or so kicking the ball around I was in a mess.  My son, not even two at this point, on the other hand, still had energy to burn.  I know it's hard to believe but I was a child once myself.  I knew that running around, a lot, is one of the things that children do best.  I also knew that in my condition I was in no shape to run around for long periods of time without keeling over.  I needed to do something about my lack of fitness before it was called on.

The London Olympics came and went and I still hadn't done anything about getting fit.  The memory of that day in the park was still vivid in my mind, but I didn't want to become a gym bunny and the thought of humiliating myself in front of strangers if I joined a sports club terrified me.  If I was going to do this I was going to have to do it myself.

I decided to start running.  I've been known to mock joggists in the past, but I needed to do something or face a lifetime of fat gags from my son*.  I asked around and took some advice, the most important piece of which was to spend some money on a pair of running shoes.  There were two reasons for this. The first was the advice.  If I started running in my battered old trainers I'd probably injure myself and stop running as soon as I started.  The second was the thought of an expensive pair of trainers taunting me every time I saw them unused.

A few months down the line, I'm about to take part in my first 10K.  I'm not ready for it by a long way.  I'd wanted to set a decent time but I'll settle for finishing and not being humiliated.  It's the thought of future summers running around with my son that will get me across the line.  I'm also raising money for Bliss, the premature baby charity, but that is for a different post.

*probably the same fat gags I levelled at my dad and he wasn't fat.