Occasion 1: While in my second year at university, I decided I wanted to run. I bought shoes and running kit (I honestly had nothing to run in otherwise, but I do admit to being hugely motivated by new kit in any new enterprise. To my shame). I got up early one morning and snuck out. I was so nervous of people seeing me, particularly my housemates, but also all other human beings. I think I made about 5 minutes, all the while thinking: this is just incredibly hard! I didn't run again for years, although I used my kit going to aerobics classes at the gym, which in pre-ipod days was probably much more fun anyway.
Occasion 2: While rowing fairly seriously at Second University, I decided to add in running. Never really thought about starting slow (For someone quite bright, I can be a really slow learner). This worked fairly well, and I think I kept it up throughout the remainder of my time at uni, at least until I had to write up my thesis. At that point I decided - given limited time and motivation - that I would bribe myself to work as many hours per day as it took to finish on time, as I had a job to go to. This took stopping exercising and eating a lot of food. Breaking up with Serious Boyfriend Number 3 probably also didn't help.
Occasion 3: Having started the job and been made redundant, I took on a range of awful short term jobs, which also didn't help with stopping me eating too many cakes and chocolate. At one point, I know I weighed the most I have ever weighed. Definitely overweight, though thankfully not obese. During a job in Stroud, I decided I had to get back on the exercise wagon, and both started rowing again (back in London) and running. I can still remember just how awful that first run was, alongside a canal near my office in Stroud. However, the nice thing about exercising and rowing in particular at this point in my life was that the weight just fell off.
Occasion 4: Rowing treated me well, although I was never more than nearly fast. When I finally quit because honestly it took every weekend over, I carried on running. I think it was about this point that I bought the wonderful Runners Handbook by Bob Glover and took myself through his intermediate training programme. This book, bits of which I probably know off by heart ('Run like a pig') cheered me through the awful parts of trying to run faster, and made me feel like a real runner for the first time. Although bits of it are probably a bit out of date, I would still recommend it to anyone.
Occasion 5: Never really stopped running, but never got into a proper rhythm. Then did the thing lots of people do (after meeting the Fiancé, although obviously he wasn't that then) and decided to run a marathon. I used Bob Glover's plans fully to do this, and ran the Rotterdam Marathon in 2008. Not fast, but finished. At some point in training, my hips, particularly the RH one, began to seize up after running more than about 10 miles. This carried on through the marathon itself. I never resolved what the problem was, although I now think it was probably to do with having very weak glutes. It just always felt like they needed to go 'click' but I couldn't ever figure what to do to make that happen.
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| Running the Rotterdam Marathon, as I head back over the Maas. Not doing too badly at this point, which I think was about halfway. Hips just beginning to hurt... |
Occasion 6 and 7: Both times did a proper Couch to 5k for the first time, which was an eye-opener ('I'm not meant to go all-out as long as I can?') but then fertility treatment got in the way. Anyone who has ever gone through stimulation prior to egg collection will know why. There is no running to be done when your ovaries have swollen approximately to the size of large oranges, and you can feel them bouncing around.
Going to stop there, as this is a horrendously long post already, and best broken into two parts.
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