A major miracle

Yep, that's what it is - a miracle - one I honestly never thought would happen.....

I have started running. 

Actual running - one foot in front of the other, faster-than-I-can-walk kind of running. 

I have never been fit - even at school I was always rubbish at PE and once I left I did nothing more energetic than walking until I spent a summer working on an archaeological dig (where I met Mr Locket) when I was pick-axing and shovelling and pushing wheelbarrows all day (and bought my first pair of size 12 jeans, and tucked my shirt in for the first time in years!)  So that was probably the slimmest and fittest I have ever been.

Anyway, I digress! 

I'm overweight.

Officially "obese".

And at 16 stone 8.5lbs I decided enough was enough and went back to Slimming World.

That was in April last year and since then I have lost just over 2 stone.

It was more, but Christmas had a rather negative effect on my dieting and I gained 9lbs. I've lost 4lbs of that over January and am now at 14 stone 3.5lbs so I have lost a total of 2 stone 5lbs.

But I still wasn't doing anything about my general fitness other than walking - and even then I wasn't doing that as much as I had been in the summer - but I kept "thinking" about running and wishing I could do it.  Mr Locket runs regularly and I am always envious of him for his ability to get on and run.

The first step was to buy some running shoes so I found a cheap pair (in case I only ever ran once) and Dot and I went out for our first run/walk.  We went out for 45 minutes and went 2.8 miles but it was walking with very short spurts of running whenever I felt I could manage it for as long as I thought I could do (not very long).

I then did nothing for another 6 days but in the meantime I had read domesticali's post about trying the C25K NHS programme - and it sounded difficult but do-able and as Dot was encouraging me to go out again we downloaded the first podcast and set off for the first run last Saturday.

I'm not going to lie.  It was HARD going.  The first week has you walking for 5 minutes (easy) then running for 60 seconds interspersed with 90 seconds of walking.  Now I know that SOUNDS easy and probably IS easy for a relatively fit person.  But I am several stone overweight and very unfit and I found it really difficult.  60 seconds seemed like an awfully long time (much longer than I had been running the first time I went out) and I was hugely relieved at the end of each minute.  But I did it all and survived and had the 5 minute walk at the end to cool down and get my breath back.

But golly did my legs hurt?!  My shins were so sore - but a friend who is a physiotherapist said that it would be a good idea to take ibuprofen and to do a few stretches.  Poor Mr Locket must have been totally sick of me complaining how much my legs hurt - fortunately he's a very patient man ;o)

The really amazing thing was that Dot and I went out AGAIN on Monday night. So it wasn't just a one off.  I was actually going to try to do this running thing.

And I even found it easier the second time - although my legs still hurt incredibly afterwards - like cramp down the front of my legs.

Then we went AGAIN on Thursday night. So that was the 3rd repetition of week 1 of the podcast.

Now it was time to move on to week 2 - with increased running periods - which was really scary.  Week 1 had been hard enough.

Then this afternoon Dot and I just decided to go for it - even though it was snowing and freezing cold.  The programme for week 2 had walking for 5 minutes to start then running for 90 seconds with 2 minutes of walking in between.  And once again I survived it.  And once again my legs were in agony when I got home so I sat in a warm bath for an hour until they started to feel a bit better!

Initially I had just gone out running in the clothes I was wearing that day - just changing into running shoes.  Almost as if I wasn't really doing this running thing - wasn't admitting that it was really happening.  Then on Thursday I bought myself some jogging bottoms - but when I ran in them that night I found that they were a bit too loose around the waist and I had to run with one hand holding them up!  So today I bought myself some more - this time with a tie round the waist so I could tighten them and they were much better and this time Dot downloaded the podcast directly to my phone so I didn't have to cope with the idiosyncrasies of Mr Locket's geriatric mp3 player.

Each time it is a real effort to make myself actually do it but once I'm out with Dot I do enjoy running and I am SO impressed with myself.  It may seem to be a small achievement - at the best I have only run for 90 seconds at a time - but I have had 40 years of being fairly idle and thought that's how I would stay.  To be able to say that I have been running 4 times over the last week is amazing. 

I really think I can do this. 

And I will be so proud of myself if I keep on going. 

I'm never going to be skinny and super-fit but I would be very, very happy to be slimmer and fitter. 

And feeling better about myself is all part of getting better from the horrible anxiety and depression that knocked me down last year.

Now I don't expect anyone to read this blog but I wanted a place to record my achievements - however small they are.

Lucy