When would NOW be a good time to start!

Eeeek. Not to be put off, I checked that my crazy idea was OK with my Doctor then bought The Penguin’s books to read, running gear including shoes and went for a jog in the gym on a running machine. Twenty minutes later I had every pain known to man in my butt, hip, back, knees, hamstrings, Achilles, and the heels of my feet! Hmm no fun!! But I persevered. I managed to run 2 miles at a pace of 12 min / mile each time I went to the gym but always had some discomfort somewhere. I spent more time doing yoga and stretching after a run than I actually spent running – this didn’t seem right! I started to lose motivation – this hurts too much!! But I was determined!

After a few weeks of running on the treadmill I ‘knew’ I was ready for the outside world!! So fully equipped with running gear and iPod I went for my first ‘run’ on the Monon at 12pm on a Saturday in 95 deg F heat (because I love the sun!!!). Well as you can imagine I proved that I wasn’t capable of running at all – every 10 meters I thought I would collapse – I couldn’t work out where all the ‘other’ runners were – eventually I went home and had to lie down – then woke up 4 hours later feeling very sore, groggy, pissed off and demotivated! When I relayed my failure to colleagues at work I received comments of sympathy mixed with stupidity – but hey I thought I knew it all.

A tad more educated and still determined I paid closer attention to the weather conditions and started to log my efforts and was averaging 13:35 min mile avg but as time went on the pace wasn’t getting any better and I just started to lose all motivation. “I’ll never be ready for the mini at this rate and I refuse to walk it!”