Starting off in running

Well, this is new.

I (being a luddite as far as the interweb is concerned) only became aware of blogging in the last month or so.

I followed some links to ultra runner blogs & signed up myself purely to follow other blogs (lurking is a new phrase for me, but that is what i was doing until i worked out what it was all about).   I then discovered some very reassuring & uplifting blogs by people with diabetes and I was hooked (my daughter was diagnosed as type 1 diabetic last september and it has changed a lot about how i see things).

I am, to put it mildly, a recreational runner, scratch that, jogger.    Two years ago I was over 16 stone, tending to high blood pressure, very unfit and always exhausted.    Today I'm 2 stone lighter (it was 3 but one snuck back on!!!), healthy blood pressure, quite a bit fitter, and still always exhausted (you cant have everything).

Up till then I had never run in my life, apart from during the odd football or hurling game.  The last serious exercise I did was twenty years ago when I cycled a bit and played hurling (badly).     Then, in August 2009, I met a group of old friends for the first time in years for a few drinks.    Two of the lads had gotten into serious marathon running and looked great.     They bet the other 4 or 5 of us to compete in the 10k Santa Run that December in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.

I dug out an old pair of runners (at least 10 years old and last used for painting the house) and started off a few mornings a week trying to run around the block of houses where I live.    The location was picked for ease of retreat, the time was picked for ease of concealment.   With a lot of wobbling and sounds of desparate gasping I managed about 400 meters that first day before having to walk.

This continued with small increments of distance  over the course of quite a number of weeks and I have to admit I only persevered to avoid the ignominy of being the first to drop out.

But all thru this I remembered the most important thing anyone new to running should remember.   My friend had mentioned that for the first 2 months of starting to run its absolute agony, then your body learns how to breathe and run at the same time and you suddenly have the ability to increase the distances.  Had he not given me this pearl I am sure I would have given up long ago.

I made it to the starting line on a frosty December morning and completed my first 10k - and boy did it feel good.   As it happend I was the only one of the newbies to make it that far and all I wished was that I could get the other fellas to feel how great it is to run that distance.

Since then I've been increasing the distances and have done a few 10 milers and half marathons, but have struggled with injuries all along (who'd have thought trying to do distance running would be difficult after half a lifetime as a couch potato).

I was training for the Kildare marathon this year and got to week 15 of an 18 week training plan before having to stop thru injury, basically my knee gave up on me, but after 3 weeks of no running I had enough residual fitness to do a PB in the half of 1hr59min45secs - yippee, sub 2 hours is sub 2 hours no matter how slim the margin (although come to think of it shouting yippee for 2 hours sums up the measure of my ambitions).

I'm writing this blog as it is now just over 18 weeks to Dublin & I think its time to give it another whack.  

Lets see how this goes.......