I ran my first four miler yesterday and I hope there will be many more to come. It was definitely hard, there was a point about 3 miles in when I wondered what on earth I was doing and just wanted to be home but I stuck at it and got my second wind and then felt like I could have carried on longer. I only stopped as I had not planned any further route.

It’s now been going on four weeks and I still can’t run on it. It’s OK in general but as soon as I run on it the pain comes back and I have to stop and then I can hardly walk on it again for a few days.

So my running career is currently on hold and I definitely miss it, I was really enjoying it and was already planning my next goals after completing couch to 5k.

I am actually moving house on the 23rd so am going to have another few weeks off then hopefully pick it up again in my new location

Things were pretty strange the first few days and we did eat a lot of take away and general bad food but we quickly got back on track and I am pleased to say we are back to good healthy eating and I have even managed to lose a couple of pounds. I weight less than 9 stone for the first time in my entire life now

I have also got back into running, my knee plays up a little bit still sometimes but it’s not like it was – because of the gap in running I have gone backwards a bit and am having to build it back up again, but I hope to be back up to running for around 40 minutes soon enough.

Things are looking good.

It’s been two weeks today since I last attempted to run and I really wanted to give it another go today as I am moving out to a completely new area on Monday, so it was going to be my final chance to run my ‘old route’, it would have been nice to say goodbye to it. But alas while packing yesterday I aggravated it again and although I probably could run on it I feel it would be stupid to do so as I have a million and one things to do over the next few days and obviously don’t want to be in pain on moving day.

Sad

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous about what this is going to mean for my weight loss. Obviously I have all the best intentions for my diet and working out, but who knows how it’s going to actually turn out when I get into the swing of things down there. I am going to have a lot more responsibilities than I do now and I will be a lot busier.

Plus there’s still the issue that I still can’t run at the moment because of my twisted knee and I am finding it hard to motivate myself in other ways because all I want to do is RUN!

What I have decided though is there’s no point fretting about it, we’ll just have to see how it goes

I am going to do it twice more as that’s what the couch to 5k plan has you do before you can call yourself a graduate, but I am sure I will manage it. I found it relatively easy.

Don’t get me wrong, when the time came to stop I was very happy to be stopping, but I reckon if I’d had another 5 minutes to go I would have pushed through and managed it.

I am not sure what my next step is – should I start entering actual 5k runs, concentrate on trying to improve my time or seeing if I can run further? Decisions Decisions.

I’m a runner!

The weight gain was indeed not a ‘real’ weight gain and came straight back off and I picked up where I left off at Couch to 5k.

Today I completed week 6 day 3 – well I say completed, I didn’t follow it exactly to the letter. I was supposed to run for 25 minutes with no walking, but did 12.30 then walked for 1 minute and then ran for 14. I struggle so much to run without stopping at all – I feel like I can’t go on if I don’t just get that little break, and I don’t need long, just a minute or so and then I can run again – but at this stage I am apparently meant to be able to run for 25 minutes without stopping so that’s what I want to do!

Week 7 consists entirely of running 25 minutes each day so hopefully after 3 more attempts at it I will be able to master it. I am going to try run that little extra before taking a break each day.

I still dislike going out and having to do it in ‘public’, but I have discovered wearing a cap is a life saver – whenever there’s a bunch of people or cars or anything I don’t like I can just hide my eyes behind the cap and feel like I am invisible.

The main thing I dislike is when someone is going in the same direction I am – because I am an extremely slow walker/runner we often do a little dance where I run passed them, then they walk passed me while I am walking, then I run passed them, then they walk passed me while I am walking. It makes me feel stupid and embarrassed!

Using my own podcasts definitely helped so I made a week 3 one. Here it is for anyone who enjoyed the first

Couch to 5k Podcast – Week 3

Track Listing:

La Roux – In For The Kill
Cascada – Evacuate The Dancefloor
Ultrabeat – Use Somebody
Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love
Freemasons – Heartbreak
Pussycat Dolls – Jai Ho
Calvin Harris – I’m Not Alone
Britney Spears – Toxic
Sugababes – About A Girl
Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger

Yet every night come workout time I just hop on my elliptical or start up my DVD.

I want to run dammit.

I suppose it’s a combination of two things stopping me. Last year when I started it in October it really didn’t go well, I wasn’t wearing the correct clothes or trainers so hurt my shins badly and really overheated to the point I almost passed out and had to walk very slowly all the way home – I was lightheaded for days afterwards and could hardly walk on my poor shins. I decided that I’d wait until the spring/summer to try again when I had the proper gear and the weather was better.

There’s also the fact that even after 3 years on this journey I have still never actually worked out in public really, I still have major anxiety about being ‘the fat girl working out in public’ – I know in reality no one would look twice at me, but the idea of running all sweaty and gross passed people makes me nervous.

*Sigh*

Come on woman, grow some BALLS!

Ps. Visit this great Health Forum

I’ve probably spent 100s of hours working out of the last 2 years, but always alone and in my own home, so this was a major deal for me.

I went for a jog.

I hated it lol

I hated being out in public and I hated seeing people, in cars or otherwise. I made sure not to make eye contact with any one. It was also a lot harder than I thought, I only did around 1.3 miles and I had to walk most of it on the way back as I went light headed. My legs also really hurt today.

I really didn’t enjoy any thing about it, but I am going to give it a chance and do it a few more times least.