My First 5k Run

Yes, you read the title of that post right. I am over the moon because today I ran my first ever 5k. It's not the longest distance, but it might has well have been a marathon for how unlikely it seemed when I first started running in November last year.

Darling Husband and his sisters are both strong event runners, and it's been bothering me for a while that I was the lazy one! I do a fair amount of gym work but running has always been my bête noire- I wouldn't even go on the treadmill!

Yet last year, I made it one of my 2012 resolutions to tackle the demon, get running and drop those final few pounds that refuse to budge. So I started by doing the amazing Couch 25k podcasts at coolrunnings.com- - these I would highly recommend to any novice runners. They really help you get started and build up the time you can run for gently.

However, I have been stuck on week 5 since forever- first it was Christmas, then I've been feeling ill and fluey. Excuses excuses!

There's a group of people where I work who go on lunchtime runs everyday (who I've always been kind of intimidated by, tbh) and when one of them spotted me labouring away on the treadmill, he invited me to go out with them.

At first, I was too scared and kept putting it off, but today I thought- like Nike- just do it. Just. Bloody. Do. it. I stopped making excuses and went.

They very kindly slowed the pace a lot for me, but I did it!! They didn't tell me beforehand how far we were doing and it was only when we were on the home strait that I found out we'd done 5.8k.

So ridiculously pleased and proud that I've overcome the big mental barrier that was the looming 5k mark in my mind.

Feeling fired up and ready to take on the world now!