Use it or lose it

 In 2019, at the tender age of sixty four, I did the Couch to 5K programme, a running programme on an app designed to take you from no running at all (i.e. the couch!) to running for 30 minutes without stopping.  I think the 5k is a bit of a misnomer as very few people who go through the programme end up running 5k in the 30 minutes at which the programme aims.

I had never been a runner, never been sporty at all.  At school I specialised in sloping off from all sporting activity and sitting in the sun by the tennis courts with a book, joining in at the last minute by apparently returning from the toilets.  As an adult I learned that I loved walking and yoga or Pilates.  It was apparently ball sports or organised games that I didn't like.  I did actually enjoy physical activity if it was the right physical activity.   I only started couch to 5k because Ian was doing it, having committed himself, after a glass or two of wine, to running a half marathon with our elder daughter in Cardiff.  He used to be sporty, a good footballer and an even better tennis player, and he used to run.  He remains pretty fit and active but he hadn't run for a long time.  I said I would do the running programme at the same time partly to show solidarity and partly because I was curious to know if I could. 

And astonishingly, although I found it hard as hard can be, I could do it and I did do it and I came to enjoy the slow and gentle solitary jogging which followed.  I never dared to stop because I was pretty sure that if I lost the hardwon fitness I would not do it again but in late summer last year I had to stop for a while when my blood pressure went haywire so I had about three months without any running at all.  Now the blood pressure is sorted and I thought I would try to return to running.  I had put on a few pounds during the more sedentary period and I had had my seventieth birthday.  I thought if I didn't get back to running soon I never would.  It would become one of those things that I used to do.  I didn't want to lose it, so back I went, returning to the very beginning again.  Could I do it?

It was nothing like as hard as I remembered from that first time six years ago which surprised me.  I am older, surely it would be harder?  But I must have developed some sort of increased baseline fitness over those years when I pottered gently around the lanes because it has proved to be doable.  I think I am a little slower even than I was then but I will take that.  It is a nine week programme although if you like you can take longer about it than that and this time I have done.  I have just finished week seven of the programme, taking two weeks rather than one for each stage.  That has included a couple of breaks with some sort of health set back like a cold or a stomach upset but I suspect that taking it so slowly is part of why I have not found it too hard.  That having been said, this morning's run was supposed to be my first time of running for twenty eight minutes without a walking break.

I did not want to go.  If it had been a case of waiting until I felt like running there is no way I would have gone out of the door but one of the things that last time did teach me is just to go.  Decide to go, put it in the diary, get up and put my running clothes on, go, even if I am grumping my way out of the door.

This morning was bright but cold.  I went back upstairs to put on a second pair of leggings and another lightweight fleece.  The five minute warm up walk began and it was good to be outside.  Birds were hopping in the hedges.  The wind was cold but the sky was blue.  Jo Whiley told me to start to run so off I went, slowly, easily.  I felt surprisingly good.  Getting towards the halfway mark I began to flag but I realised that if I added another two or three minutes on before turning for home I would be at a little churchyard which a friend has been telling me about.  There should be snowdrops.  The lane sloped gently down.

And there was the church, with snowdrops and daffodils just beginning to show.

The view across the vale is perfect.

I allowed myself a moment's pause to look inside.

And I arrived home bouncing with the sheer pleasure of being able to run again.  I might have to incorporate more interesting places to run to as a destination!