My journey to running – and not – and back again!
I am not a sporty female. I have never been a sporty female. Schooldays consisted of waiting in terror for the next PE lesson: oh, I can still vividly remember the horrors of the summer term with athletics twice a week. Although now I think of it, gymnastics in the winter term bumps athletics into second place. All I need say to you all is.… ‘leotard’.
I gaily spent my twenties and thirties being as idle as possible, until the realization hit, at the ripe old age of 39, that I was unfit as f**k and about to hit my fifth decade on this planet. I felt, as a nearly 40 year old woman, conflicted in my desire to be fitter, to be slimmer, to be the ‘yummy mummy’. What to do? I literally hated all types of fitness – I dabbled with aerobics, got on a bike from time to time, went to the gym occasionally – but nothing lasted, nothing gave me those ‘endorphin highs’ that were promised by those in the know, and nothing really clicked.
For me, the motivation was doing something for someone else…and a date specific goal! A couple of friends had signed up for the Breast Cancer Race for Life and it gave me the push I needed. I had a couple of months to prepare and, while googling training plans, I came across Couch to 5k. What a gamechanger that was! I think the beauty of Couch to 5k is it’s utter simplicity and achievability. And then the bug bit. What started as a 5k goal moved onto a 10k, and a year or so later my first half marathon. What I didn’t realise at the time was the positive effects running was having on my mental health. I had always suffered badly from PMS, with low mood and mood swings being part of my daily life. It is only as I look back now I can see how my mental health improved along with my physical health. And then life got in the way. A bursitis in my foot curtailed the longer distances. Work stepped up a gear with a new job. Two teenage sons and their needs (although I love them to pieces) ate away at my spare time. Excuses, excuses. I know.
The ten years that followed were a running free zone. Gradually my mental health declined. I piled on weight. I wasn’t happy or sad, I was numb. A move to SE Asia brought it all to a head: moving away from my friends and family, leaving the job I loved, renting our house out to strangers. It was all too much. It took a couple of years for me to take that step back towards mental and physical fitness. It started with walking in the jungle - snakes, monkeys, creepy-crawlies and all – and then Couch to 5k on a running machine. No way was I running in 80% humidity. (I did, once. Only once.)
Our return to the UK saw me 2 stone lighter, new job and new city on the horizon. Oh and lockdown. There was a lot of walking that winter! Springtime felt like the right time to refocus on my wellbeing (don’t get me started on menopause) and I decided to do Couch to 5k again. The stars must have aligned in the heavens because somehow, somewhere, I saw that this running club GFR were running the Couch to 5k programme starting the following month (to this day I can’t remember where I saw that), and the rest, as they say, is history. Culminating in the GFR Couch to 5k Star award. Oh yes. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Edinburgh Half Marathon here I come!
DONATE
This week, we're also celebrating IWD by raising money for Refuweegee, which is a Glasgow based charity that welcomes people to Glasgow and the rest of Scotland who have been forcibly displaced from all over the world. Our JustGiving Page is here: