Thursday 20th August, 2009

I went for my first run this morning. Ever.

Lia’s been running most mornings for a while now. “Get up,” she says to me, “Come for a run, you’ll enjoy it.” She’s training for a charity run in October – see her website if you’d like to donate at

http://www.run10ksponsorme.org/liaparkinson

- so she’s getting pretty good at it.

Anyway, this morning, I decided to give it a try, as Diane, her usual running partner, is on holiday.

I liked the bit that Lia calls “the warm up.” This involves walking (I’m good at that) to the Rose & Crown in the village (I’m very good at that).

But then you have to do the running bit. I started off OK, but then Lia began to get ahead, and I became very conscious of all my fatty bits jiggling about, which then made me realise how unfit I was, and then my legs started to hurt, and the vicious cycle continued until I had to stop. I’d gone about fifty yards.

Lia jogged on ahead, then eventually turned around and jogged back to me, lending words of encouragement such as “not so hard is it?”. I would have answered if I’d had any breath left.

The really difficult bit was when we met people on the path, and I had to try to look cool and know what I was doing as we approached them. I got a bit of satisfaction by putting on an extra sprint and overtaking Lia just as we got level with them, then turning back and shouting “try to keep up!!” to her, at the top of my voice. 

Then there was the cool down, which involved a walk home from the Rose & Crown (I’m not so good at this under any circumstances).

Then back to bed for a couple of hours.

I can’t actually move at the moment, as everything’s seized up.

But I might try it again tomorrow morning.