I went to see my ten year old nephew Zak yesterday.
He is really good at football and can keep the ball up in the air for ages. He's good both in goal, does great diving saves and scores a lot when playing with school teams.
I, on the other hand was never sporty. I preferred to read when I was younger, and could devour a book in a day.
He rolls his eyes at my pathetic attempts to score goals against him, I very very occasionally save them when in goal although I'm scared of the ball, he kicks SO hard! and then runs rings around me when I try to tackle him (lash out blindly with my foot).
We went to a place called "goal" one of those outdoor astroturf areas with netting all around and overhead so that the ball can't escape.
Four months ago I wasn't exactly unfit, but I would run around and huff and puff, and think to myself "I'm getting too old for this". We would often be out playing for several hours.
After months of running c25k I glided and floated around the pitch with ease, nothing felt difficult. It was a nice surprise how much had changed. I hadn't really thought about other benefits of the running although I know I can run a couple of miles now without any real effort which is crazy.
Zak then got bored of scoring against his rubbish Uncle Simmy and so we went to Freedome which is an indoor trampoline place, for one and a half hours of bouncing around and doing flips into a giant airbag.
Again I felt fine, very hot though, trampolining is hard work, I must have burned off loads of calories. I thought I might be aching a lot today but my finely honed athletic physique seems grateful for the exercise and things seem so much easier now...