At Christmas 2017 I looked at my wife and said 'I just feel ill all the time, I'm not sure I'll make it through the next year'. As we have a pact that she is going first 😉, you will understand that she was somewhat annoyed. It didn't get much better through new year and the rest of winter, tummy troubles, over-weight, colds, all the usual stuff that plagues an old git in his 68th year. Mind you, I can't complain, I did retire when I was 52 (Now in 2nd Career... unpaid).
Come 22nd April 2018, I watched a young relative run the London Marathon as the culmination of his rehab from substance abuse (and he is still good, thanks), and I decided that I was going to try this running lark. A quick search on-line got me the NHS Couch to 5K app on my phone, and a dig through the boxes of junk found the earphones.
On Monday 23rd April I set out to try the first bit of running since leaving the 5th form at school in 1967. I managed the warm up okay 😅 but the rest was a disaster, the first 60 seconds I ran, the second 60 seconds I died, and the rest I just walked with my mouth wide gulping in air as if I had been hung by the neck until dead! Two days later, I was out again, got through the first 4 bouts of 60 seconds jogging, and walked the rest. But on the 3rd outing, I managed to stagger through all of the runs. I didn't do much for the rest of that day!
I decided to start again the next week, and this proved a good decision, as I was able to complete all the runs as ordered. There were lots of aches and pains, especially in the groin, but by the end of Week 1 Run 3 Attempt 2, I believed I could do it. Somewhere about week 4 I got a cold and missed a week, but I just picked it up again when I was better, and I noticed that I got better faster than usual.
Sometime along the way I discovered this website and community, and made my first post on 29th May, the day before Week 5 Run 2 - hey! I thought running 8 minutes was a challenge!!!! It has been a source of great support and a wonderful resource of hints, tips, and fashion advice 😉.
And I graduated by doing Week 9 Run 3 Friday 29th June 2018. Strava recorded it from my phone app, and says I did it in 30:54 minutes and ran 4.23km. Whoopeedo! 🍷🍺😅👏🙏👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣 (I like the feet best)
So then the inevitable "now what do I do?" On advice from here, I did a few weeks of consolidation runs, doing 30 minutes 3 times a week, and eventually tried a Parkrun in my local town of Keswick on 21st July. I was quite pleased to run the 5Km in only 36:20, I set my club to 'NHS Couch to 5K'.
A few weeks, and 4 Parkruns, later I started on JuJu's "10 is the Magic Number" program, and stuck to it for a bit, until I got too over-ambitious and hurt my knee running too fast downhill on the 7Km run in week 3. I never returned to JuJu's plan, but after the knee got better I did start to gradually extend my long runs out to 10Km. (1st time on the 3rd March this year.)
Today I ran the Keswick Parkrun for the 34th time, I still have not got my time under 30 minutes, my personal best is 30.11. One day I'll get it.
So what has running done for me? I am healthy, I get up in the morning looking for things to do, I smile a lot. I can't wait for Saturday and my Parkrun! I lost 9 kilos, mostly round the middle - and I'd like to lose another 3 or 4.
So if you are struggling with C25K, or contemplating starting it, or maybe just finished and wondering where to go next... that's my story so far, for what it's worth.
Whatever you do, don't give up. Running IS life.
Three minutes is such a long time! 
A YEAR OF RUNNING & WHAT A GREAT YEAR IT'S BEEN
W3R1 - aka jogging at a standstill or Laura, where the hell are you????
First Park Run (warning long-ish post) 
