C25K, Week 1: "Awkward!"

There’s something remarkably strange about those first few times you set out on any sort of fitness programme. In my head, healthy things were done by healthy people, and I am NOT one of those people. I can picture them leaping dynamically out of bed and doing a hundred pushups before they even have a coffee, then standing under a cold shower to wash away the buckets of perspiration they’ve worked up being SO VERY VERY ATHLETIC!

"NIKE: Just do it!" Do I REALLY have to?

I always feel a bit of a fraud putting on my moth eaten yoga pants and Primark zippy top, struggling halfway around the block before I’ve found a suitable pocket to stuff my phone in where it won’t fall out and smash at the tiniest hint of a gentle bouncing jog. (Truth is, there isn’t one: I just stuff it down my bra. Works wonders.)

It was comforting setting out in the darkness for this early part of the programme. I have yet to earn my place among the lycra-clad veterans of the pavement and it was probably best that I be left to haul my pasty, podgy frame around the block under cover of darkness. It also made me feel as though I had got up early for my run, whereas actually it’s just that it’s January in England and the sun doesn’t rise until about three o’clock in the afternoon.

Starting the programme at the beginning second time around was strangely easy and difficult at the same time. Reverting back to only short spells of running with many rests seemed like no exercise at all but I was clearly also very out of practice. It will take a LOT to get back up to that level.

Here goes nothing!