Since January, since I started on my desire to lose at least a stone of weight from my 'edging towards later life' body, you know, the time when most stuff begins to head south in search of your feet and things are not quite as elastically pingy as they used to be...well, since then I've been at the gym. But then a good friend of mine drew me over to the dark side of life, the side where upon I get up at silly times of the day and haul my frequently tired and lead laden legs around a field several times, or I choose to stand in the cold making life changing decision about my attire on a Sunday morning, debating should I run in a base layer or not.
This is 'running'!
Although, it is debated as to whether what I actually do can be classified as actual 'running' and not more of a slightly speeded up form of jogging. Either way, I'm not sure I really mind.I know that the purists may argue this with me and I can indeed see their point, after all, if you wear padded lycra shorts and muddy fox attire, swing your leg over what is these days called a 'road bike' (yup, what happened to the good old fashioned Raleigh racers...I now own a 'road bike' and it's more like a tightrope on wheels!) are you no less a cyclist if your speed takes you under a certain distance per minute?
If you strap your canoe to the roof of your car on a bank holiday Monday and head off on the M40 to a local boating lake or one of the many local canals, but you prefer to cruise leisurely through the waterways rather than bombing around as if you're doing slalom, are you no less a canoeist?
How about all those bloody slow lane swimmers? Maybe they're really drowning, but doing it in style, therefore we should think of a name for them too?
Anyway, I really don't care if you call me a runner or a jogger, this new found hobby/sport is keeping my busy and happy and fit. Whereas four years ago when I first ran 10K in Edinburgh it was a HUGE thing, my regular weekend race is now a 10K race and I'm working up to challenge myself to the Brighton half marathon in February. One of the things I love about doing this is the mental hurdles that it causes me to overcome. The voice inside my head who visits me about halfway in telling me to stop, give up, walk, go home...the fact I can beat that voice and make my body do what I want it to do (within age-realistic reason, I am over 40, that isn't going to go away!) rather than accepting that my body is taking over me. Personality wise I have a tendency not to stick at things that take longer than I want to achieve results, or I can take forever to finish a project or if I think I'm not going to be fantastic at it, I quit. The brilliance of running is that the only person you're in competition with is yourself. You 'have' to finish what you've started, particularly in a race, the drive, the crowd, the ...er...bling...(not superficial at all), the calorie loss, the muscle tone, it's a win-win.So, I apologise if you are bored listening to me prattle on on facebook about personal bests or running conditions. I apologise profusely if you're Mo Farrah (the actual RUNNER!) reading this (he pops in here a lot you know!). I also apologise if I answer the door these days in some rather awkwardly placed padded lycra or you pass me lolloping down the road when you're in your car with my rather heavy over pronounced gait that makes me look like an absorbalof being consumed by the pavement (no, seriously...running/lolloping photos are NEVER attractive!). You can call me a jogger, I won't mind, you can ask me why I bother to run and I'll tell you all the above, you can tell me that my sport can only possibly be a hobby because I'm hardly an athelete and I'll tell you I'm happy I have a hobby/sport after many years of wondering why these nutters did this kind of stuff...I'm happy to be a nutter with them all (if not a slightly slower jogging/lolloping/pootling/healthier one!!)
