A Runner?….

Towards the end of last year I joined the local gym and started going. I’d always end up on the treadmill next to a young, (really) skinny blonde, who’d run-walk-run-walk-run. I thought ‘I want to do that’.I’ve always wanted to learn to run. I say learn to because I think it’s something you have to learn to do. Learn to breathe properly. Learn to push through that want to stop, to give in when it starts to hurt. Learn to how to keep going, when your face is beetroot red and you’re breathing like you’re locked in a bank vault with no more air. That needs to be learned. And the only way to learn, is to try.

I downloaded an app called ‘Get Running’ on my iPhone, and it’s the best thing I’ve downloaded in ages. It’s a version of the ‘Couch to 5k’ ideal, where you take someone from sitting on the couch to running 5k in a matter of weeks. 9 weeks, to be exact. Each week is broken into three runs, and I’ve just finished week 5. My last run was 20 min long. 20 Minutes!!! I ran straight for 20 minutes!! (my reward is going to be the new Jamie Oliver cookbook!) At the end of the run the woman who speaks in my ear (in my earphones, not in the ‘crazy’ kinda way) says ‘You can now call yourself a runner.’A runner. Me, a runner…? Seriously? A runner…… I like the sound of that.A little about me for those of you who don’t know, I’m not the most fittest person in the world. I’m not wanting to lose any weight at all as I’m already small. But just because I am small doesn’t mean I’m fit. In all honesty, I’d get puffed walking the 10 min to the local IGA. I’d walk up with Hubby and I’d be absolutely breathless. I wanted to learn to run not for any weight-loss benefit, but because I want to be healthier. I wanted to feel better about myself. To do something that was just, for myself. My time at the gym is my time. Time for me. As a full-time stay at home Mum, there isn’t a lot of me time going around. Not even on the toilet do I get me time. And that’s just plain embarrassing. So in some of the only time I get for myself, I run. And now, I’m not only a wife, mother, daughter, friend, home cook, musician, blogger, and a million other titles, I’m also….a runner.

How do you like to spend your ‘me-time?’

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