Another passion of mine...How I got into running

Today I would like to share a bit more about another passion of mine, running. It has been a hobby of mine for 5 1/2 years now and it is slowly growing into a multi sport obsession. I have realised a growing interest in all kinds of sport and fitness around the blogging world/ social media. And since I  have just signed up for my very first Sprint triathlon in June, I thought it might be interesting to share my running story with you readers. Maybe it inspires one or two readers to give it a go (or some other sport).

 

I have to break this story down into a few posts and hopefully this is interesting to you. I am very passionate about my sport and only have a few friends that are any kind of sport so I have to bore you with this passion of mine and hopefully find some more like minded people that way.

 

To start off with, I must say I was never the sporty type. Far from it. I didn't like Sports at school very much, probably because I wasn't very good at it. I did like being outdoors building houses in the woods and riding my bike but I was mostly a geeky kid who preferred to read and craft and hang out with pet friends.

The years at uni weren't super active either. I was studying popular music and media and worked in a pub. So my exercise was going to gigs a lot and carrying (and drinking) trays of beer. I was also a pack a day smoker and serial dieter (to compensate for the weekend benders). Yup, super healthy and balanced student lifestyle.

I moved to the UK after I finished my degree because my boyfriend (now husband) was due to get posted back here from Germany. He's a soldier in the British Army. I went ahead and moved to Birmingham by myself because I could rent a place from friends there and he moved to Reading three months later for a 9 months course. We ended up leading a weekend relationship for nearly a year. It was awful. I worked 2 jobs leaving me with little free time, didn't really have any friends and since I only moved with a few suitcases, no creative outlet either to keep me sane. I ended up very depressed and unhappy all alone in Brum, fell into one of those I'm fat and ugly depressive mindsets and cried to my boyfriend on the phone nearly every night. Bless him he listened to my self pity over and over again. He's a good man!!

One weekend in March I asked my boyfriend if we could go out for a run together as I decided enough is enough, I need to get myself together and do something. He's always been super fit which made me want to work on my own non existing fitness. So out we went in whatever trainer like shoes I could find on my first run since (I believe) school. It was painful. I could barely breathe (hello smoker lungs!!!) and the running was more a shuffling along the pavement than anything else but I managed to keep shuffling for 20 minutes. Dave would not let me stop until we got back home. The whole run was only about 3 kilometres, I was in great pain but super chuffed with myself for doing something I thought I wasn't capable of. There and then I decided this is what I want to do. So I shuffled my way through the next few weeks, increasing the distance slowly as well as the speed.

 

source:http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/plea-to-join-birmingham-mail-fun-117409
Unfortunately I haven't got race pictures from that time. I wasn't a blogger then and didn't know the importance or photographing everything hahahaha)

One day at work a colleague mentioned that she was running a 5k charity race in a couple of weeks time if I was interested in running it with her. I didn't know anything about running races and thought only proper runners and athletes would take part in things like that. But I was wrong. Anybody and everybody of all abilities, shapes and sizes were there. Lots of neon tutus, superhero costumes and a great and very positive and welcoming atmosphere.

So I ran my first 5k, got my fist medal and decided that I was a runner now.

 

I have never gotten a medal for anything before. I wore it everywhere for the rest of the day. I still do with every new one I get. I'm cool like that ;-)

 

After that a whole wave of training and racing kicked loose. Some wonderful health choices followed...bye bye stinky cigarettes and bye bye weekend benders to name the most important ones but more on that next time.

 

Any other runners out there? Any beginners? Any veterans?