Yep, there I’ve said it and I can’t take it back now. On Sunday the 14th of September 2014 I’m going to run the Belfast City Half Marathon. Now a statement like this is typical of me, I’ve only been running for a couple of weeks and here I am over committing again. I can’t help myself but this time I have no doubt that not only am I going to do this, I’m actually going to enjoy it.
My very recent love affair with running started in December when I saw this 15 minute Ted Talk by Christopher McDougall called “Are we born to run?”.
It really seemed to resonate with me. Now my running history is very brief and I would always have been able to sum it up with one sentence.
“I hate running.”
Its short, punchy but kind of summed up how I’ve always felt. I loved the idea of running but was just rubbish at it, I found it very hard and after about 300 meters I’d be finished. I hated the way that other people out running seemed to actually be enjoying this torture and even worse made it look easy. The bastards were actually holding conversations as they glided past my shuffling wheezing form. I figured that running was just not going to be my thing but this short and devious 15 minute video had left my brain with a little itch, an itch that I just couldn’t seem to get rid of.
For Christmas I got a kindle from Sinead and the girls (awesome, thank you my honey’s) and one of the first books I read was Born to Run which just made the bloody itch worse.
That was followed with a succession of running books covering everything from barefoot running to running meditation. I’m going to go over my running journey and each of the books in a little more detail in later posts. But long story short, towards the end of February I managed to put the books down and actually go for a run. It wasn’t long, I was concentrating completely on my running style and to my total surprise I didn’t hate it. I even took my shoes of for a very short spell as well. I’ve since went on more runs and enjoyed them all, my last one was a little over 3 miles without stopping or looking like I’d been tortured at the end. So, as always, I’ve decided to push things a little further and run a half marathon. The difference this time, to my usual over committing, is I plan to enjoy the journey and I’ve given myself enough time to do that.