Run, Fat Girl, Run

I hated cross country running at school. We used to shuffle out of sight of the school, sit in a field, and smoke, until we saw the fit girls heading back to school. We shuffled in after them, tucking our lighters in our knickers.

I'd always looked at runners as if they were from another planet. In my entire adult life I had never run for a bus. I had never run at all.

Then I met Dawn Walton, Cognitive Hypnotherapist.

Dawn has been helping me get my head in the right place, so that I could lose the excess weight I have carried all my life. It's working, I've lost 4 stone.

One entirely unexpected benefit of her Weight Loss Coaching is that I am far more active that ever before. I choose to walk over taking the car. I walk faster than ever before. I now run things up the stairs, instead of waiting until there's a huge pile of stuff to go up. I'm not scared of stairs. I no longer get out of breath running up them. I used to have to sit down to recover after any burst of activity.

Six weeks ago I thought I'd have a crack at the Couch to 5k training programme. I never expected to get past the first week, but I did. Every time I looked ahead on the app, to see what future weeks held, I thought I'd soon reach a point where I couldn't keep up.

Today I completed Week 5, Run 3.

Week 5, Run 3 is as follows:
Walk 5 mins
Run 20 mins
Walk 5 mins

Guess what? I did it. I ran for 20 minutes.

Unbelievable.

I think 20 minutes, non-stop, makes me a runner.

I get it now. I get why people love to run. There's something primal about it. It's just you and the path. I love the fresh air and I love the feeling of all those endorphins rushing around my body.

Three words I never thought I would write:

I love running.



Disclosure
Dawn let me try the Weight Loss Coaching programme for free, in exchange for a review on this blog. If I need Dawn now, I pay her. Just so we're clear.