I began to run, very slowly, during 2013 to try and reduce stress and build my ankle back up after it was fixed at the end of 2012 having spent almost a year walking on a broken ankle. I am actually being quite literal here - I sprained it, the break wasn't noticed, and I walked on it and started running 3 weeks after the injury, assuming it was only a sprain. It took me 8 months to convince my doctor that something was wrong as I was still in a lot of pain, finally got to the consultant who x-rayed me and blithely asked 'so, did you know you'd broken your ankle?'...
Forward to the end of the year and I was out of the cast a couple of days before New Years, and walking two miles a day on it 4 days later which helped strengthen it back up. Four weeks after that, I began jogging very gently on a treadmill. I slowly hit a point where I could do a mile without dying, and after a few weeks of being a total wuss, I took myself outside and jogged to a field and then jogged back. I then decided I hated running and was going to die a fat old woman with dodgy ankles because all my muscles were threatening to divorce me.
Fast forward again to a few weeks ago, I realised that I hadn't run in a while and had the Race for Life (only 5k though) to do. My fitness took a nosedive this year due to two pregnancies...and two miscarriages. I'm getting there mentally though, and part of what's helping is running, every other day.
Residual fitness got me through the race with only two practice runs in the week before. I've never raced before though and was dreading it. Turns out I quite like running in a pack...also turns out that if you do 5k at a reasonable speed (stupid hills) and then sprint the last 150 metres when you're not used to doing that sort of thing, then the chances are high that you're going to try to be sick. Managed to avoid that one by pouring half my bottle of water over my head to cool down, but honestly, next time I might just be sick, it'd be less traumatic!
Back to why I'm really here. I need to get fit, lose some weight...mainly get fit though. I want to see my progression through the pain, through the months of running so I can look back and go 'Yes, it's been hard, but I'm doing it. I'm not giving up.' This despite the taping of my ankle, the grumpy hips, the shoulder muscle that tries to stitch up when I'm running too tense, my inability to deal with heat of any kind (seriously I cannot wait for the temperature to begin dipping below 20°C, I am an insomniac mess at the moment.) and my Extreme Laziness. I'm doing it. I'm dragging myself out and even if I only run a couple of kilometres, I'm happy. I'm getting out there a few times a week and it's good for me.
So, in order to thoroughly shame myself into running more (I justified pizza by running yesterday...think I need to start running further...) I am going to post a picture of myself. Both picture and background pics are mine, terrible photoshopping; also mine.
Over time I'm hoping that I will keep on running, slim off, and also that my photoshopping skills will get a lot better.
