Run Forrest, run!

Last week, I was overcome by a strange and irresistible urge to go for a run. Now, this was odd on more than one front. For a start, I'm a bit of a lard bag if I'm being honest. Obviously, running would be a good thing to help shift some of that flab which would be doubly handy as I seem to have agreed to take part in a 12 hour mountain bike XC enduro race (as part of a team of 8) at this years Bristol Bike Fest. So being a chubber is not, in itself, a problem although the reason I am currently carrying some excess pie, as my mate Chris who's from Yorkshire would put it, is because I'm basically lazy. I have a desk job and when I get home I like to do very little. Yes, I occasionally go out on the bike at weekends, something else which will have to increase in frequency over the coming months, but exercise and I are long lost acquaintances.

In my youth, I lived in the Fens and cycled everywhere. At 6th form college, I used to go to the gym three times a week too and even at university, where my full time smoking really took off, my second year was almost entirely devoted to Kung Fu sessions which probably explains my lack of academic achievement that year. But after that, it all melted away and I got porkier and lazier.

I gave up the fags over a year ago now (not that it feels like it sometimes) but recently I hit my heaviest ever weight. Despite me saying I'm a lard bag, I'm not some morbidly obese blob, but I do have a bit of a gut. I got to 16 stone (although bear in mind, I'm 6 foot 1 and have a broad build so it's not as bad as it seems) and I realised something must be done. I'm fluctuating a bit now so it's been at the back of my mind to get off my arse and do something. Which brings me back to this running malarkey.

I never liked it. Even when I was fit, and I tried running I didn't like it. So why the hell do I now have this urge to run? For years I have taken the piss out of runners safe in the knowledge that they were as mad as a bag of badgers and now I find myself as one of them, pounding along the pavement, lungs on fire and muscles screaming in protest. Things is, I got the urge again today (must be a Thursday thing as it was Thursday last week too) and I went again. And I'm planning to go more and more. Worse still, I timed myself last week and this week, and was gratified to note that I was a whole 2 minutes quicker. In fairness, this was entirely due to me slowing to a walk when I ran out of steam rather than just stopping as I did last week, but I still felt a frisson of pleasure in beating last weeks time and I'm quite enjoying it, once I've stopped feeling like I'm going to die.

I had best admit that my run is not very long (a less-than-impressive 0.89 miles according to mapmyrun) but then I'm quite unfit so I figure I'd best start small and when I can comfortably run that without stopping I can start to increase the length a bit and build it up. But still, I have spontaneously begun to be a bit more healthy and I wonder if this is just me growing up a bit. I'll be 32 this year but I never really think of myself as being that age. In my head I'm still a young lad (early 20's I suppose) in many ways. Not the going-out-on-the-rage-every-night way, but then maybe it's more a symptom of being the youngest sibling by 4 years that I've never seen myself as a proper responsible adult although I suppose I am just that.

Well, I just hope it lasts because I'm definitely going to need to get fit for the Bike Fest, but that's another story altogether.

Listening to: Classic Euphoria Disc 1