No Freakin' Way!!!

I am super-proud of myself!!! And I don't say that often! :o)

I did my spin class - 45 mins, then I jumped on the treadmill, just intending to do 5-10 mins to finish off. 21 minutes later I slowed down to a walk. 21 steady minutes at 5mph, which I am informed works out at a 12 minute mile. So that's roughly 1.8 miles I ran. If I ran for another 3 minutes, I'd be killing 2 miles, straight off.

What's better, is that not only was this after spin, but that while I ran one of the gym's instructors wandered over to talk to me. And for the most part I was able to talk back, which means I wasn't absolutely dying and out of breath. I mean I wasn't talking like I would if I was walking, but I was managing input into the conversation.

The upshot of the conversation is that I've been talked into trying out the running club that he runs from the gym on a Tuesday and Thursday with one of the other instructors. I'm hopefully going to go along to tomorrow's session. The instructor tomorrow is the one I was chatting to, Mark, who also happens to be my regular spin instructor (although just to confuse you I did spin with Owen tonight as I was in a different session to normal). Mark's lovely - one of those priceless instructors who is really approachable and non-intimidating, in fact he looks a bit like a teddy bear I always think, but at the same time I know that he's run marathons both in the UK and abroad, and therefore has both achieved things that I can't even dream of right now, and knows his shit when it comes to running. I don't know the guy who takes the Tuesday session as well as I know Mark. I've seen him round the gym, and he always seems quite smiley and approachable, but he also looks more like your typical male gym bunny, which I find a bit intimidating, especially when it comes to running where I'm very conscious of my beginner status and still somewhat deficient fitness level.

Anyhoo - Mark reassures me that I'm exactly the same standard as everyone else in the group, and that they only started the club about 4 weeks ago. So they've had 4 weeks structured training starting from absolute scratch as non-runners, and I've had about 4 weeks of completely non-structured runs just going as far as I can each time, but maybe starting from slightly above a base level, as I'd started running before I knackered my back in Jan.

It'll be totally different for me, as I've almost come to the view that walking is failing, and this will be a proper program with walking sections built in, and some hill-work and stuff too. Mark was saying that he could get me up to 5K level in 3 weeks if I was prepared to train 3 times a week, but I think I'd be happier just testing out running with the club and seeing how it goes.

So there we go - they say do one thing everyday that scares you. I think going to running club tomorrow might be my thing.