Starting January 2013

I'm Jules: 3 stone overweight and sedantary... I'm going to turn this around in 2013 and have a plan!

Going to start with "0-30mins in 8 weeks" as soon as 2013 starts. I have a 6 year old daughter, work full-time as a Commercial Manager and my husband's hours don't lend themself to me finding time to train - impossible!? Maybe not. I work from home about 50% of the time and can drop my daughter off at early-club from 8am... have you guessed my plan?

Good Luck Jules!

One tip would be to write down your plan in your diary/calendar.  When its cold & wet its easy to find an excuse not to get outside, so having it in black & white in front of you makes it harder to avoid.  Once you're out there, its fine - but sometime's its hard to get out the door.

Good luck!!

I was where you are now last May, it seems like an impossible goal to be able to "run" but stick at it, don't go out to often stick to three days a week for quite a while you might think after a couple of weeks ohh i can skip a run here but i'll add another run there... don't stick to a plan, it also helps those around you if you say every x night i'm going to be running come what may, no matter the weather... if you are arranging a meal out you know not to do it on x nights ... It's a habit and you really need to work at getting into it. But, once you are in the habit it's great and you just don't think about it, you know you have to go out and run

I lost 5.5 stone with WeightWatchers and running in 2012, so believe me it's possible

Thanks Guys.

Stutyr - schedule already on Excel! Will plug the actual days in when I know what days I'm working from home.

Booktrunk - WW for me too! Will be running mornings on days I'm working from home, dropping daughter off at 8am then running home - changing up the route as I get better... then with the car left at school I'll have to walk back to pick her up in the evening (bit of a bonus activity there). Thanks for your advice, I need to plan in advance what I'm going to do on weeks I work from home less than 3 times (maybe some 5am starts!!!)

Good luck, Jules!  Sometimes the hardest part of these things is actually committing yourself to doing them - so you're well on the way.

Jules: My biggest piece of advice re WeightWatchers is by all means add the activity points, but only use weekly or activity points not both.  It semi defeats the object of trying to loose weight if you basically eat all the points that you've earnt.  So I allowed myself to use my Weekly points (in some cases pretty much all 49) but I never used them and my activity points that I earnt.

Yup, good luck Jules and combining your running with WW will really help I'm sure

Good luck all!

You wont melt in the rain, just get out there. Once you're wet through you cant get wetter so may as well keep running! 

Good luck CaymanDeb - tell us how it went!! Im off for a run in a bit along the beach, Ive slowly been improving since starting (well - restarting) 6 months ago.. am finally feeling a bit happer with my body (BMI now in normal range and I can see hip bones again!!!) and have a Garmin thanks to Father Christmas woohoo so am keen to get out using it!! 

Being soaked through if caught in heavy rain is not the worst thing for me.  No, the real issue is having to remove my glasses in order to see a damn thing!  Then of course the water goes right in my eyes.

Edit: Well done, CaymanDeb!   We'll have you running 5k and doing HIIT on that rowing machine in no time...

CaymanDeb wrote (see)

Ha ha here's hoping - thankfully no glasses to contend with! You sound like a seasoned pro.. how long did it take?

Me - a seasoned pro?  Ha ha - no, not really.  I haven't done any half marathons or anything like that yet; it still gives me a bit of a chuckle when I see people saying they 'only' went for a nine mile run! 

How long did it take - well, I had to repeat plenty of weeks in the C25k, so it took quite a while to get to 5k.  From then I gradually increased the distance.  I've been running around two and a half years now and I'm at a stage where it doesn't feel like it takes too much effort and I feel confident doing it.  I remember when I first attempted running: once or twice around my local block and I literally had to crash out when I got back home - my fitness was non existent!  So then I decided something had to be done about it and committed to the C25k - the best fitness decision I've ever made.

My current maximum is probably 10k, which is what I did today.  The most I've ever done is 15k, but then I picked up a knee niggle which basically forced me to start from scratch again.  Target for the first part of the New Year is to build back up to 15k, and then see where it goes from there.

Happy running, all!

Well done Camandeb! I hate the first mile of a wet run, hate it with a passion.. then I get past saturation point (or so it seems!) and the running warms me up and it doesnt bother me the rest of the time! I did a good 7.5K this afternoon along the prominade in weymouth, with the Garmin beeping at me the whole time for being too slow lol!  Well I was happy with 9:30 min miles but Garmin wasn't... hmm... need to work out how to use this thing properly and make it be nice! Felt kinda dead by the end, but rushed out and caught the hibbit at the cinema.. gonna sleep well tonight!