into running

i would be interested to hear how you got into running

i my self always did a lot of cross country at school but stopped when i left but the one thing i have always wanted to do is  a full marathon a life's ambition yoy might say

 but you know what it's like  always seem to be saying i'll do it next year then believe it or not at the start of last year we wached run fat boy run on dvd and i got to thinking that next years were geting fewer and i was getting older and the body was beging to fall apart and if i didn't do it now i may never get there

 so basically got back into running due the that one dvd

My gym was entering a relay team into the belfast marathon and I volunteered for the 4.7 mile leg of it.

That was my first experience or road running... 6 weeks later I id my first half marathon (2006) and I just kept it up from there.

I went to support my girl friends brother in a 3 marathons over 3 days event and then a few months later do a 50 mile ultra. I thought it was amazing that anyone could actually do things like that and it inspired me to get off my lazy backside and give it a go.

 I started with an 8 week plan to get up to running for 30 minutes. After feeling really happy about completing that, I just carried on going.

Gave up smoking - got fat but discovered I could do bouts of exercise (chasing the kids, etc.) and not feel completely f*&%ed for half an hour afterwards.

Lost weight when I realised how fat I'd got, then got a dog and that was it.

Absolutely hated running when I was at school, so quite a turnaround!

What gave me the kick up the bum - quite simple really.  Liverbird!!!!

Cheering my sister on at a race 4 life and thinking ... I could do that!

I always hated running and avoided it like the plague. This didn't stop my "friend"  entering me for race for life.

I figured once I was signed up I may as well do it properly so I embarked upon a beginner 5k programme. 

I ran at school, and was good enough to win the 800m & 1500m at sports day and the annual cross country race, but I never actually did any specific training for it, I just turned up and ran. I occasionally went to the county cross country trials and got blown away by the proper athletes, but nobody ever encouraged me to take it seriously. I knew that I got better the further the distance – at 16 I ran round a 20 mile sponsored walk in the Shropshire hills in around 2:50 having done no training at all, but I didn’t realise that was actually pretty good – there was no internet in those days to look things up. Then when I left school I just stopped running. 

Go forward 22 years and I’m a slightly overweight 40 year old doing no exercise. I’d been saying to myself since age 16 that one day I’d do a marathon, but I’d never actually done anything about it. Quite by chance one day I discovered that my wife had entered the Great North Run. This came as a complete surprise as she had never shown any inclination towards running, or indeed to any exercise at all, and to cap it all she has knees that you can hear grinding when she goes up and down stairs! I decided that if she was doing it then I needed to do it as well. Entries were long closed, but fortunately I was contracting at the main sponsor at the time, so managed to get a place through them.  

My first run at the end of June 2003 was 2.5 miles, which to my surprise I got through without stopping. I did a few more runs up to 4 miles then decided to join my local club as I knew I needed help. The wife meantime did a couple of sessions with the Running Sisters before realising that she is not a runner and that her knees simply wouldn’t take it. I was hoping to break 2 hours at the Great North Run, but I started way too far back and ended up with 2:08:54. The important thing though was that I had discovered something I really enjoyed doing – I’d truly caught the running bug. 

Six years on I’m running 1:30 for a half and very close to a Good For Age marathon time. And I’m chairman of the running club.

Did X-country at school, up to County level.HATED it but was dragged by my Dad. Gave up as soon as I could. Started again a year ago at 26, really wish I'd never stopped. That probably applies to quite a lot of people!

Had cervical cancer last year. For a few weeks I didn't know if it had spread or not and decided that if I got through it I'd start looking after myself better.

Lose weight, get fit and make the best of my life.

A work colleague asked if I fancied running a 10k - when I stopped laughing and picked myself up off the floor I pointed out that I couldn't run for  5 minutes never mind a 10k - then I began to wonder why not.

 That was July and have done a couple of 10ks and will be in half mara in Feb