The time has come. I can't deny it any more. It's 'new year, new me' season, and I've vowed to get my sorry ass running in 2015, by hook or by crook. The Run Way is my journey, and it starts right here.
This week, those sick of my moaning will be pleased to know, I was actually happy with my progress. I ran on Monday, I ran on Tuesday, my first solo mission (and didn't even use my inhaler once), and although I got tripped up by a (very white wine-fuelled) work event on Wednesday evening, I am going for a run on Friday too.
However, what I am not that happy about, is that, despite my best intentions as my first month of being a runner comes to a close, is that I am still not organised.
Not to come off all 'all the gear and no idea' on it, but I have still not managed to establish a fool-proof, comfortable, resilient workout get-up and set-up.
By this I mean, while I'm happy that my running tights aren't sagging in the crotch as I'm told many leggings do, they still have an odd low-ride around the waist which means I often have to fix them on the way round my circuit. I still haven't got round to buying an armband for my new iPhone, which meant I had to use my husband's 5-sized number which proceeded to un-velcro itself midway.
But by far the most persistent problem I have found (apart from progressive ankle sock slackening), is my fringe. As we discussed common running woes in the office, the most talked about points were baggy leggings, hills (geographical monstrosities be gone!) and finding a way to get that hair off your face.
I've now blessedly bought myself a two quid plasic alice band from Boots which both bouffs my hair up like a Seventies lion, but also de-fringes me like a Noughties David Beckham. It's all kinds of sexy. It may pince behind my ears like Sebastian the crab, but for the space of my run, I can see. Except that I can't really, because having a hairband behind my ears means I can't wear glasses. Obviously you can't really wear glasses when you're going at speed anyway, so I've temporarily embraced hazy eyesight. Iobviously have to be far more cautious at crossings, which is definitely the reason I stopped a couple of times nowhere near main roads on my Nike + map!
Here's a very boring squiggly rectangle I traced around my route. I do aim to draw a mappy penis/ boobies at some point.
As you can see, I'm still pretty slow. When I first glanced at it, I assumed that the red bits were where I was going for the burn and that green was slow, but obviously it's the other way round. However, I think I've made a pretty good global hypercolour heatmap there. I also hear that there's the hilariously named interval practise called 'Fartlek', which I need to research some more, but I'm clearly doing it here. Either that or I've invented a new thing called LIIJ (Low Impact Interval Jogging).
I also tried out a new UP Move, an odd little yellow nubin which helped pin up my leggings and tracked my steps and gave me new insight into just how slow I go. Here's some sexy sunny-looking data it produced. I'm the square pilsbury dough emoji huffing through the middle of the screen.
As you can see, I did a 20 minute run, and was idle for 9 hours. Which is 540 minutes. Which means I was active for 0.04 % of the combined time. I think that's bad.
My next step however is trying to run about everywhere. Assuming my jubilation continues for early weekday evening running, I'll be well on my way to building up to half an hour and maybe even 5k in the next week or two. Or maybe an extreme sitting competition, if my UP reading has anything to do with it....