The First Mile

As some of you may know I started running on the 24th April 2012.

Now it is not that I had never run before, I'd been a half decent 200m runner in my youth and dabbled every now and again but with no real commitment.

On this date I had told myself that I was going to become a runner and had already booked a half Marathon for that October.

Day One

Now obviously to do this I needed to train, and indeed I needed somewhere to start. I checked out a plan that told me to start with 1km combined running and walking.

Running and walking? it was only 1km I could run that with my eyes closed!

I set out full of optimism and promise, "This doesn't feel bad" I thought as I ran out of my road, that was where the good feelings stopped, I ran and walked the 1km, breathing was heavy, legs were heavier, suddenly running a full 1km looked a challenge, and as for a mile !!! well.

I was mortified, what the hell had gone wrong? It took me 3 days to want to try again, I hadn't realised how much fitness I had lost since stopping coaching youth football and my desk/car based job did not help. I had now booked myself to run 13.1 miles when I couldn't even run a bath!

I had thought the challenge had been "Just" to run a half marathon, 13.1 miles, what I hadn't realised was I'd actually signed up to a countless list of challenges that were going to hit me each week until I got to the race.

So there I began, the 1k went from walking and running to shuffling and running to a kind of weird fartlek with a rather indescrible non running element.
Finally I ran the full 1k, pleased as punch but that was just metric, I needed to get to the full imperial mile.

My progress such as it was continued, there were many "Shit there's someone I know" moments and times when I thought my ultimate goal was impossible but finally I hit the full one mile.
Punching the air, alone on a country road in a "Rocky at the top of steps" stylie, I was elated, all I had to do then was add another 12.1 one of those and I'd cracked it.

I've had a few not so great runs recently which is what made me think back to this. If you're only just starting to run believe and persevere it's worth it, if you're a seasoned runner having a dip in running fortunes, think back to your first mile and how you got there.

Happy Running

Paul