Okay, so get the eye rolling out of the way, yes, I know another fat middle aged man got fit during lockdown. Well tough, this is my journal/blog thing and I want to write about it.
Way back in 2020, a friend contacted me about a new “learn to run” course being held at the local community centre. Well there was one thing I knew about myself, I bloody hated running. I hated it at school, I didn’t mind it when I played rugby, but as far as I was concerned running for its own sake was the hobby of smug sods. Never mind that I was fat, unfit, lazy and undisciplined about every weightloss/fitness thing I tried, running could go hang.
Thankfully Alison persisted, she wanted a companion to go with and thankfully with the “we can egg each other on” reasoning, she bullied me into joining her at the RECC. I paid (my reasoning being that if I paid for it, then I had to go and get my monies worth), bought decent running shoes and spent a good hour bargaining with myself the night of the first class, if I went just once, then I might actually get something out of it.
So I went, met up with Alison in the parking lot and we made our way into the indoor running track and I was immediately intimidated and impressed by Joel, the instructor running the group. Joel is the kind of guy who you see running ultra marathons, he has the physique that makes grown men cry over their poor life choices, and he is quite frankly one of the nicest people I have met in sometime. I have never met someone that fit who is also non judgemental and encouraging. More about the amazing Joel later.
Very long story short, once Joel taught me how to warm up, how to ease into running with walk breaks, how to actually breathe, I found that I actually liked, no, I actually loved running.
An odd thing happened. I started to care about my appearance again. I shaved off my beard, I started looking at my clothes and caring about dressing nicer, things mattered a bit more. Then the pandemic hit and lockdown shut down the run program, but I kept on running on the rarely used treadmill in our basement.
