Nine years ago, pretty much to the week, I was sent on a training course at the Learning Tree in London. Nine years later and I am back taking another course which got me thinking. This was where it all began.
Nine years ago I was overweight. At the time of the course I would have been somewhere between 16 and 16.5 stone. I don't know for surebut I avoided weighing myself for obvious reasons! For whatever reason, when sent on the course, I decided that each evening before going to buy dinner somewhere I would go for a walk. Not a casual wander but a urposeful walk for an hour.
I don't remember how the walks went or felt but I do know that I did them and then when I returned home I carried on - walking each night. Getting faster and faster unti l I could literally walk no faster.
As 2004 started I decided that I should turn my walking into running. Afterall, I was virtually running wasn't I. How hard could it be?
As it turned out very hard! I started on a walk a minute/run a minute program and as each running minute came I thought I was going to die.
However, I stuck at it even when, after two weeks, I was struck down by shin splints so badly that I couldn't bend my ankle. Eventually I reached a point where I could run for an hour. Then I did a 10K and then a half marathon and found that, amazingly, I enjoyed feeling fit and lighter.
I got to a point where I could happily do a half marathon in around 2 hours and my weight stabilised at around 14 stone. This was my running life for several years.
In 2009 I got the running bug sparked by running the London Marathon. In nine months I lost three stone and slashed my half marathon times by 20 minutes down to a PB of 1:38:25.
Then in 2010 when training once again for the London Marathon distaster struck a kneee injury that just wouldn't go away and which I still have right now.
Which brings me to the new blog.
Two and half years into this injury and with much work by physio's to try and resolve the issue I know that the time is coming where I must make a decision.
Will I be happy running in a limited fashion or is it not enough in which case in 6 months time I will give it all up. IN six months time it will be 3 yeasr and 1 month since it started. In those 6 months I need to decided if I am happy to return to being a 2 hour (or slower) half marathoner or if it is just not enough?
What the outcome will be I don't know - but this is the start of the journey - back where it all began...
