I complain a lot but, generally speaking, I am very open-minded about exercise. Or, to put it another way, I never realise quite how bad things will be until I’m in the middle of them, gasping, dying, and yet somehow still alive.
Except for running: I know exactly how much I hate running. Tried it in the 1990s, didn’t like it. Don’t like runners. Don’t like running tights. Don’t like panting. Don’t like motivational 1980s dancefloor hits. Don’t like toe shoes. Don’t like the cold. Or being too hot. And don’t like pain enough ever to have broken through its threshold.
But I’m going to give it a go. What follows, from now until I manage a 5K run, is a purely altruistic act, an honest account of zero to something-greater-than-zero from a person without aptitude or enthusiasm. It’s an if-I-can-do-it-anyone-can fable. Or, alternatively, an I-can’t-do-it-for-these-wholly-reasonable-reasons one.
The NHS website, which I would never normally visit unless I was urgently looking for some patronising dietary advice, has a well-regarded Couch To 5K programme to follow, which is useful. You can download it as a podcast, but I prefer to listen to grisly, real-life stories and pretend I’m running away from a serial killer (this is only half-true).
Anyway, this is how it goes. Run one, of week one, is highly manageable: a five-minute walk, then alternating 60-second runs and 90-second walks, for 20 minutes in all. This, I think to myself while running alone through streets emptied of children by their busy learning schedules, is a piece of piss. I have no intention of pushing myself. I am under strict instructions to abide by the intervals. A man runs towards me, pushing himself very much indeed, sweating and, I believe, wearing some kind of ankle weights. This isn’t for me, I think. But, on the other hand, it’s really easy. So there’s that.
Run two goes the same way. You have to do only three a week; at this rate, I’m going to be put in some special NHS fast stream. Run three, I can’t be bothered to do. Can’t account for it. I had on my special camo running tights and my new trainers (more on trainers next week), and I could not be arsed.
So, I decided I would walk for twice as long, and pretend that was a run. I activated all my neural dishonesty pathways (how will I account for the lack of sweat? Or the fact that it took me so long?) then realised I was lying to myself. This is mad. I haven’t lied to myself since the 1990s, when I used to go on diets.
Run three of week one came three calendar days into week two, which diminishes the training effect – you can string it out endlessly. So I decided to repeat it. Week one, then, took me three weeks and six runs.
This week I learned
Don’t overdo it. An injury will slow you down even more than your own sloth.
