Last Year you might remember I started running. I was doing really well running 15k a week and was just about to up it to 20k when the Summer holidays began. With three little ones home and the novelty of joining me worn off, I had to stop. I then moved house and sadly didn't get back into it after the holidays. Each week I thought about it but I always made excuses…that was until now!

 

A few weeks ago I was asked to help raise awareness of Race For Life and to sign up for a race myself.

Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life is a series of women-only events which are raising money for research so that we will beat all 200 types of cancer sooner.

Knowing how much I was running last year I knew 5ks wouldn't motivate me that much and that I wouldn't need to train too hard either, so in a moment of madness I decided to throw myself into it whole heartedly and sign up for a 10k race in June. Afterall with the summer approaching I need to shape up.

I must admit if I sit back and think about it too much I do wonder if I am a bit crazy, afterall I'm really not that fit right now. This will be a real challenge. I haven't run that far in at least 7 years…scary!

So anyway, I began running again last week and have been following a training programme taking me from 0-10k in 8 weeks. There's lots of schedules available online but I picked the one that appealed to me most. I'm not into stopping and starting, running and walking so chose the most straightforward one.

Amazingly I've surprised myself with how easy I've found it so have decided to skip week 2 (making it a 7 week programme instead of 8). I ran a total of 13k (or 7.8 miles) last week but felt I could have done so much more. In the past I've just started running for 30 mins which is what I've jumped to so I'm not worried.

This week I have started taking Daisy back out with the running buggy again. Today was our first run and she really enjoyed it. Its only for half an hour or 5ks at the moment but fingers crossed she is still as happy as my runs get longer. I will have to share my tips on keeping her entertained with you.

My very best friend who has been running for a while now and who is super fit wants to run it with me (no pressure then) and my sister and her boys as well as my husband and our girls are going to be there to support us. There really is no backing out now. It's all sorted.

There will of course be regular updates on how my training is going and I will be setting up a Just Giving page too but for now watch this space and wish me luck with my training. I'm going to need it.

Karen x