REPORT: My First Outdoor Jog***

Since I started on my journey from Couch to 5k I've been belittling myself, beating myself up and putting myself down because I KNOW that jogging on a treadmill is easier than doing it outside so on Friday night I decided to have just one Kronie and then stick to soft drinks so I'd (maybe) feel reasonable enough on Saturday morning to go out for a bit of a run!   I knew it would have to be an early start if I was going to make it into the great outdoors - I still feel like I'm rather too inadequate to be presenting myself out in public as a jogger and thought that if I went early there'd be less people out to judge my pace and style and ability! 

At just before 5.30am - I woke up and lay there thinking about getting up - or maybe going back to sleep - hmmmm...  sleep or jog, sleep or jog, sleep or jog.......?  Once an idea is in my head I think I have to get on with it so I tried to sneak out of the bedroom.  Not an easy thing to do and I failed miserably!  Our little Patterdale Terrier, Bobby tends to wake us up whining and crying at around 4am (or whenever daybreaks) when we put her in the kitchen so she and Phoenix now sleep on the floor in our bedroom which means we get a lie in... Have you ever try sneaking past 2 dogs who are used to me getting up in the week and taking them for walkies right away!?  Impossible!

I pacified them a little by giving them their food, woke Neil up with all my clattering around and then exited the  building to yowls and whines of protest from the dogs! 

I already have a c25k route plotted on Endomondo which I'd downloaded to my phone - but when I fired up Endomondo this morning the damned thing failed me - it just would not work - which sort of made me feel a little anxious and irritated before I even set off!    I re-booted my phone while I did some warm up stretches, switched my ipod on and slipped it in my bum-bag (yeah - a bum bag- dead cool or what ?!)  When I checked my phone it was still not playing the game with me so I thought I'd set off walking while I fiddled about.

The fiddling about with the phone phase lasted until I got onto Birchwood Avenue then I thought that as I looked the part (trainers/jogging pants/jogging top/ipod ears in) I'd better REALLY start looking the part and J-O-G!

At this point I realised that the bum bag (which contained some wipes, chewing gum, phone and ipod) was a bad idea.  Even though I had it on very tight it bounced about in a most annoying and distracting way! NOTE TO SELF:  Leave it home next time! 

My calves ALWAYS protest when I set off jogging on the treadmill - and now they've decided to show me their annoyance while I'm out in the Great Outdoors too - so I ignored them and they soon gave up and decided they were up to the job!  (bounce bounce bounce went the bum-bag)  I decided it was a good idea to go very slowly - I wanted to finish my chosen circuit in one piece - in fact I WANTED TO FINISH!   (bounce bounce bounce continued the bum-bag)

I fiddled with my phone once more - which didn't help with my breathing  or stress levels as I was messing about (bounce bounce bounce)  I re-booted my phone again (takes forever to fire up again!)   No joy with Endomondo so I decided to give up and put the phone away  (bounce bounce bounce) I was very annoyed not to have Endomondo along as I was relying on it to track my distance for me - and upload to my page.

By the time I got part way down Fulmar Road  the bounce bounce bounce was really annoying me and I was wondering where I could stash my stuff so the bum-bag was empty and would no longer bounce bounce bounce....   I stuffed the ipod down my bra-top  (excellent idea!)    Now with less weight - the prominent bounce bounce bounce lessened and I was able to ignore the movement.  Actually , by this time I was feeling a bit knackered too  (huff puff huff went Netty) - so the bouncing bum-bag wasn't at the forefront of my mind!   

At about this time I started to think about where I would reward myself with a one minute walking portion to give myself a chance to catch my breath - and I set my sights on a junction a little way away - but when i got there I pushed myself a little farther and jogged another hundred yards or so then had a little walking session (probably about a minute long)  Then - I spotted a PEDESTRIAN - who, in my mind would be judging me for just walking along so off I went again.... nice slow easy jog concentrating on looking as though i was a runner and not so poor fool who'd come out onto the streets of Birchwood for the very first time!

A little further up this same road I thought I might reward myself with another little stop as I was getting very hot by this time (although I didn't feel that my legs and lungs were going to give up any time soon...) and decided that when I got as far as the "Boiler House" I'd have a little one minute walk... so I jogged along (huff puff huff went Netty) and jogged some more, and a bit more (Where is the Boiler House - I'm sure it's here somewhere.....?)   jog jog jog (huff puff huff went Netty)    A few minutes later I realised that I'd actually passed the Boiler House and not noticed it so I set my sights on a white van some way up the road and took a one minute walk break at that point...

Jogging along again I decided that people I might meet would come into 3 categories.

• Persons who have never jogged in their lives and have no right to look down on me because I'm out there moving my arse and DOING IT (slowly and with questionable style but doing it all the same) and not just thinking about it and doing nothing!

 

• Persons who are at the same level as me - just a beginner - and should look at me and smile at my efforts because they know exactly how I feel (I've looked at a new jogger and beamed at her recently - I actually wanted to give her a round of applause for her efforts and tell her she was doing so very well) 

 

• Then the final category - those persons who can jog for miles and miles - and they really shouldn't look down on me either - they should remind themselves that we've all got to start somewhere and applaud me for beginning my journey. 

While I'd been pondering why I really shouldn't be embarrased to be out in public jogging I realised that I was heading past the Green Barrel pub.... and my thoughts turned to the fact that once upon a time not too many years ago I'd set myself a target of jogging the distance between 2 lamp posts and had been absolutely out of breath and jiggered by the time I covered that very short distance, and here I was - almost at the end of my first circuit having jogged a very large portion of my 3 mile+  route

As I jogged into my home street I was plum tuckered, breathing hard, hot, perspiration coated, sticky, legs tired but Oh So Incredibly Proud Of My Efforts - and it dawned on me - that YES - with a little bit more hard work I CAN JOG THE RACE FOR LIFE from start to finish!


 I did a manual entry of the route I took and it looks like it was something like 3.48 miles - so good enough for me to use to judge my 5k run.

One thing is for sure - I wont break any speed records, and I wont get points for style but I think it all went very well indeed!

As a final note -  and I know I've said this before - I would like to thank my lovely friend Janet aka Katybun. Having her as my virtual Running Buddy has really inspired and motivated me to keep pushing on and on. Janet - you're a star - thank you for coming along just at the right moment :)

Many thanks for reading.  Come back soon


***Small footnote - I've billed this as my first outdoor jog - I've done what I call a dog-jog plenty of times before but this was my first "formal" route planned/timed/distanced jog out there on my own!