I have always been fairly good at sports, being active was very much encouraged in our house, so I grew up practising a bunch of sports – volleyball, swimming, surfing, cycling – and with all of them I’d say I got up to an ok to good level. Running, however, had always been a completely different story. I couldn’t even run 1 km without stopping for air, and I had tried to stick with it but failed so many times that it became something I thought I’d never get the hang off.
But in 2010, after moving from Brazil to the UK and going from a full-time job to a Masters student schedule, I found myself with plenty of time to dedicate to running. I mean, starting to run doesn’t really take much of your time, you’ll probably only be running 20 to 30 min to begin with, but with my full-time job I’d have to run either at 6 30 in the morning or at 7 30 at night, and I just didn’t have that kind of determination back then (I’ve made very moderate progress in that area!).
So, this time around I decided to stick with it and see where it’d take me and I haven’t looked back since! The first few weeks were a bit frustrating, because all I wanted to do was run with the wind, but instead I was running 2 mins very slowly and walking 3 mins very quickly, or whatever else the training plan told me to do. But I followed the plan meticulously and to my surprise my body did get used to it, slowly but surely.
Since then, I’ve had a few months off (usually winters when I go a bit lazy!), but overall I’ve kept running over these 4 years and I’ve even taken part in a few races, including a half-marathon, which seemed a totally unrealistic goal in 2010! I’m still slow and I’m definitely not the most stylish runner out there, but I LOVE it, I always get this amazing high at the end of a run, this feeling of achievement that I don’t quite get by doing any other sport.
See More At 7 tips to help you catch the running bug
0 comments:
Post a Comment