Miracle upon miracle

Last night I decided enough was enough. Lack of exercise and poor eating choices (albeit yummy ones) have caused me to gain back a whole pile of the weight I so carefully lost. Who knew that all that fat was just waiting around the corner for an opportunity to jump back on and fill my trousers to bursting point? Anyway, I determined that Things Must Be Done and Steps Must Be Taken But Only Once We Have Finished This Rather Nice Apple Crisp I Made Yesterday. Ahem.

I set my running alarm before bed. In other words I told Husband he needed to tell me to get my becoming-more-substantial-by-the-day backside out of bed at 6am and I would go for a run. He agreed and wrote himself a little reminder note to put by the alarm clock. It said "cattle prod" or something similar, I think.

At 6am this morning I stumbled into the bathroom and got kitted out in all of the equipment necessary to ensure I can run wheezing round the block for half an hour without frightening the neighbours doing myself an injury. I left the house and lo and behold! It wasn't raining! I removed the flippers, diving mask and aqualung and decided just to go with the baggy t-shirt and running shoes instead. Then I shuffled gasping round the streets for 25 minutes.

I was vividly reminded of how horrible the first 10 minutes of any run are - those minutes when your body cannot quite believe what you are doing to it and decides in no uncertain terms to put a stop to this nonsense RIGHT NOW by seizing up, refusing to process oxygen and sending all the blood your legs actually need up to your face instead. Yeah, well, most of the run was like that. It's my own fault for pretty much stopping all exercise after the 10k in May. I was actually pleasantly surprised that I didn't just quit after 7 minutes and come back via the corner shop for a family size bag of Maltesers as consolation.

Instead after struggling around a loop I used to run without stopping, I went to the corner shop for bread for my offspring's breakfast (they are unreasonably demanding about wanting breakfast every day) and watched the slight shock on the face of the guy behind the counter at (1) the startling colour of my face, and (2) the fact that the two pounds coins I proffered, which had been in my hand all the way through my run, were so hot they practically set fire to the cash register.

So, not Olympic standard, but a start. I will, of course, undo all the good work by having a chinese takeaway for dinner tonight to celebrate.....Friday. Hmmm. Perhaps I should go for a swim at lunchtime too.