How/Why did you start running?
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fastbelly
Posts: 727 Member
Or in case you're not yet a runner, why do you want to start running?
Let's hear your stories
I'll start with mine...
I've never seen myself as a runner before and I never thought I would be one, if you had told me a year ago that today I'd be running 10 miles straight I'd tell you that you were out of your mind. I had done all kinds of sports when I was younger and I had even played some competitively in the youth levels but I had never ever run before.
Fact is though, the internet has brought me to something called C25K and I decided to give it a go and boy was I missing something...
A few months prior to discovering the C25K program I had decided that I was going to change my life and stop killing myself, I decided I was going to quit smoking and get healthy. On the 1st of March of 2011 then I quit my nicotine addiction and for the first few days (even perhaps a month) I didn't pay attention to my food intake. I had to deal with the withdrawals and that was a hard enough task on its own, however, one of my biggest fears from quitting the cigarettes always was to put on more weight, lets face it, at over 330lbs I couldn't afford to put any more weight at all, was bad enough as it was.
This is when phase 2 of the getting healthy program begun, I started taking regular walks and increasing the pace and distance steadily, the walks became easy at one stage and I added weights to my legs to increase the burn, I didn't use these for very long as soon after, and through a thread on the forums here at MFP, I've discovered the C25K and decided that I'd give this a go, and as they say, the rest is history.
My biggest achievement so far has been to run continuously for 16Km in preparation for my first half marathon. I had to run 18Km the other day but I didn't do them unfortunately as I wasn't feeling well. Next Monday however is 18Km day again, lets see if I can manage to pull that one off.
So, now's your turn! Give us your story!
Let's hear your stories
I'll start with mine...
I've never seen myself as a runner before and I never thought I would be one, if you had told me a year ago that today I'd be running 10 miles straight I'd tell you that you were out of your mind. I had done all kinds of sports when I was younger and I had even played some competitively in the youth levels but I had never ever run before.
Fact is though, the internet has brought me to something called C25K and I decided to give it a go and boy was I missing something...
A few months prior to discovering the C25K program I had decided that I was going to change my life and stop killing myself, I decided I was going to quit smoking and get healthy. On the 1st of March of 2011 then I quit my nicotine addiction and for the first few days (even perhaps a month) I didn't pay attention to my food intake. I had to deal with the withdrawals and that was a hard enough task on its own, however, one of my biggest fears from quitting the cigarettes always was to put on more weight, lets face it, at over 330lbs I couldn't afford to put any more weight at all, was bad enough as it was.
This is when phase 2 of the getting healthy program begun, I started taking regular walks and increasing the pace and distance steadily, the walks became easy at one stage and I added weights to my legs to increase the burn, I didn't use these for very long as soon after, and through a thread on the forums here at MFP, I've discovered the C25K and decided that I'd give this a go, and as they say, the rest is history.
My biggest achievement so far has been to run continuously for 16Km in preparation for my first half marathon. I had to run 18Km the other day but I didn't do them unfortunately as I wasn't feeling well. Next Monday however is 18Km day again, lets see if I can manage to pull that one off.
So, now's your turn! Give us your story!
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Replies
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No time for my story just now, I'm up at the g*dawfully early hour of 5:00 A.M. to begin a new morning run routine.
--MFPChris0 -
I first started to do serious running October 2008 (weighed 269 pounds), i'd been overweight my whole life and decided before i turned 30 i wanted to be healthy for once in my life (September 2009 i turned 30), i started using the couch to 5k program which was great and ran my first 5k in 35 minutes i've since gotten down to 21 minutes in 5k races so far, after the c25k I progress to the 10k training and then onto half marathon training, before my first half marathon in disneyland in LA i got down to 165 pounds and i ran it in under 2 hours, since then i've ran the dublin marathon last year (my first one, ran first half way to fast and had nothing left for the finish, did that in 4hr 46 min, then ran the LA Marathon this year (poured down the whole time which actually helped) and i completed that in 4hrs 29 minutes. I absolute love running, its changed my life for the better, i've gotten injured from it and its so hard not to run, for me personally it relieves stress and i feel great after completing my run, i'm going to stay away from doing marathons till 2013, i'm going to do two half marathons next year, Hollywood half marathon and then maybe Long Beach marathon. I guess i'm kinda lucky, i moved from Dublin to LA five years ago, its easier waking up over here and going running, i'm sure its f'ing freezing over there running at 5am in the morning0
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No time for my story just now, I'm up at the g*dawfully early hour of 5:00 A.M. to begin a new morning run routine.
--MFPChris
At least is for a good reason!! haha
Hope you had a good run!0 -
I first started to do serious running October 2008 (weighed 269 pounds), i'd been overweight my whole life and decided before i turned 30 i wanted to be healthy for once in my life (September 2009 i turned 30), i started using the couch to 5k program which was great and ran my first 5k in 35 minutes i've since gotten down to 21 minutes in 5k races so far, after the c25k I progress to the 10k training and then onto half marathon training, before my first half marathon in disneyland in LA i got down to 165 pounds and i ran it in under 2 hours, since then i've ran the dublin marathon last year (my first one, ran first half way to fast and had nothing left for the finish, did that in 4hr 46 min, then ran the LA Marathon this year (poured down the whole time which actually helped) and i completed that in 4hrs 29 minutes. I absolute love running, its changed my life for the better, i've gotten injured from it and its so hard not to run, for me personally it relieves stress and i feel great after completing my run, i'm going to stay away from doing marathons till 2013, i'm going to do two half marathons next year, Hollywood half marathon and then maybe Long Beach marathon. I guess i'm kinda lucky, i moved from Dublin to LA five years ago, its easier waking up over here and going running, i'm sure its f'ing freezing over there running at 5am in the morning
Awesome, I'm trying to prepare for my first half after about the same route as you! It sure feels great to run.
In regards to running at 5AM in Dublin, well the temperatures are actually quite mild for this time of the year this year but you still get the good old Irish weather, rain and wind are a constant and when they mix together it isn't nice. I guess that's why there's so many gyms in Ireland. On the other hand, in the summer you have sun light from 4AM and you can run forever, it would make a great country for ultras as it is never too warm either.0 -
I did the C25K programme to do a charity 5km in aid of the injured jockeys fund.
A friend of mine (the same one that I co-own a race horse with), is an amateur jockey. Back in April he had a very bad fall from a horse during a race. Not alone did he hit his head off the ground but a horse then stood on his head while he was on the ground. He ended up in a coma for nearly a month.
I have to improve my time now. A snail on tranquillisers would have done the 5km quicker.0 -
i'm a bit ate throwing in my two cents but sure why not! Only just started running, I always wanted to but when you have 209lbs to lug around you'll find an excuse not to do lots of things! I lost 50lbs recently and a few weeks ago a co-worker suggested that we enter the cork city Marathon as part of a relay team... and I thought why not?? So now I'm in training for my first 8k. Fingers crossed!1
