A Journey of Personal Discovery Via Couch To 5k

Let me tell you a story about an unhealthy, overweight, unfit middle aged woman.

That was me. Just before Covid-19 struck, as it happens.

Some five years or so before the pandemic I picked up a bug. It was awful and strange and I’ve never experienced anything like it, and it rapidly got hold of me and took a dangerous turn when I developed pneumonia. After the most terrifying night of my life, and having not died (which didn’t feel like a certainty that awful night), my body was decimated. My lungs were a mess. I was breathless after only the most gentle exertion. I was completely exhausted and had no energy for about a year. I had absolutely no clue how I was going to feel better or healthy ever again.

So I didn’t try.

I accepted what I thought was inevitable – that I would feel debilitated and terrible for the rest of my life.

I spent another four years in poor health, struggling just to get through the day, everything feeling like it was just too much to bother with. I couldn’t feel happiness or joy because I didn’t have the energy for that. I barely had the energy to get out of bed. That was my ‘fate’. Or that’s what I told myself.

Scroll forward to early February 2020. For a little while I had been feeling impatient with myself, with my miserable, overweight, energy-depleted, poorly-functioning body. I’d seen the GP a few months earlier and was on various waiting lists that may or may not have resulted in an appointment with a specialist at some unspecified point in the future, so I started to wonder if I might be able to help myself? I remembered hearing Jonathan Agnew enthusing about Couch To 5k on Test Match Special during the summer and I wondered whether I should try it?

Well… Cue a million compelling reasons why I couldn’t, including (and this is by no means an exhaustive list):

· I’m unfit

· I’m unhealthy

· I’m overweight

· I won’t be able to do it

· I don’t want people to see me trying to run

· I’ll embarrass myself

· I’ve got bad knees

· If I can’t do it it’ll mean I’m stuck like this for the rest of my life so I'm better off not knowing that I can't (that's a really good one. And more common than you'd think.)

And, to compound it all, childhood asthma meant cross-country running at school had been torture and I’d hated it and I’d been rubbish at it, as everyone had seen. And kids can be really cruel. Brief attempts at running in adulthood had also been spectacularly unsuccessful.

On and on it went. Fear-fuelled procrastination fused with shame and self-attack and loathing. I was a terrible person! I was unfit and unhealthy and I always would be! AND IT WAS ALL MY FAULT!

Believe me, I can do this to myself for decades, and I have. And you know what? There’s a strange sort of empowerment in that. Because I was doing it to myself. So I was in control.

So what made me download the Couch To 5k app and pull on the ancient sportswear that had been moth food in the drawer for years, and the brand new running shoes I’d found in the charity shop in the £2 sale a couple of days earlier?

Storm Ciara, that’s what.

That’s where my opportunity came from. Yes, I was still unfit, unhealthy and overweight, and I most likely wouldn’t be able to do it. And I still had bad knees and knackered lungs. But I figured that if I went out in the middle of a vicious named storm no-one would actually see me fail, and although I could heap embarrassment on myself (I am somewhat expert in this), no-one else needed to know.

And I also sort of wanted to prove to myself that I WOULD fail.

‘What are you doing thinking that you might be able to do this? Get out there and prove to yourself that you can’t! Who do you think you are? Because you are the kid with asthma who’s terrible at running!’

Does any of this sound familiar?

I could live with the failure. Hell, it would mean I was right all along! But I couldn’t do it if I was going to fail in front of other people. My failure had to be quiet, solitary and total.

So, anyway, back to the story. What happened?

At 6am on Sunday 02 February 2020, I went out in the rain, wind and chaos of Named Storm Ciara.

There was no-one around (of course there wasn’t – it was horrible!). By the end of the first 1min split I thought I was going to die. I dutifully walked (well, staggered) for 90secs and then started the next 1min split. I couldn’t get any air into my lungs. It was awful. This went on for 20 torturous minutes, at which point I have probably never felt so hopeless in all my life. And to compound the misery someone else had been walking up the high street on my second circuit, so I had been seen! But they hadn’t laughed at me – they were too busy trying to hold onto their dog’s lead and not be blown over to even notice, so the going-out-during-a-major-storm strategy had been somewhat successful, to be fair.

I was indeed a rubbish runner, catastrophically unfit and unhealthy, overweight and with bad knees and terrible lungs, but I didn’t die and I did actually complete the session. I’d broken the spell of the layers and layers of negativity blocks had been creating a wall between me and ‘just trying’ for years.

So, the next day at 6am I got up and went out and did it all again. And I was still rubbish, unfit, unhealthy, overweight and there had been no improvement in the quality of my knees or my lungs. So then I went out the next day, and the next, and the next, until I had completed Week 1.

I then did Week 2. It was horrible and I didn’t know how to breathe to get air into my lungs and I felt awful. But I did it.

I repeated Week 3 because it was a struggle. Now, in the past I would have ploughed straight on with Week 4 and likely would have given up at that point because I had proved to myself that that I 'just couldn’t do it'.

What changed this time? What made me think ‘Okay, I still can’t do it, so let’s try doing this week again’? Rather than, say, 'Okay, I still can't do it, I'll give up and give myself a hard time instead'?

Much to my surprise, I was actually enjoying it. It got me out of bed, I felt a bit less awful (once it was over every morning!), I had a little bit more energy. I was surprising myself. I wanted to carry on. That was a surprise.

After repeating Week 3, I had the same struggle with Week 4. So I repeated that, too.

I didn’t need to repeat another week. In Week 5 I was doing 8min running splits. Did you know that if you can run for 8mins you can run for half an hour? You can.

The rest of the program went fine (including making the transition from running 10min splits to running for 25mins uninterrupted). Who knew?

Running got me through Covid-19. At 6am every morning I took my one piece of outdoor exercise – a 30min run. My energy levels improved, my lungs improved, I lost a bit of weight and I started eating better. Treating myself better. I started to care about myself. Because, being completely honest, I hadn’t cared about myself before.

The 9-week Couch To 5k program took me 11 weeks. But scroll forward just over three years and I still run almost every morning for half an hour. I’m not quick, but I never stop, I’m not embarrassed if someone sees me – in fact I’m on ‘good morning’ terms with a lot of people that I see every day – and actually my knees are no worse. But my lungs are pretty good these days.

Why have I told you all this?

Simple. Because I wish someone had told me this years ago.

Where are you keeping yourself from trying? Is this because you’re afraid of failure? Or even success? Are you limiting yourself because you fear the reaction or disapproval of others? Why do you care what anyone else thinks? Do you feel safe in the box you've rammed yourself into, however painful it might be for you to stay in it?

What would you try if you knew it would turn out well for you? Well, try it.

We only end up having regrets about the things we don't do.

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