jogging

It took me almost 4 years, but I finally joined a running club! I’ve been following this particular group, local to me, on Facebook for years. However, the thought of actually going gave me pretty severe social anxiety! I did actually go once a few years ago but I turned up, didn’t spot any runners, got scared and drove home! Turned out I had the wrong place but didn’t try going again.

I joined in January, and I have been around 5 times now. The first time was pretty scary. I was mainly worried about the social aspect; running and chatting with strangers! I told myself that everyone would already know each other and no-one would want to talk to me. I worried that I would be the slowest runner and hold everyone up.

Turns out I needn’t have worried! Everyone has been super friendly and apparently I’m not as bad at striking up a conversation with new people as I thought! After my second time at run club I even braved the post run drink at the pub!

Obviously I had to buy new gear to fit in with my new running buddies. We run at half 6 in the evening, so at this time of the year it’s pretty dark at this time. On my first time, my husband sent me off with his hi-vis vest and head torch. Whilst plenty of people there were wearing head torches, they were not wearing building site issue hi-vis vests! I ordered a funky new chest light from amazon that I spotted the cool kids wearing. I will post links to items that I have bought and found useful, along the way in my running journey.

So, running club has taught me lots about running! Shock! I have learnt about pacing, breathing, shoes, just to name a few things. I now know that you should be able to talk and run at the same time and not be desperately out of breath. We have talked a lot about trainers. Mainly I learnt that I needed new ones. I was running in my worn out Nike trainers that I had bought at the beginning of lockdown, when I had started going out for my daily walks.

I got talked into going for a gait analysis too. This was very useful; more about that another time!

All in all, I am now running faster overall. I am able to run further on my own and feel like I could run further too! I have also made some friends and it gets me out of the house and meeting nice new people!

This is just the beginning of my running club fun on Tuesday evenings. I’ll post more about how I get on in the coming weeks.