Thirty Years. in Summertime, and the living is easy... 2015

While I’ve been running I’ve had various things shouted at me, the most bizarre was “You’ve lost your bike!” And the most common, “it’ll ruin your knees.”

Well, I started running because I’m shit at sport. I can’t catch or throw, I hate the pressure of being on a team, the hockey field was a lot of people who didn’t like me wielding big sticks and my bat/eye coordination was next to none. I wanted to be good at something so at the age of 14, during the summer holidays, I started jogging. Once I could go a mile my mum bought me a gorgeous blue and grey velour track suit and when school started back in September I got up at 6.30 so I could run my daily mile before school.

The year I started? 1985. And that makes this 30 years since since I started running. Many of my friends here and in real life either weren’t born or considered running a thing you did to reach something you wanted - a park or a parent etc… Heck, my physio (the bloke who knows my body better than I do) just had his 30th birthday!!

I haven’t run continuously during those 30 years. There were the college years which involved a lot of cycling and the London years which also involved a lot of cycling, running too but it took a back seat because my bike was my transportation system and London is big! The USA year which was a lot of swimming and weight training with a little bit of running added in.

But running is my love. My passion. The thing I will miss sleep for without complaint.

And I have been aware of this anniversary for several months. I’ve pondered what to do.

And realised that I didn’t even think of 10 years (1995, I was living in Jacksonville at the time) nor 20 years, 2005, when I was pregnant with Talaia but this time, now, I am CELEBRATING!

But how?

Well, this week I met up with our lovely ~mujer~ rather spontaneously. On Monday she mentioned that she wanted to walk across the old river Severn bridge so, as I live relatively near, I gate crashed her plans and on Friday we went. It was a fabulous walk albeit further than either of us had realised. But I loved it, and I got a little closer to beating a little known fear I have of heights + water. I think ~mujer~ may have noticed the couple of times I had to control some hyperventilating, but I did! And with Talaia’s help I was able to stand at the edge (holding on tightly) and look down into the swirling mass of caramel coloured water.

And now I’m hooked. Now I want to run it....

So I’m going on Monday. This time the BBC say it will be raining instead of the glorious sunshine we had but rain is always good during a run.

I have spent the evening creating a 1985 spotify playlist to listen to while running and would love anyone who is near to come and cheer me on! I’m planning on a 10am ish start!

I’m very excited about this :-)

And if you have spotify, this is my ‘85 playlist…

http://open.spotify.com/user/katews2002/playlist/6W9EFDrKLzItd23jfj3Pil