I Am So Dead

I'm gonna start this story with the events of yesterday... I think it will be readily apparent early on where the story is going and why the title of this post is what it is.

Fisrt off, I have to come clean. I'm the first person to take the michael out of girls for the amount of time that they spend shopping for shoes. Shoes and handbags. So when I tell you that I spent over an hour buying a pair of running shoes from a specialist sports shop in Southmead, it is with a certain amount of chargrin.

It had taken a couple of weeks for me to convince Stead that it was time to bite the bullet and buy the running shoes. (Apparently running shoes are not trainers and vice-versa.) He finally relented and we were going to do it on Friday evening, but when the time came, Stead 'couldn't be bothered'. So come Monday, I leaned (my considerable weight) on him until he gave in and at quarter to 5 on a dank Monday evening, we found ourselves in a sports store called 'Sweatshop' in Southmead.

Sweatshop. Bodes well, doesn't it?

Anyways. We were served by a very nice and embarrasingly fit man called Matt who explained to us all about support, arches, road surfaces and shin splints and stuff and sucessfully managed not to patronise the two suited gentlemen in front of him who were clearly as unfit as a pair of unfit weasels. Very exciting. He made us run in various pairs of shoes until we were satisfied with the fit and support we were getting.

The upshot of all of this was that he sold us 2 pairs of £70 running shoes. And we discovered that he had amazingly small hands. If you're in Bristol and you need running shoes, consider this a recommendation.

So, Tuesday evening comes around and the time comes for our first run. It is our ultimate aim to get to 5 miles a run, two or three times a week. Well, we didn't manage that, but we were quite happy with the 2ish miles that we did run. Of course there were one or two rests included in that. It killed us. It killed Stead more than it killed me, but dead is dead. We're so unfit. Our first hurdle is to master that 2 mile run with no break. Then we'll extend it to 2 and a half or 3 miles. Hopefully in a couple of months time, we'll be running a reasonable distance and almost look like we know what we're doing.

And that, my friends is why I am so dead.