I’m Afraid To Run

I want to be a runner. I’ve always lived in awe of people who enjoy exercise, who get up early and go for a run, or who can be bothered to at the end of the day. I’ve always wanted to be a sporty person. But I’m not. At least, I keep telling myself that.

This week I read a post by Kate Young about being afraid to do box jumps. It hit home. Box jumps (where you jump up onto a box) are terrifying. I’m always scared the box will flip, I’ll only half hit it, I’ll slip or fall, or something will happen and it will hurt. They were always the scariest part of doing any kind of exercise class (and one of the many reasons I didn’t last too long doing exercise classes).

Right now, that’s how I feel about running. I’m making excuses – my shoes are too old and I don’t want to buy new ones in case I don’t ever go again. It’s too cold. I shouldn’t start when it’s raining. The ground is uneven and I might twist my ankle. People will realise how terrible my fitness is. My knees are too weak. I won’t last a full 20 minutes… The list goes on.

But I have to do something.

I recently had my hormones checked, they’ve always been quite dodgy, and right now my testosterone is way up. I’ve been put on something to bring it down, resulting in me feeling like Edward J Fox who lived in a box in the middle of the airstrip, only when the jumbos took off I didn’t move my box out of the way. Splat.

I wake up every morning feeling like I’ve been attacked by gnomes wielding snow shovels and drag myself out of bed only to go to work and be run off my feet all day because the master’s courses I’ve spent the last year working on are going live. Get home, collapse in front of the TV, fall asleep on the couch. Rinse. Repeat.

The specialist said to me “To get your hormones in check, the most important thing you can do is exercise for 20 minutes every day”.

Every day?!

I don’t even exercise once a week! Not unless running between meetings or rolling between the sheets counts.

So I have to do something. And what better thing to do than just start what I’ve always wanted to do – run. All I need to do us go outside and give it a go. What’s so hard about that?

Turns out, everything. Or, to be more specific, fear.

I’m afraid.

What are you afraid to do? Any advice for me?