So we’re off

….…well sort of…Met up with Pauline Curley and Ciaran Lynch in Radio 3 today to have a chat with Clara Walshe (Midlands Radio 3 Presenter) about our challenge…to run the Tullamore Harriers 1/2 marathon in 10 week’s time...Mary Daly (Clubs Ladies Captain) and Darren Butler were also there but didn’t join us in the studio…think we’ll have to bring them in the next time..have a listen to our interview here  http://www.midlandsradio.fm/custom/public/files/tullamore-harriers.mp3

Background to this is, Tullamore Harriers are having their first half marathon on Saturday 31st August to celebrate the clubs 60th anniversary and they were looking for a few non athletics to set themselves a challenge and run the half marathon in 10 weeks...the 2 Guinea-pigs that are going to give it a go are Ciaran Lynch aka Lynchie and myself…

I was asked last Thursday would I be interested in doing it and the main reason for getting involved was that I felt it was a great opportunity to learn how to run properly and to see if I’d be able to run the full 21.0975 kilometers or 13.1094 miles….I was never a runner and always found it a very boring sport but I’ve got into it over the last few months and I think I’m starting to enjoy it…

I started doing some exercise after Christmas this year as I had just turned 37 and over the last few years the pounds had been creeping up…when I looked at the weighing scales in Jan and was over the 14 stone I knew it was time to make some changes….my height is 5’6’’ on a good day and I’m married to Fiona with 3 kids..Aaron 5, Katie 3 and Lucy who is 8 months so Daddy needed to get into some shape J….i started in Jan doing short walks around Tullamore and then it progressed to running a bit and walking a bit…and eventually this built up to a 5K in Kilbeggan in March and I did the Tullamore Camogie Club 5K in April..since then I did a 6K, 8K and finally did a 10K..I’ve done 3 10K’s since I started..the first one took me over an hour and my last 2 were just under the hour..doing the 10K in under an hour is a was a huge milestone for me considering where I’d come from…during this time the weighing scales started to look a bit better and this morning I was down to 13st 5lb…not bad considering where I was only 5 months previously..

Since I’ve done the 10K’s I’ve gotten lazy as this initially was my goal and now most weeks don’t do any training during the week but I try and book into a race at the weekend because when I sign up to one I feel I have to do it and that’s where the motivation is…deciding to take the challenge of the half marathon means that I’ll have to train at least 2-3 times during the week and do a longer run at the weekends if I want to complete it so I’ve no choice now but to put the effort in…

The target I’m setting myself is that I want to be able to finish the half marathon in less than 2 hours..Tomorrow is when the fun starts..

Here we are this morning