Run, Forrest, run!

So I'd tried running. Surprisingly, I'd enjoyed it. Even more surprisingly, I wasn't crap at it. My confidence was boosted by being one of the quicker folk at the jogscotland sessions, although to be honest I probably shouldn't have been there to begin with. I felt a bit like Homer Simpson winning the children's competition to design a nuclear power plant. The holiday was over - literally and figuratively - and it was back to the running club.

This was a concern. From working at the local paper, I was aware the club had a number of folk who flew half way across the world to run marathons in less time than it would take me to drive a similar distance. Thankfully, the club also has a beginner and improvers class, which also helped folk who were moving across from jogscotland. It seemed ideal but I feared it would be like increasing the difficulty on a computer game from easy to hart.

Distances from two to five miles were offered and while I was fairly comfortable doing four, I thought I'd start off with three just to find out what the standard was. It's not a race, just running the distance around Dumfries at whatever pace you're comfortable with. For the first half I was able to keep up with the quicker folk, then dropped back a bit.

This created problems. One was that the person I ended up beside, who was a fair bit older than myself, remarked "Aye, we'll let the young ones go ahead" - at 31 I still liked to consider myself a "young one". The other was that we ended up getting lost as we weren't sure where we were going, so may or may not have ended up doing more than three miles. That aside, all went well and the following week I ended up doing four miles.

Not the Young Ones in question

When I moved up to five miles, which I just about coped with, I got talked into speed play. This was different. This wasn't just going for a run for a few miles, pacing yourself and stopping once you'd finished and were getting tired. Oh no. This was aimed at getting you faster by making you running two miles, split up into four or eight sections, as fast as you possibly good. You were paired up with someone, you each estimated your time, then came up with your total. It's a staggered start with the idea being everyone finishes at the same time. That's the theory anyway but usually it doesn't work out like that, mainly because people are faster than they think - and weirdly I was one of them.

While this was good fun, and did help you get a bit quicker, it also meant a lot of hanging around to both start your session and in between runs. And it was cold, very cold. While I'm no doctor or fitness expert, I fear this potent combination led to me discovering not only that I have muscles in my arse but that it's possible to hurt them. The third time I went I pulled something in my backside and could barely walk, let alone run. Icing it didn't lead to a speedy recovery and my plans for a weekend run or two were ruined.

You have muscles in your backside - who knew?

Like the weather problems mentioned last time, this left me gutted - a quite bizarre scenario considering I'd never even considered running a few months earlier. Rather foolishly, I decided five days later to give it a go on my own to see if I could get back running. The pain seemed to have subsided - but quickly returned after I'd left my house and ran round a corner. Inexplicably I decided to carry on, ran five or six miles and decided this pain would be bearable.

With my continual running I could feel myself getting fitter - aside from my arse - quicker and lighter. I therefore decided it was time to try the Paisley to Johnstone run again, the one that left me gasping like a 40-a-day smoker on my last attempt. It was a glorious morning and not only did it pose no problem, I kept running and running, covering nine miles instead of six - the furthest I'd ever run. I felt - and probably looked - like Forrest Gump.

This was also the morning I discovered the joy of podcasts while running. Before, I'd always preferred to listen to music while I was running but as I had a backlog of podcasts I thought this would be a chance to clear some of them. The time seemed to pass much more quickly, which is maybe why I felt I could go on for ever, and unless I'm running with someone I never go running without at least one podcast to keep me company.

As a St Mirren fan, I'm fully aware that when things are going well something will usually come along and kick you on the backside - and that's exactly what was about to happen to me. I'd had some pain in one of my knees for a wee while. I don't know when it started, it just cropped up one day at work, certainly not straight after a run. I was able to run through it as the pain would increase slightly at the start of my run and then not get any worse. When I began to struggle towards the end of a run I'd just start screaming at a volume that would put Maria Sharapova to shame.

Her on-court screaming is nowhere near as loud as me mid-run

The pain gradually began to subside - and then cropped up in the other knee. This was far, far worse. I tried to run through it a few times but eventually had to admit defeat. Not that I really had any choice as the day after I called it quits I couldn't walk around the office. This wasn't going away in a few days, it wasn't even going away in a week. Rather worried at the lack of improvement, I went to see the doctor - who advised I keep up my self treatment of ice and ibuprofen. Thanks for that.

I was pretty depressed as I walked/hobbled about and saw other folk running. I wanted to do it but couldn't. It was so frustrating that after running through the cold, dark winter months that I was screwed when the weather was improving. In fairness, the doctor's advice seemed to work and by the end of week three the pain was gradually easing. On my birthday the pain seemed to have gone - the sort of birthday treat you'd expect for a 72-year-old, not a 32-year-old.

I gave it another week to make sure the pain was fully away and went back to the club. The night before I was ridiculously excited, like a kid before Christmas. Initially I planned just to do four miles on my return but got talked into five. There were a few twinges but everything seemed fine. The problem was every time I went running and felt the slightest pain, I was convinced my knees or muscles were about to fall apart. It was like when I had to replace my car's exhaust - every slight rattle had me imagining a hefty repair bill.

I feel I've had more injuries than Darren "Sicknote" Anderton

But gradually I got round that and I didn't seem to be having any after effects. Having coming through the step up to running with other folk and coped easily with it - aside from when some people took great delight in sprinting away over the last half mile when I was shattered - it was time to step up another level. It was time to go racing.