Here we go again

So, here we go again, training proper begins for Race for Life 2011.

First a little recap:

• I am a big fat girl. I founded Team Run Fat Girl Run with my best friends in 2008 when we did our first Race for Life.
  
• I'm doing a 5k Race for Life at Nottingham Holme Pierrepont on Sunday 31 July - 12 weeks away.
• I had my second baby 5 months ago and between now and race day I will go back to work, finish my MA dissertation and see Take That twice (very important).
• I go a fightening shade of beetroot at the merest exertion never mind distance run.
  
• My mum has brain cancer.
  

I've been signed up for this year's race for a while but haven't got round to training until now. I always seem to find some excuse but today they ran out and so I downloaded the NHS Couch to 5k Week 1 podcast, donned an old Biffy Clyro tea and hesitantly set off.

I actually think the NHS are quietly brilliant at this community and self-help stuff. I blogged my second pregnancy for NHS Choices and found it invaluable in helping me get through anti-natal depression and other complications. I'd heard of the Couch to 5k scheme and just from the name it sounded tailor made for me. I am a couch potato, I do have a 5k race to do and I have more than 9 weeks to do it - hoorah!

As it started playing and I walked through the meadow at the end of our road I did my 5 minute warm up walk as a plethora of wild flowers glistened from the recent rain at my feet. Clover, buttercups, daisies of many sizes, a few blue bells beneath the trees, and the air heavy with the threat of rain and the heady scent of hawthorn blossom. It was all quite beautiful and I didn't even notice the time passing.

Out on the road I managed the eight sets of 60 second gentle runs and 90 second brisk walks without keeling over. It got harder toward the end but the podcast is a bit like having a personal trainer and the encouraging instructions of when to run, when to walk really helped me make it through. Coming in at 30 minutes and being expected to do it three times before moving onto week 2 seems achievable to me - even with a hectic life and lack of motivation!

So, I've got started. With 12 weeks to go I think I might actually have a chance of keeping up with my fellow team members (who aren't fat at all but are very kind to me) Vena and Lauren. They've both done this course in less than 30 minutes before so I've got a lot of work to do!

I came into this thinking that I can't do it. I'm too fat, too unfit, too lazy, too busy. What I know though is that I won't ever achieve running 5k if I don't try. And that's what I'd say to people who say Cancer Research won't solve anything, that cancer will always kill. We won't find a cure if we don't try.

You can sponsor me online (warm fuzzy feeling guaranteed).
And you can get the free NHS Couch to 5k plan too.

Finally - a plea. The number of women taking part in Race for Life this year is down and Cancer Research UK are desperate for more people to sign up and raise money to try and find a cure. To all the women who are reading this please, please sign up to a race near you. If you sign up to Nottingham Holme Pierrepont you'd be more than welcome to join us. And to the men, please encourage any women you know - partners, mothers, daughters, sisters, colleagues - to sign up too.

You can find races and sign up online on the Race for Life website.