I half-heartedly tried running a few times throughout the years, but could never get into it. I got breathless to quickly, my knees hurt, I felt I was going too slowly. The lesson of 2 10km races with no training weren’t heeded properly.

I started being serious about running 2 months ago when I got the ipod. Then I got the nike+ and being able to keep statistics was the biggest motivation. I should have realised that all it took was a geeky angle.

I was very slow initially. Added the inconvenience of street running — traffic, stupid pedestrians who block the whole pavement, dogs and their walkers — meant an inordinate amount stopping and starting. The first record on my nike+ showed a speed of 8min/km, a result of jogging for a block or two, walking, and walking during the final 20mins. Mostly I’ve been keeping in the 7-ish min/km tempo. Occasionally I’d break 7mins.

The knees haven’t stopped hurting, but in only 2 months I’ve done pretty okay. I’ve made an effort to run at least 4-5 times a week; other times I walked or if I’m at a hotel I use the elliptical. One day a week is rest day.

The latest big breakthrough is this weekend when I decided instead of running around the block, to run over to Bowen Road and use the “dedicated” running route. Boy it made such a huge difference! There were a lot of people, but it was never crowded. The initial parts were shared with traffic, but it then quickly became pedestrian only. Conditions were ideal, yesterday I ran until the 3km marker on the route, and including the distance from home it ended up being almost 12km.

Today I selected by distance. 5 mins walking warm-up before starting the workout. Hardly any traffic stops and running all the way, no walking. Turned the voice notification on and stopped the timer at 10km exactly. Then another 10 mins cool down walking home.

1.08 is still slow, I’d like to get to under 30mins per 5km. But as a target reached I feel I deserve a little self-congratulation. There’s lots of room for improvement, plenty of time for building up speed and strength.