Keep on Running

If asked to describe me using just one word, elegant, sporty, lithe and agile would be somewhere down the bottom of the list. Probably nudging skinny and loudmouthed. So when I finally emerged from the other end of the two year plaster cast and crutches saga and declared that I wanted to start running, I was met with surprise. And a lot of laughter.

I followed the Couch to 5k training plan - panting through the intervals of running and walking and returning a sweaty, exhausted mess. Now I'm training for my first 10k, which I should be attempting in March (although having taken 6 weeks off for exams, revision and Christmas, I'm finding it a little hard to get back into the swing of it).

I am not one of those runners that you see floating past you in their fluorescent vests and tight trousers - I lumber along like an elephant with a broken toe. It's hard work and sometimes I have to really force myself to get going, but the buzz that you get when you finish a workout is fantastic - that rush of endorphins is worth the pain and the sweat.

So what does this have to do with OCD? When I run, I think about my pace, about my breathing, about putting one leg in front of the other, about keeping on the pavement (I was pathologically clumsy). I have no space to worry, no time to count or turn things over in my mind. I cannot physically do anything but run. So when I'm having a bad day, instead of stewing in the adrenaline, I burn it - I run and I run, leaving the worries behind me.

I'm not a fanatic, I'm terribly slow and I will never be anything but an amateur jogger, but it gives me another way out, another tool to kick this out of my life for good. And that's what keeps me going, that's what keeps me running.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie