Sylvia Thompson’s Running Diary: ‘Running is back in my life and I should keep it there’

After her level of fitness slipped, the Get Running programme got Sylvia Thompson back on track

Sylvia Thompson with her dog in Greystones. Photograph: Cyril Byrne
Sylvia Thompson with her dog in Greystones. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

This time last year, I embarked on The Irish Times Get Running programme. It was a fantastic opportunity to get back into regular aerobic exercise – particularly an exercise I could do at whatever time I liked – start from the front door and be back home again in half an hour or so.

Five years earlier, I was a complete beginner to running but with a small team of mums running straight after the early school drop-off, I built up a level of fitness that allowed me to complete the Women’s Mini Marathon.

Somehow, I let it all slip away and Get Running was the stimulus to get moving again. Now, a year later, I’ve had my ups and downs but feel like I have got running back into my life and should keep it there.

How did it go and what lessons have I learned? First off, one of the best habits I built up over the year was to complete a short running log.

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These 50 words or so allowed me to assess my run each day – see what went well, congratulate myself or motivate myself to do better next time. There was also room for the occasional moan if I found the run tough going, the weather too windy or my dog decided to run too far ahead, as he sometimes did.

I found Mary Jennings pitched her advice perfectly in the first eight-week programme – introducing stretches, encouraging short, fast runs within each run and always keeping light on your feet and relaxed in your body. Even things such as running tall, focusing on the arms when the legs get tired and smiling as you run are excellent tips to keep you going. Breaking down the run into shorter goals is another one I like.

Feeling of exhilaration

I continued to run until the early summer but with new routines and holidays, I let it slip back within a few months.

I was thrilled to see the Get Running: Stay On Track programme introduced in September for runners like me who hadn’t quite reached the 5km run yet but were keen to keep going. I still got that feeling of exhilaration after a good run that didn’t compare with any other exercise you could do in 30 minutes. I had varied my running route from time to time over the months but still preferred the soft terrain of the Greystones to Bray cliff walk, which I can reach on foot from my home. My daughter had also worked out a 5km route from our home to a point on the cliff walk and back again. This became my aim, and remains my aim for 2015.

I started the Stay On Track programme with enthusiasm but got a terrible cough that put a stop to my running for more than a month. By then, the weather was getting worse and the days were becoming shorter. As my cough slowly waned, I began to do regular fast walks to try to get back into running. In the last weeks of 2014, I managed to run only about once a week.

It was a disappointing end to a good year but I’m heartened by the fact that I can still manage to run for about 20 minutes nonstop after my fast five-minute walk. Sometimes, I stay out a bit longer to savour the winter sun. In fact, I do my utmost to run when I see the sun peeping out.

Just before Christmas, I did a wonderful three-hour fast-paced walk around the Upper Lake in Glendalough, and towards the end, I actually wanted to run. Isn’t it incredible how our bodies carry the energy of previous runs and propel us forward?

So, my ambition for this year is to get back into three regular runs a week. I will keep doing my running log, which was the one constant throughout the year. But, I will also aim to realistically plan my running times each week as a way to ensure they happen. I will return to the start of the programme and follow Mary Jennings’s keenly paced advice, week by week.

It’s not like I don’t know how to do it now but her gentle reminders will keep me motivated. They allow me to have mini-challenges to reach every week. I might even manage to join one of those parkruns which everyone says are so much fun. And with luck, at the end of the eight weeks, I will run 5km regularly, and enjoy it. That’s all I need.

See irishtimes.com/getrunning If you would like to share your experience of our Get Running programmes, please send your stories and pictures to fitness@irishtimes.com or post them on facebook.com/irishtimesrunning