With a little help from my friend!

Tonight I did the longest run I've done so far. We planned to do our usual run along the canal and back, starting at a friends house. Since my best friend couldn't make it I decided I'd run down to the house we meet at, rather than ask someone else for a lift. I reckoned this was about 1 - 1.5 miles from my house and about half a mile is downhill. It turns out to be actually just over 2 miles so was pretty pleased with that!

When I got to the meeting point my friends had decided they wanted to run a bit further as we seem to always stick at around 2.5 - 3miles and can never really get off that mark. We decided to run 25 mins then turn around and ended up doing 3.6 miles so all in all a really great run.

I ran quite a few long stints in the first two sections but on the way home I was starting to struggle a bit, however, my friend Emily was a great help, she really motivated me and pushed me to run further than I thought I could. At one point I started to flag and she just shouted 'push!' at me and I went another 2 minutes! I'd recommend her to anyone haha!

Whilst we were on a walking stint we were chatting about why we run. I explained to her that the charity I am running my 5k from is related to the illness my Grandma had and we chatted about GBS and the difficulties it can cause people in life. (Plug alert: please sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/emma-blyth0) Later on, when we were jogging again I started to flag and Emily reminded me that my Grandma would have been so pleased with my for keeping fit and raising money so I carried on going!

I would say to anyone out there who is thinking about starting running, just go for it! I put it off for so long as I thought I was too unfit but by starting with some walking, power-walking or jogging, your confidence soon builds and before you know it you will be pushing your hardest to beat yourself every time, especially if you can find a group of like-minded people to go with!