mel in the milkyway: How choosing to run may have been the worst decision I've made so far this year

currently: tired and out of my mind.

how it honestly feels after running even a minute.

If you don't count running for buses and running in netball as "running" - then I have not run in a very long time. Eleven years to be exact, when I was 12 years old and ran the Weetbix 5km run with the rest of my intermediate year group. I walked most of it.

Since then, nothing else of that sort.

I'm not a runner. I don't like running. Running is a boring activity to me. I like sports, I like games. Catching a ball? Yeah. If I am on an exercise bike, I like pedaling with music or a TV show in front of me. Can't really do that while running outside... (at least not at the volume I put music or a TV show on.)

So why did I think running was such a good idea? The decision was a mix of peer pressure, new year #YOLO nature and cockiness. "How hard could it be to run?" What I should have asked is how much will this end up destroying me...

March 8th is Auckland's 8.4km 'Round The Bays'. And next Sunday is Auckland's 5km 'Colour Run'. While they're both charity/fun runs, I somehow felt this pressure to at least try to make it through without passing out. So today, I went on a run with Boyfriend to the local beach and back. I had even planned to go up to the local shops and down the hill - just so it could equal all up 5km.

We started easy. As easy as Auckland can get with my suburb's up and down hills. But after less than 5 minutes - I was out of breath.

So we walked. And then ran again, And less than 5 minutes later - out of breath.

In the space of 15 minutes we took three breaks. I looked at my phone's pedometer and it was quite sad to see we hadn't even made a kilometre yet. And I could run for a bus a kilometre away in 8 minutes. What was wrong with me this time?

No one looks like this when running on the beach. NO ONE.

It didn't get much better as we headed to the beach. As I attempted to run on the hard sand, a few thoughts crossed my head.

1 - Why am I running?
2 - Why has my exercise bike training not helped?
3 - I'm breathing really hard, is this normal?
4 - Why is this beach so freaking long?
5 - WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA.

Three times I stopped to walk on the beach. The beach isn't even a kilometre long. Far out, I was, and am, over my head.

And even as other people lapped us with their effortless-looking run, I honestly could not see, or want, what they had. I could Google hundreds of running quotes and relate to none of them. Bring me back the couch.

It didn't get much better as we suffered our first injury - Boyfriend's phone hitting the ground. And not just any ground - solid road/asphalt ground after it fell out of his shorts pocket. Phone still worked, but screen - shattered. As we headed back home, I apologised the entire time. So he seemed to punish/encourage me by telling me to run ahead and run faster. Quite frankly I deserved to be punished for bringing up the idea to run and inadvertently causing his phone to break.

In the end, we took over an hour to walk/run about 4km.

And it was mainly walking. What we have to show for it is a shattered phone screen and the three blisters on my left foot. I didn't even know joints like my left shoulder and my jaw could hurt from running.

I honestly have no idea what I got myself signed up for.