When I say I'm unfit, I'm not selling myself short, I'm not being humble and I'm not just unsure of what people can or can't do. I am 100% one of the most unfit people I know. It's probably something to do with spending more time lying along the couch eating pizza than doing any sort of physical exercise. Too often when I have set off for a light run, usually to a shop when the beer has run out or when the takeaway isn't on Just Eat so won't take card payments and I need to go to a cash machine, I get that sting in the lungs that makes you question if it's all going to be worth it. Then the deep breathing starts and eventually, I'm sitting on the kerb, rocking back and forth, wondering when the next bus comes to take me back the 100 yards I've ran so far.
My usual post run/exercise face
That's not what was so bad about my first run though. My preparation was terrible. Everything just felt SO. HEAVY. The first 5 minutes were OK but after that it was clear any "stretching" I had done before hand was not sufficient, every step felt tight and as if it was taking a gargantuan effort.
For me, warm-ups are an alien thing. Most of my "sporting" endeavours have involved little to no warm-up at all. When I played amateur football I was young and ill-informed of what it takes to look after your body, mainly because I was playing against guys twice my age who it seemed were only there to get away from the wife & kids for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning. My amateur football career lasted from the age of 16-18 and because of this my preparation would usually be thus; the night before I, along with my friends, as we left school on the Friday afternoon, we'd arrange to meet up at one of each others houses, bringing any money gained from our part time jobs and then it was on to a local off-license with a very loose interpretation of Challenge 21. The oldest looking of the group, or the one with the fake EU motorcycle license, would take everyone's money and try his luck to possibly buy a few crates of beer and a few bottles of a certain terrible Scottish vodka, a brand of vodka made closer to Muirkirk than Moscow, before the shopkeeper decided to check ID's, to which the standard response was always "aw, I've just left it in the car with the weans!" or to confiscate the obviously fake ID. 4 or 5 hours later, I'd be hugging the toilet while my sister inadvertently grassed me in to my parents by asking my Mum why I was so unwell.
On to game day and after an hours drive to somewhere like Perth, another hour trying to find the pitch among the housing schemes and 10 minutes trying to find someone who could find a key to open the changing facilities, you had about 30 seconds to "warm-up" before the home team grew restless and hassled the referee to start the game. The 30 seconds would have to be used efficiently. Find the "flashy" player in the opposition, the one that had been on YTS form at Stenhousemuir for 6 months, 8 years ago, and then make sure your team's resident nutcase knew that he was his man. Preparation was more of a mental thing than a physical thing at this level.
When I gave amateur football up and moved on to 5-a-sides, preparation did actually move on to a more physical plane. However, and this is a lot simpler than the preparation for a full 11-a-side game. Everyone lines up in the centre of the pitch, someone kicks a ball towards the goal, whoever is stupid enough to go collect the ball is now the the target. Fairly simple, extremely ineffective.
I think maybe it's time I read up on pre-run preparation.
I'm running for Childreach International you can donate to them here.
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