The Road to Damascus!!

So this is it - the actual road to Damascus!! A bit muddy eh, and quite gloomy....

Me with my dogs and Gorgeous Bloke's sheepdog hiding. See below for an explanation...

Me, slightly less flustered but still running in the rain.

As if it wasn't wet enough - Minty has to take a bath too.

Or something like that.

The Universe has been trying to tell me something important for ages now. And have I been listening? No, because I'm a bit dim. I've been receiving signals left, right and centre but not "getting" them.

Anyway, I finally got there yesterday while running along a muddy track in the rain. And it was great - I got that fantastic lightbulb feeling, coupled with runner's high and the glad-to-be-alive joy of movement. Rare indeed eh?

What has it been teling me, you ask? That I need to exercise and, more specifically, to run. If I do that, I will find it a lot easier to keep the weight off and I will feel better. So, not earth-shattering stuff then....

Evidence for:

• I have gained weight since I gave running. In fact I'm about half a stone heavier than I was this time last year. Now, that's not too bad, but I was definitely heavier then than I wanted to be and I haven't managed to shift the weight all year; in fact I have been a lot heavier and have dropped weight to get down to this level (but had to go back onto a VCLD to do it which I did NOT want to do!).
  


• I do more exercise when I run regularly. Other exercise doesn't seem to motivate me in the same way. I find it easier to miss other types of exercise.
  


• How many podgy runners do you see around the place??
  
  
• The women I know who have made running part of their everyday lives are the slender ones.

Signs

• I was chatting to Katie in the pub. Now, she used to be a bit on the plump side - drop dead gorgeous but definitely chubby. For her wedding she took up running and shifted a couple of stone and turned into Pamela Anderon's younger, sexier cousin. Subtle she is not but there is no doubting that she looks fantastic in a footballer's wives kind of way. (And, as an aside, despite the airhead, bimbo hair, nails and clothes, she is v v intelligent and sucessful - what doctor wouldn't buy drugs off her!!)
  
  Anyway, she casually dropped into conversation that she had been running up Win Hill. I thought that she would have given up the running as it was not really her sort of thing - what, mud darling!! But no. She is still doing it and, well, der, she still looks as luscious as she did when she got married over a year ago whereas I have gained over 2 stone. I remember because I was at my thinnest at her wedding - a very skimpy size 12 and looked pretty hot myself.
  
• I met Jacqui (the former colleague I mentioned in my last post). She had a baby only 4 weeks ago and now looks superslim. She immediately said that she had just gone back to the running. Also, she ran up Win Hill in July when 5 months pregnant. Admittedly she was slow and knackered but she did it. Hence why she didn't gain baby weight.
  


• Kate is still slim 2 years on and she runs 3 times a week. Every week!
  
  
• I have received emails from the Sheffield Half Marathon and the 10km race which I did in April and May of this year asking me to sign up for next year's events.
  
  
• There's probably been more signs and hints but I can't think of them now....

So - I went running on Sunday morning. In the rain. It was great. I loved it and got that great runners' high thingy. Also - just as I was reaching the halfway, turning point in my run, I met a bloke (well, he emerged from the hedgerow) picking rose hips. He was drop dead GORGEOUS!! I mean one of the tastiest man morsels I have seen for a long time. (Better even than the lovely Huw!). All, rugged and outdoorsy but sort of shy and self-deprecating too, with a really friendly Old English Sheepdog (appropriately clipped). Kind of like a cross between Tim Henman and Brad Pitt but better looking than that sounds... And picking rosehips to make flavoured wine or something (probably watched last week's River Cottage Christmas show) - how cool (in a 'country-stylee') is that?.

Now I know I married and all so shouldn't pay attention to young, hunky men (he he he) but it seemed to be another sign - like a cosmic reward for finally getting out and running after all the fannying around!

So, I'm going to be running again tomorrow morning - fingers crossed that my mystery rosehip picker is out again!!! LOL

PS. He was rubbish at taking photos though - so you can blame him and the siling rain for the poor quality. And, as you can see, I was not exactly looking my best....hey ho