It is exactly a year since I took up the first serious, regular exercise in my 44 year life. Trying to fit jogging in around work and everything else is not easy, but I do make it a priority. It's something I have to force myself to do and I can't say I enjoy the actual experience, but I do feel great afterwards. One of my proudest moments was when I managed to do over three miles without stopping. It's not much compared to 'proper' runners and took me months to achieve. But for someone who has never been at all inclined towards physical exercise and who is not athletically built for it (I have had clunky knees since I was a teenager and have to strap one knee up with two bands before I go out) - I think I've done alright.
As you can see, I'm never going to be a willowy stripling, gliding effortlessly along - I'll always be a slow old dobbin, plodding along, slightly red in the face. It will always be a challenge. But I do it, because it's made me so much fitter, so much happier and to anyone of average health, who thinks they *can't* do it - start as I did, jogging for as far as you can go (not very far in my case), rest, walk and take off again when you feel ready. It's amazing how quickly you build up fitness and your heart and mind will thank you for it. However I'm not promising it will be easy.
I don't normally jog in these glorious fields - I tend to stick to our village lanes, but spring has arrived in the Cotswolds and so we turned our walk into an exercise session, hopping over the county border to the Salperton estate, where I proceeded to do a few stints of 'plogging' and fast walking. Not a bad place to workout.
On the way home, (tired but virtuous) we passed through Little Barrington - one of the sweetest villages in an area crammed with sweet villages.
It's a huddle of cottages clustered around a large green, but has the chocolate box appearance expected of the English countryside. This comes with a hefty price tag, as does all property in the Cotswolds, which is why we are on the move. We're just not wealthy enough (or wealthy at all) to stay here.
(Is it safe to say Winter is over?)
