I don't ache! Crikey.

I was mucking about. I'm aware it's not going be anything like cake, or any portion of it. I just feel a little less overwhelmed by the novel idea of achieving something this physical. I hope this isn't arrogance masquerading as confidence.

Oddly enough I feel like I want to go out for a run again today. Not because the run last night was particularly exhilarating, it wasn't, but because I can see how it can become that way, and in not too long a time at all. It's like the first time you smoke a cigarette. After you've finished pinwheeling around trying to grab hold of something, then maybe retched something vital-looking up and gulped it back down again, perhaps even going so far as to actually admit to the 'pal' who gave you the cigarette in the first place that there's no way you're ever going to do that again cos that was disgusting!, you very speedily broker a short-term contract between your common-sense and your need to be cool that allows a couple more goes at it, to see if it gets any better. This contract is stretched out a little, then discarded altogether when you catch yourself in a shop window and you're about as sexy as you can be, especially when it comes out of your nose.

Yeah, it's exactly like that. well, you know what I mean.

There's an urge to beat the little no-nos that your body kept putting in your way, like the way the legs started feeling like soggy cotton wool after only 3 minutes of hitting your stride, or the pin sharp pain at the middle of the sternum that suddenly arrived about half way in and then never went away. I know that everyone gets these and other niggling pains and problems in the beginning and I know they will fade away the fitter I get. But I also know that trying too hard, attempting to overcome them too soon can have somewhat disastrous effects - or at least that's what everyone tells me.

Which is irritating, because I'm impatient. I want to be up at Dunorlan lake, for instance, able to lap it 6 times - 3 and a bit miles - without stopping or slowing down, maybe listening to something like Bizet or one of the Strausses (not the one who did all the polkas; I'd hate for someone to find me inert by the side of the path, pop my earphones out to try and raise me and then when I do come round they're trying to stop sniggering and dancing like a really effete Captain Scarlet), or even Wagner, if I was feeling violent.

Then again, the other side of me is perfectly willing to do sod all today. If there's one thing I'm really very good at, it's that.

But that's no good anymore. I've glimpsed the perfectly attainable version of myself feeling fit and happier for it, and though that sounds ridiculous after only one evening jog.. well, it is ridiculous, I suppose. Melodramatic, again. Maybe the sort of thing I should keep to myself.

However I look at it, I'm encouraged that I feel this way about it. Rather than wanting to shirk it, I actively want to do more of it. This must be a good thing. Maybe the thing about it that feels wrong is going on about it, so I'll stop that now.

I'll let you know if it changes though. Discouragement is the most hurtful of things, but one of the few that you can eradicate entirely on your own. Maybe writing it down here will help.

Right now, though, I'm feeling like this is perfectly possible, and even that I may end up being quite good at it. I hope so.