The inauguration

Well, not exactly. My inaugural run began as Barack Obama was 5 minutes into his inauguration speech. I listened to him fluff his swearing in and the first couple of minutes and then I was off.

Doing your first run is not as simple as it sounds. There are pre planning issues such as, what is the dress code, and where will you 'do it'. As the temperature was about 3C, I discarded any ideas of shorts and T shirt. In the end, I decided to just go in what I had on: jeans sweatshirt and of course, my new running shoes. I also added a woolly hat and ski jacket, just for luck. Decided against gloves though.

Next, where to run? I had already thought about this and decided that I would start on the beach wall promenade at Preston. This runs alongside the road for 0.7 of a mile. It is completely flat, has no roads or other obstacles other than a few people and is a fairly anonymous sort of place. There are two other advantages to this track. 1) It has a nice view of the bay and something to look at as you run, and 2) It has a series of nice wooden seats every 25 metres meaning that you can have a little rest if the going gets too tough.

So, I parked the car and got out. Now, what is the etiquette here? Do you start to run immediately or do you saunter nonchalantly to your starting point and then break into a run? Well, I chose the latter, feeling a bit of a fraud but hoping that as it was dusk, I wouldn't meet anyone.

Of course, I had hardly run 30 paces when an female jogger came from the opposite direction. She had proper jogging clothes on, making feel a little foolish in a ski jacket. Hey ho!

Things went well to start with. Those shoes - they are fantastic. They sort of propel you along. Half way along though, and I was starting to feel a bit knackered. Time for a sit down and a bit of gasping. Three or four minutes, and I was up again but before I reached the end I had to stagger to the nearest seat for another rest.

It seemed like no time at all when I reached the end so I checked my watch and started on the way back. I was determined not to sit down again until half way when I was feeling pretty exhausted (see picture). Another 3 or 4 minutes and off I went until the last seat, which is about 25 metres from the end. Phew!

Checked my watch and it had taken about 12 minutes, including the rest. Sounded OK to me. And then, I actually ran to the car which was about 100 metres away.

I felt a bit warm and just a tiny bit sweaty but when I got back into the car, the windows all immediately steamed up and I suddenly felt very hot. When I took my hat off, I think you could have boiled a kettle on my head! Otherwise, perfectly OK. That was, until I got out of the car again when my legs felt a little wobbly and started to ache.

Next morning? Not bad. Minor aches at the back of the thighs but otherwise OK. So, I'm going to try the same run again this evening with a slight change of attire. No ski jacket and I think I will reduce the foot covering to just one pair of socks and think about the hat.

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