The other day I ran my first 5k in about 15 years or so (that’s how long it’s been since, not how long it took).

When I say ran, that’s actually a very kind way of describing the ordeal.  But I did make it to the 5k mark which I saw as a bit of a test to see where this whole stupid marathon idea is going.

It’s doable.

It’s not going to be easy and 42k is obviously quite a bit off but I didn’t have a stroke or a heart attack and that should be counted as a positive.

Now this is probably the backwards way of doing things but I’m embarking on a Couch to 5k program through an app on my shiny new iPhone5 that almost broke me just trying to receive the bloody thing from Optus.  The Get Running App is designed to build you up gradually so anyone could be running for a solid 30 minutes or 5k. It’s a nine week program and you start off doing intervals and today in my first session I managed to crack 3.5k reasonably comfortable so I can’t wait to see what kind of distance I’m going to be able to comfortably do by the end of the nine weeks.

So it’s all very well for me to be able to make it to 5k (barely) but I’ve got to be able to make it comfortably and this seems to be a really fantastic program to build me up to it.

What’s cool is it actually talks you through the whole thing as you’re running.  You can listen to your music and over the top the voice will give you instructions and support.  It really couldn’t be easier except for the whole running part.

On the other side of this whole fitness/health thing is that in conjunction with a crazy amount of pills I’m actually clocking in normal blood sugar readings, which is really exciting.  What is more exciting is that as I get healthier I’ll be able to take less pills.