I went for: http://splendid-things.co.uk/getrunning/, as it had a huge number of positive reviews on the iTunes store. Also a forum you can join:

OK, so the first run starts off with a 5 minute warm up, at which they recommend that you walk at a brisk pace (there’s various settings you can set up on the phone for age, weight, connect to Twitter, etc.), with a pleasantly voiced woman (I detect a tang of Aus in there!) giving calm instructions, and letting you know what comes next:

The app then sends you off on your first 1 minute run, indicating that you have 8 of these, and that you will walk for 1.5 minutes in between each:

This is how I was looking just before the half-way mark … hadn’t realised that it gave an instruction to turn round at the exact halfway, and had turned round a minute beforehand, ho hum…

If desired, you can check the phone to see how you’re going on, otherwise leave the music going, and I found my body responding almost automatically to the instructions (tired, feel a bit like a robot!), although by the 5th run my calf muscles were aching a bit (they’ve only just recovered from snapping 3 times in 4 weeks earlier in the summer… but have been building up with shuttle runs at the gym… those are a minute each too… but I guess the body gets stretched in between…): 

“She” congratulates you at the end of those runs, having kept you going, and calls for a 5 minute walk down … she let’s you know when the warm down is done, and recommends that you stretch (but no particular stretches – I know lots from the gym, but I’d be a little worried that complete coachers would not know what to do):

As I had linked the app to Twitter (or could have done Facebook), and asked it to pre-write the message – that’s what happened, and here goes this message (it puts your next run in too, but short of running at James/Holly’s… I’d rather run again Thurs!):

Feeling quite tired at the end of that… more the psychology of getting myself running again … have been in this flat for 1.5 years and not run from here… used to run from previous lodgings (the joy of Winchester, it’s not FLAT!):

So, how are you going to cheer me on? Ensure that I run again (Thursday, I think!)… or join my ‘Secret’ Facebook group!

After my chest infection (started in Rome on the Europe Tour, June 2008 – well, at least it was somewhere exotic), my fitness has deteriorated massively, so in November I was prescribed “exercise” (I asked if it was possible, give me that little push back to the gym that I used to love going to!), so I have been making it down twice a week, excepting skiing/cold/snowbound over the last 3 weeks. Back in today (I walked, my car is snowed in again!), met with GP-Referral lovely Lydia, and said I’d been trying to run again, but that about 1.5 minutes was my limit… so she ‘prescribed’ trying a slower speed (7.5, rather than 9.5, I used to get up to 11.5) for 2 mins, then walk for 1-2 – and with that I managed 6 minutes + the intervals, and then decided I needed a target to aim for! Karen gave me this book for my birthday last year, as she knows I have run before (and we did the Moonwalk together) and once I’m out there, find it really helps my mindset!

So, there we are, 2nd May 2010, I shall be running 4 miles around London dressed as a nun (so that’s going to be an early start for me too!) – apparently Barnardos are likely to be in touch re-fund-raising, but I’d love your encouragement

I was intrigued by the idea that the choices you make about eating burnt toast say so much about how you value yourself (or not) [big ideas that interest me are valuing, engagement, expectations, choice, learning!]. She questions whether you try to scrape off the black, smother it with jam to hide the taste, throw it away or eat it “because you’re willing to settle for less? Maybe you don’t want to be wasteful, but if you go ahead and eat that blackened square of bread, then what you’re really saying – to yourself and to the world – is that the piece of bread is worth more than your own satisfaction.”

Found the book really interesting, if over-emphatic in its desire to demonstrate that Teri is an ordinary woman… well, I guess she is, but there’s certain stories in the press that she’s taken the opportunity to squash! Found a lot to empathise with, and some practical ideas for moving forward! Don’t be prepared to spend another 10 years eating burnt toast…

Women & Cycling
I went for a beautiful walk in my favourite weather – sunny and breezy – and thought through some of what I’d read in the book, then generally emptied my mind! No chance to cycle as my bike is back in Winchester and I’m currently in Suffolk, but going through Monday’s Guardian (finally), and seen a big story which is pushing forward cycling as a new ‘fashion’ for women… even Top Shop are coming out with a range of cycling accessories! Sustrans has recently launched bikebelles.org.uk, to encourage women on bikes, and Bird on Bikes had it’s inaugural event earlier this year. The Guardian has definitely got people talking!