Advice for getting started--Team Member Dinneen

As an on-again, off-again runner (and as a health & nutrition counselor) one thing people often ask me is how to get started running (or exercising, for that matter). Whether it’s a friend, colleague, or client I tell them all the same thing, “just start...with one foot in front of the other.”

What I mean is to just to get out there and do it! Nobody starts off running 5 miles right away. They all start off slow. It takes patience, practice, and most of all, a desire to get outside and have some fun.

For clients who currently don’t exercise, I tell them to just start walking. Even if it’s around the block a few times. Then slowly begin walking further and longer. Then you can start adding small bits of running in between. For example, walk 5 minutes, jog for 2 minutes, walk for 5, run for 2, etc. The thing is to start of small and slowly build up.

For beginners or the non-athlete, a good book to read is John Bingham’s “The Courage to Start.” John is a columnist for Runner’s World Magazine and was “once an overweight couch potato” (taken from his website - so his words, not mine!), who at 43 started running and hasn’t looked back. His books talk about his transformation from being a sedentary guy to a runner and athlete. His writing is funny, uplifting, and best of all, inspires you and tells you how to get started yourself. You’ll read about his struggles, frustrations, along with his triumphs and happy moments. Running, like many things in life, can be tough and not always easy, but the rewards make it all worthwhile.

Like John, I’m a regular person just trying to get some exercise, keep my weight down (I love to eat!), be healthy, but most of all, feel a sense of accomplishment and have fun.

That, my friends, is what running (and life) is all about. Having some fun.

So if you too have an on-again, off-again running relationship, I invite you to not only follow my running progress, but to join me on the road to becoming a real “runner.” We’ll have good days, bad days, days when we want to quit, days when we can’t imagine quitting, and days when we wonder why the heck we ever started running. As John Bingham says, “the miracle isn’t that I finished, the miracle is that I had the courage to start.” So just have the courage to start.