In my second and third decades I did quite a lot of running. My school required us all to run moderate distances reasonably often and I was moderately good at it, at least once I grew to full size. I retained the habit of running roughly 8 km (5 miles) once or twice a week – typically when I was about to have a shower anyway and could spare 40 minutes before it – well into my twenties, only losing the habit when depression broke most of my useful habits. In my early thirties I did, once, try going for a run; after about one km I'd had enough of that and walked home; I didn't try again until I was in my forties, when I made an even shorter sortie before giving up.
Now in my fifties I've persuaded myself to have another go at it, starting with a moderate run (2016, May 7th) up to Badebakken, where I ran out of running; I walked most of the way home (running some of the downhills) for a total of 27 minutes (including the stairs down and up). My outward route was a little under 2 km; and I returned by a slightly shorter route (1.7 km), but in all (once you include the stairs at home) most of 4 km in 27 minutes. I have a way to go before I can routinely run 8 km in 40 minutes; if I get there, I see a nice 10 km run open to me, up to Maridalsvannet and back, that I can hope to make my routine piece of running.
A fortnight later (May 21st), after two and a half hours of enjoying music, I cycled home and then ran rather further than before, well into Nydalen, taking almost 36 minutes to run 2.4 km out (via the shorter route mentioned above, to the little foot-bridge at the top of Bruksveien) and (run) back; marginally slower than the previous (despite its walk homeward), but I'm satisfied to have made it there and back. The prior vigorous activity left me tired, but it also warmed me up well. The following morning, I noticed my weight was below 97 kg; I think it was thus a fortnight ago, too, which it seldom has been since I started weighing myself two or three years ago. (Indeed, until last autumn, I was well above 100 kg or 16 stone; at my height, 1.88m or 6'2", this puts my BMI > 28 kg/m2; my understanding is that this is unhealthily high. I'd like to get below 88 kg or 14 stone – that may take a while. Still, at least I'm now only overweight, where I was obese until October 2015.)
Two days later, May 23rd, I managed to drag myself out again, this time up as far as the first foot-bridge above the dam by Opera's offices at the top of Gjerdrum's vei; I walked some of the steeper slopes going up and most of the way back, taking 54 minutes to cover 6.6 km. Slower, again, but further. Ten days later, after a long Thursday at work, with a lingering head-ache that suggests an imminent cold, I did a shorter run, up to the bridge in Nydalen, taking 31 mins to (mostly) run 4 km. Other matters intervened; it was another twenty days before I ran again. The bridge just mentioned in Nydalen is Gulhaug bro; I ran there and mostly walked back, taking 32 minutes.
Any record I may have made of any runs I made after June got lost in a disk-crash at the start of September; after which I did not run again until the next spring.
Written by Eddy.