I`ve been bitten by the running bug

I admit it....I have been overweight for almost all of my adult life. And after having my 3 beautiful children in the last 7 years years my body is totally wrecked.

I haven't always been fat, at school I was always active. I did gymnastics training for an hour before and after school, trampoline training 3 times a week; plus the normal PE and GCSE PE lessons, I was always busy.

Because of this I was a size 6/8. Now I know your body changes shape as you mature but I was stupid and stopped all forms of exercise when I started my training as a Veterinary Nurse.

Over the years my weight has been slowly creeping up and after 3 children I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life.

I decided enough is enough and had to do something. But what can I do when I have 3 children and a man-child husband to look after?? I started to research local fitness classes but only to find that there weren't any later in the evening; I needed something that was flexible as I couldn't always guarantee what time I would finish putting the kids down to bed, but found nothing.

That`s when I considered power walking/jogging and maybe even running.

So a few months ago my best friend and fellow blogger, theprmummy, and I started to go power walking every Sunday morning at 7am; to begin with I hated and I mean HATED getting up so early of a morning, especially when I had been up all night with Benjamin.

But slowly and surely I started to enjoy it, I would actually look forward to our weekly power walks over the heathland next to our housing estate. Each time we went Emma and I would smash our previous weeks times. I had downloaded the runsastic app for my phone so I could track our route, distance and times by GPS.

I have also be given the opportunity to review the fitbug orb, an amazing exercise and sleep tracker.

Checking the orb and going walking became addictive, trying to beat our time each week, finding different and more demanding routes.

Now I am not a natural runner but after a few weeks of power walking we decided to take it to the next level and start to jog our route. That too slowly but surely became easier.

Fast forward to today and we are trying to go for a 5k jog 3 times a week. Emma has a target of 5k in 30 minutes but I`m afraid to say that I dont think I`ll ever get near that target. Saying that I wont give up, even if I take an hour to completely jog/run 5k in one go, I will eventually do it!!

My problem is that for some reason my arms and shoulders hurt so much when I run that that`s what is making me pause running, not my legs, they are fine and I am sure that they could do the 5k no probs, its just the burning in my shoulders and arms.

Could it be my trainers are not suitable for running, is my posture wrong??? Who knows but I`m certain that if I can cure this pain then I may just crack the 5k in 30 minute mark!!

Keep checking back for my fitbug orb review and more on my running journey xx

Me looking rather wet and red faced after another run in the rain.