By Emma Pidgeon

So I think I mentioned previously that my coach Tracey has some amazing powers of persuasion and can talk me into anything. Last week I turned those powers back on her. I have convinced her it’s a good idea to start running at 5am! 

Inspired partially by Tiffany Henwood’s rider fitness blog, and partially by Amanda Ross’s ability to jog her cross country courses (plural), I decided that if I’m going to have 3 horses in full work I need to improve my fitness, and the only time I had free to do this, was time I was otherwise ‘wasting’ by sleeping. I lack the motivation to do it alone so I roped Tracey into the movement. Because I have to start work by 7.30 (start early so I can finish early enough to ride) we have to run early. So I’m up at 4.00, because I have to do the horses before I leave, (Poor things, night rugs off that early. Of course it’s still north QLD so it’s really not that bad.)  

We are both pretty much starting from scratch when it comes to any sort of physical activity that’s not on 4 legs. We are following a 5km interval program for now. We started by jogging for 60 seconds and walking for 90 seconds for 5km. That was week one. Week 2 has been jogging 2 minutes and walking for 2 minutes. We basically increase the jogging by 1 minute each week until we are jogging 5km without walking. It is supposed to only take 12 weeks. I have my doubts... 

I am an early to bed type anyway, but couple that with 4am rises and I start to see more of the night in the mornings than I do before I go to bed... We’re only running 3 days a week which means the other days I have time to ride before work; if I saddle up in the dark. (Not a good time to work the babies, so that’s Arthur’s time) 

We are going to be fit, trim and terrific in no time! I won’t be posting a before photo, because I fear with my track record when it comes to cake and Donuts, the ‘before’ photo may look resoundingly similar to the ‘after’ photo. Let’s hope not! I promised myself a new pair of good running shoes when I can run 5km!

the goal!

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