What spurred me into action was spotting a training plan on the city council's official half-marathon website.

If you've read any of my previous diaries, you'll know that I am hopelessly unfit and until signing up for the half-marathon in a fit of madness, had not done any real exercise for at least 10 years (running for buses notwithstanding).

So when I agreed to try my hand (or rather my feet) at running, I planned to start training well in advance of what my more marathon-hardened friends told me was the normal warm-up period.

Running regime

I searched the internet for tips on jogging for beginners, and printed out endless training plans, all of which ended up in the bin as goal after goal was missed.

Now, months after my supposed running regime began, I can count the number of times I've been out on the fingers of two hands, and the head-start I was hoping to build up has yet to materialise.

So after chatting with a colleague who has taken part in lots of races (and is aiming for his first full marathon later this year), I set myself a straightforward (but not necessarily easy) task.

I would run, as slowly as I needed to, but without stopping, for a full 15 minutes.

No more of this run a bit, walk a bit nonsense, this would be the real thing.

Training plan

To ring the changes, one of my fellow trainees (one who has stuck more rigidly to his plan than me!) and I decided to give the Downs a miss and instead jog around the streets of Cotham and Redland.

This made for a nice change of scenery - not to mention the challenge of one or two small hills - and was good practice for the road running we will have to be used to come September.

I'm not going to pretend it was a walk in the park, but I did it. Fifteen whole minutes until a stitch got me.

As with all those other endlessly put-off things, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had built it up to be. Now I just have to stick with that new training plan.