Back in June, inspired by the hint of some pleasant weather and the understanding that I'm perhaps not as active as I ought to be, I bought a pair of running shoes and started following the popular "Couch to 5k" training programme.

The programme starts out with short periods of jogging interspersed with slightly longer periods of walking, and over the subsequent weeks the time spent jogging is increased steadily, with the aim - as laid out in the name - of allowing a fairly sedantary person with no running experience to progress to covering a 5km run over the space of nine weeks. Being a little bit active I'm probably not in the typical couchbound start group, but I've not really done any running since high school.

Now that I've finished week 5 - more than halfway through - I figured I write a bit about the experience.

On day one I didn't manage to finish the routine as laid out and was wondering whether I'd just wasted the cost of a pair of shoes.

Looming large duirng the early weeks was thr worry that my damaged hip might not be able to deal with jogging, however despite somme initial discomfort this hasn't turned out to be a problem, and I'd go as far as to say that the level of discomfort (which has been variable, but constant, pretty much since I broke the hip) is lower now than it has been in the past.

So far, I've found the progression to be perfect - the workouts have been challenging, but I've managed, with a bit of willpower, to complete all of them so far, and I'm feeling positive about the remaining weeks.

The last week has been the hardest so far - While the first four involved doing the same routine three times, week five ramps up this distance covered at one time considerably, from 5 minutes at the start of the week to 20 at the end (and, as my luck would have it, the long run fell on the warmest day as well).