For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangst… no, hang on. Let me start again.

For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be fitter. Yes, that’s better. Fitter. I’ve always been horrifically unfit, mainly because I spend most of my working life (and most of my spare time) either sat in front of a computer, sat in front of a TV with a computer on top of my lap (a laptop computer, if you will) or sat in the driving seat of some sort of motorised carriage (which has a computer in it, just to keep the theme going.)

Oh sure, every now and again I’ve made the effort to try and get myself fitter. I bought some weights once. Yes, indeed. However, the number of times I bought weights eclipsed the number of times I used those weights by… err… one. I tried cycling, but soon got tired of it when I realised that it made my arse hurt terribly and was generally pretty dangerous on the roads nearby.

I’ve even tried running before, but soon gave that up when I became disheartened at how quickly I ran out of puff.

So, it’s with some trepidation that I’ve decided to start running again – properly this time.

It all started last week, when I read about a marvellous “get fit” programme called Couch to 5K. As the name implies, the general idea is to get you off the couch and running 5,000 metres. The programme claims to be able to do it within nine weeks, with just three workouts a week – starting with small, baby steps up to full blown runs.

I was intrigued. Could a man such as myself, who couldn’t outrun a snail if it had been glued to the pavement, really get up to the heady heights of a 5K run, in just 9 weeks?

Well, we’ll soon find out.

Tonight was my first workout of the programme, and I’ll be keeping this blog up to date with small posts detailing my progress.

The first week of workouts is simple. You start with a five minute brisk walk for a warm-up. You then jog for a minute, and then you walk for a minute and a half. You repeat the jogging and walking eight times (for a total of twenty minutes) and then have a cool-down walk for another five minutes.

I’ve decided to use a handy app from the iTunes App Store to manage this process – it’s called Jog Log Pro, and it comes complete with the Couch to 5K workouts programmed into it. Combined with the “audio cue” feature of the app, you can run along listening to your music, and have it beep and tell you when to start jogging and when to start walking. Very handy.

So, how did I do?

Well, I travelled 1.67 miles in 20 minutes at an average speed of 5mph and burned 221.5 calories.