Okay, so my new year, new me philosophy didn’t exactly get off to a flying start. Being awkward, I decided a Monday in December was the day to kick things into action, rather than waiting until January 1.

But things didn’t quite go to plan. The husband, on his way to work on his motorbike, avoided a cat that ran out in front of him, fell off and limped back home. Doing that manly thing of “I’m all right” , despite not being able to move very far, he didn’t allow me to call the doctor until mid-afternoon. By the time the doc came out to see him and I had to dash to Asda for the strong painkillers, I’d missed Monday’s BodyFit session time.

Yes, I realise I could have quite easily gone out for a run, but it had been a stressful day (for me. I don’t really do sympathy that well) and I couldn’t be bothered cooking (I don’t as a rule anyway). So we sat down to a takeaway pizza. I hadn’t hit eight hours of this uber-healthy me and it was an epic fail.

“I may as well write off this week,” I thought to myself but then the caped crusaders – otherwise known as the running crew – came to the rescue.

They decided we’d hit the road on Tuesday night instead. There was a bit of a panic because we didn’t know if Margaret, who lives in the middle of nowhere, was going to make it or not and we couldn’t get hold of her because we changed the time a couple of times. As Julie said, our organisational skills are rubbish.

Julie wasn’t sure if she was going to make it and although she turned up, she nearly didn’t because she hadn’t realised it had started to rain (“I close my curtains at 4pm. I nearly turned back when I opened the door”).

Janette couldn’t make it – some lame excuse about some birthday in the Castle Bar – so Dianne, Julie, Margaret, Michelle, Lisa and her daughter Rebecca (celebrating her 15th birthday) met in the car park of the Lakes Home Centre. It was pouring down.

The only trouble with running at night is the darkness. It really limits our routes as we need somewhere lit and non-slippy. So we ended up running along Main Street and up to Cockermouth School.

Normally, we go by the side of the church and up Jennings hill, then cut across the leisure centre car park, on to St Helens Street, up the old road and back down. This time, we decided to go straight up Castlegate.

Big mistake. It’s horrendous as it’s one long, continuous, slow, boring hill. But we did it, then ran down the old road back into town. Apparently there was some discussion about doing a loop around by Sainsbury’s, but we ended up just running back down Main Street to the Lakes Home Centre.

Margaret and Julie were behind us and they actually did the loop, running an extra .4 of a mile. We did wonder what had taken them so long.

I felt so much better after it and was grateful to the posse for getting me out.

And that’s what running means to me. It’s not so much the exercise but the camaraderie.

Julie, Margaret and I are even planning to go out on Christmas Day, so if you see us running past as you’re putting the turkey in the oven, give us a wave. We’ll need the encouragement!