I am not a runner. At least that is what I told myself for a very long time. I was never the kid at school enjoying running or exercise. In fact on one occasion I actively avoided cross country for three years. I just wasn’t that kid.
Even into adulthood I wasn’t really an exercise person, it took some serious encouraging from my ex-partner to convince me whilst at university to start cycling to work. That might be in some part due to the fact that it was central London I was cycling in! However, I did manage to do that for about a year before I moved home to Berkshire.
In the last few years, however, I have been very slowly heading down the road of running. It started when my little brother and his partner decided to run. The idea was placed into my head that if they could do it then why the hell couldn’t I? For some time, my husband and I had been trying to get healthier in the run up to our wedding, but we really didn’t get that far with it. But the idea of being outside really appealed.
The best time to start doing this for me was in the spring. The days were getting longer and the weather was starting to warm. At first I was not good at all. I could barely run, most of it was walking. But I made sure that I walked every day. Not an easy task when you take into account that the English weather is bloody unpredictable, but I kept at it. Walk every day for as long as was possible, run when I could. Some days we would walk together, other days it was just me, but it gave me this lovely feeling of being able to clear my head of all the rubbish from the day, and gave me a good start in the morning.
Within a couple of months, I could manage to run a few miles every other day, a few months later it was five miles every few days to the point where now I am running 10 miles in one go (for the first time only a week ago!).
It has been a strangely thrilling journey, I love the feeling of pushing myself and seeing what my body can do.