Why I started running

A few years ago even just the sight of someone running made me feel exhausted and think to myself ‘what are they doing, willingly putting themselves through agony and for what?! It made no sense to me and I had absolutely no intention of ever trying to understand it. I’m just not a runner…

At this time I was living in South Africa and had started working at a large financial organization, where sporting ability was viewed as an unofficial prerequisite and everyone was an over achiever. No pressure! Running was a major part of the culture and you hadn’t earned your ‘acceptance’ until you’d completed a marathon. The CEO held the record for the fastest marathon and knew exactly who the good runners in the firm were! He certainly didn’t know who I was at this point.

My manager had been training for a half marathon and continuously invited me to join him and few of the guys on their regular lunchtime runs but declining was very easy, who wants to waste their lunch break running… The group then started running in the evenings and again the persistent invites continued, followed by my standard response of ‘are you crazy?’. A tough few weeks went by and after regularly leaving work around 8pm it got me thinking, what if I joined the guys for a run at 5pm, finished by 6pm, home by 7pm! GENIUS!! And my manager was there too so no need to even make an excuse!

So the next invite came and I was in, ‘5pm lads, I’ll meet you outside!’. I had no idea what I was in for. How far were we meant to run? How fast was I meant to go? What if I couldn’t keep up! That whole afternoon I kept thinking about this run and what to expect, doubting whether this was the best ‘bright idea’ I’d ever had. 5pm came I was fired up and ready to go! Makes me laugh every time I think back to what I looked like – baggy shorts, baggy cotton shirt and casual trainers with untied laces just tucked in (not recommended). You would not have looked at me and said ‘enjoy your RUN’. One of the guys started off saying ‘should we go out at 6 and try stepping it up to 5:30 on the way in?’, then looked at me and I just nodded like I knew exactly what he was talking about but I didn’t have clue! That’s in kilometres not miles for you non metric-system users out there :) My boss then said ‘to do a sub-2 we need to average below 5:40’. A sub what...??

This was it and for the first time I was actually excited about this run. A few km’s in and I was feeling great, why am I not exhausted? I looked around and everyone in the group appeared to be taking strain, which gave me even more energy! Before I knew it we were back, 8km done! When’s the next one? That week I joined the lads for another evening run and managed to pick up an entry for the half marathon they had all entered on the Saturday, everyone thought I was crazy!

Two days later and it was race day, what had I got myself into? Surprisingly the first 10km was a breeze but with no watch I had no idea how I was doing, not that I would have been able to tell anyway… By 18km I started to realise that it might have been a good idea to put in a few more training runs but I’m here now and I think I’m doing well so just push through the pain. The last 1km was agony and my entire body was screaming for me to walk but the sight of that finish line sparked every ounce of energy I had left and I sprinted as fast as my legs would carry me! Crossing the finish line was an incredible feeling and seeing the timer filled me an enormous sense of achievement, 1h43min! In that moment I understood exactly what a sub-2 was and that I had done what my colleagues had been training for months to do! That was me, I was hooked!

I started researching everything, learning about shoes, nutrition, training and just about everything I could to go faster! I wanted to be the best that I could and I always believed every run was a potential PB (personal best) and still do! People stated tracking my progress and kept asking advice so I’ve decided to create a proper platform to follow exactly how I train and what I do to prepare for races. I am definitely no professional or health nutritionist but with a half marathon PB down to 1h15min and a full marathon PB of 2h42min, I know all about the challenges of running while holding down a demanding full time job, having a young daughter and enjoying the occasional beer (or two, okay maybe three) along the way.

Running’s become a huge part of my life and I’ve done everything from a 1 mile dash in the city of London to a full marathon amongst wild animals in Kenya. My journey continues and I'm excited to share it with you and hopefully it will inspire you to get out there and start running too!

#Running #WhyIRun #SuburbanRunner