I used to think that I'd never like running: I was always into sports where there was a clear winner and loser.  In fact, I didn't like sports much at all, now I think about it.  I got into squash first, which is a fantastic sport, and from there I started to realise that exercise wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  I started to want to get the exercise without all the hassle of having an opponent and thinking about winning, and suddenly, running didn't seem like such a bad idea.  The distilled nature of it is what I love most about running, in fact: you don't need anything special to do it, you just get outside and go.  You run as far as you want to, as fast as you want to, and there's no-one to tell you if that's good or bad.  It feels very pure.

When I started, I was not an impressive runner by any means, but it was more exercise than I'd ever done before and it felt good, so I kept at it. I started out running around the field near my house, and it would take me 10 minutes, after which I would be totally exhausted.  As I kept at it, 10 minutes got me around the field and down the road, and eventually I reached the nearby river.  I would run out to the river and run up and down it for as long as I could manage.  I learned about intervals, and began to run for 1 minute and walk for 2, which took my time up to 20 minutes.  After a while, I realised that it was easier to just keep running, and suddenly, I was running for 20 minutes.

One evening, after a particularly long day of meetings, I ran and walked 6 kilometres.  It took me around 45 minutes.  I was super proud of myself.  After that I decided that if it wasn't all running, it didn't count.

I've found that running is a really good way of getting away from it all for a bit.  I spend my day sitting in a chair in front of a screen in a dark office, so running as fast as I can around a park seems like most different activity I can do.  Nothing calms me down after a hard day like a good long run.

I never thought I'd enjoy it, but I'm hooked.  Today, I'm running for over 30 minutes at least twice a week.  In September I ran a total of 33 kilometres.  I'm hoping to run a 10k next year.