How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Running

I've always liked watching sport. Football and motorsport are my favourites. I like watching golf and tennis, especially if Andy Murray is playing. Like many, I watch the Olympics every four years and take an interest in events I'd otherwise never watch - overnight becoming an expert in things like showjumping and kayaking. I used to like watching England at cricket (a strange confession for a Scot, for more than one reason) and remember watching snooker with my gran when I was younger.

When it came to playing sport it's a different matter. I'd love to but I'm just no good, certainly not competent enough to be able to play without getting easily annoyed. I used to play golf and wish I'd kept it up. I went to football training once a week as a kid but the only time I was any good was towards the end when I was a year or two older and what little strength I had became an advantage. The only sports clubs I was in at school were badminton and chess - the latter bizarrely counting as a sport long enough for me to win a sports award in first year which was based purely on the number of clubs you were in rather than being any good.

My school sports accomplishments

As a result, I wasn't a great fan of PE. It's sole purpose was to take me away from subjects I hated even more such as home economics and art. It was nothing to do with the teachers, I just wasn't very good at sport. No one passed to me at football or rugby. Stuff like gymnastics and table tennis no one really cared about. The one highlight was basketball in fifth year when, somehow, I ended up in the team with the cool kids who were good at sport. I see myself as being like Roy from The IT Crowd - someone who desperately tries to be cool but accidentally keeps slipping into nerdiness and gives the game away - so how I ended up in that team is a mystery For one term, for an hour a week, I got to be part of a team that beat up (sometimes literally) on the losers.

Me - I wish

The thing I hated most of all at PE (aside from country dancing, which would have come in useful in later life) was athletics. In particular, cross country running - or what passed for cross country at my school, which was running round the red ash football pitches (kids, ask your parents) and then around the rugby field. I was so bad, so slow, so unfit and so heavy (even now I just need to look at a cake to put on weight) that I was part of a group that got a five minute start on the proper runners - and we still usually got caught by the end.

Aside from the odd spell of playing five-a-sides (usually I delude myself into thinking I have some tiny piece of talent before quickly being put ride after a few weeks) I've not done a great deal of sport since my last PE class 15 years ago. I've never been in a gym and have no real reason to keep fit. So the obvious thing to do after such a long period of inactivity was take up running and complete a half marathon.

Can't find the Gavin Hastings advert so this will need to do

I've never really seen the point of running as a hobby. I've stuck by the mantra from a public health advert starring Scotland rugby star Gavin Hastings in the 1990s that walking a mile was just as good as running a mile. While at uni in Edinburgh I walked everywhere and still think nothing of walking a couple of miles each way to work, mainly because it helped keep my weight relatively in check. But running? Nah, that's not for me - and certainly not paying a running club money for the privilege of going running on public streets a couple of times a week. When someone I know bet a friend he could beat him in a half marathon or he'd give him $100 towards a poker tournament, I suggested he pay the cash and enjoy the next six months of his life. Running if there's a purpose to it, such as in football, is fine. Running for the sake of it is not.

For whatever reason, my mood changed towards the end of 2015. A few folk from work decided to go to jogScotland classes being run by Dumfries Running Club, which aim to get anyone - regardless of age, ability or fitness - to run non-stop for 20 minutes or two kilometres within 10 weeks. Many clubs run these courses, they are free and I'd highly recommend them. I would have joined my colleagues but this was one of those periods where I once again thought I could play five-a-sides. Two weeks and one pulled muscle were enough to put that notion to bed once more - this time, possibly for good.

Me trying to play football. If I was blonde.

So it was January 2016 before I decided to give it a go - although, for the reasons mentioned above, this was definitely not some sort of "New Year, New Me" thing. I had nothing better to do with my time so why not? I was amused when I turned up on the first night and was asked if I was sure I wanted to do it because I looked "too fit", possibly the first time this phrase has ever been said about my family. They may have had a point as it seemed ridiculously easy. The post-run shower was almost a waste of time as I barely broke sweat.

It was a similar story the next couple of weeks and I must have annoyed a few folk by continually whizzing past them. Perhaps this is why I enjoyed it so much - for once I was good at sport and I wasn't the one toiling away at the back. I've no idea how - my weight wasn't too bad but, as mentioned before, I'd not exactly done much exercise other than walking. Again I was advised that I may be better going to the regular club sessions, although I tried to point out that there was a difference in being able to run for 10 minutes split into one minute blocks and running two miles non-stop.

This is light rain compared to the first time I ran on my own

With two weeks holiday coming up - and therefore a fortnight of not being able to make classes - I thought I'd give running on my own non-stop a go. I went out on a horrible, wet morning - we're talking the sort of rain seen at the end of the Matrix films stuff - and decided to run in one direction until a song I was listening to ended, then turn the other way until the next one finished and so on. This meant that if I was shattered and couldn't run any more I wouldn't be too far from my brother's flat. The plan worked, although it's probably the slowest Oasis and Kasabian has ever sounded. That first morning I ran for more than 20 minutes and covered more than two miles. I was ridiculously, stupidly proud of myself. Farewell jogScotland.

For the next fortnight I tried to get out running when I could. I was furious when the weather was bad - a ridiculous position to be in considering my thoughts on running barely a month early. I bought myself some proper T-shirts to replace the thick cotton one I'd been using, although kept with my old trainers (I've still not bought proper running ones). After finding I was able to run for four miles I thought I'd try running from my brother's to Johnstone, a distance of more than six miles and something I'd tentatively set as a target for the summer. I was absolutely knackered by the end and sweating more than I'd ever sweated before, but I somehow managed it (although I needed to stop a few times). And my phone showed that the signs on the cycle path showing Johnstone as being three miles away were wrong. Very, very wrong.

Razorlight's lesser known hit "Don't go back to Johnstone"

I toned it down for the rest of the holiday, although still managed to do three or four miles every other day. When I originally started I hadn't told my brother but as I was staying with him and would have sweaty T-shirts lying everywhere (which smelled as lovely as it sounds) I thought I'd better own up. I didn't tell my parents though - partly because I didn't want my mum's ridiculous questions every few weeks, partly because I didn't want them over-reacting if'/when I got injured but mainly because having it as a secret made it a bit special. Sad, I know.

With the holiday over, it was back to work, back to Dumfries and on to my first proper sessions at the running club. Now, instead of running on my own or with total novices, I'd be with people who knew what they were doing and would surely expose my uselessness. Was it going to be cross country in PE all over again?