I think it’s fair to say that I’m probably best suited to running. Middle to long distance running to be more precise. I’m definitely not a sprinter.
I discovered I could run fairly fast at primary school. Some PE lessons involved running laps of the school as a kind of mini cross country race. I always did pretty well, often finishing amongst the fastest. I got more and more competitive with these type of races and didn’t like losing. I carried this through to secondary school, also during PE lessons. We sometimes had to run the dreaded 1500 metres, which everyone hated. A few of us were fairly competitive with each other, but I wasn’t the fastest. I discovered after a while that 800 metres was my preferred distance.
The only time I really did any structured athletics events was in the summer, in the build-up to sports day. We used to do laps of the track that was marked out with white paint on the school playing field. I always got really nervous when racing on the track. Something about it just made my stomach knot up. I think it was probably because I knew it was going to really hurt, and something about doing laps was psychologically quite tough. I always preferred cross country events for that reason. Not being able to see the finish was somehow far more easy to cope with mentally. I ended up breaking the school record for the 800m four years in a row, which I am proud of. I competed only once in an athletics meet, coming fourth as I recall. I just didn’t enjoy it enough to train properly for it. Swimming and rugby took up most of my time anyway, so there wasn’t really scope to add another sport on top. Even though it was the one I was naturally better at. Running with a ball in your hand and being part of a team was much more appealing. Apart from the short summer athletics interlude and training for rugby, the only other pure running I did was in biathlon competitions…but more of that later.
Now I was in the Post Knee Injury era, running became a more regular pastime. There didn’t seem to be a lot of options left, so I began regularly going for runs when I could. During my third year of University I took part in an Erasmus Exchange programme to Lille University. I was the only student from Loughborough to go, and I discovered that my studies during that year had absolutely no bearing on my overall degree. This was perfect, I could concentrate on speaking French and having a good time. I’d studied French at A-Level, but was never particularly confident speaking it so I saw this as the best opportunity to work on it. It couldn’t have worked out better in terms of immersing myself in French life. On arriving at the university on the weekend before term started I found out I was in an all French hall and was sharing with a French roommate. This was pretty daunting, and my Dad looked like he knew what I was thinking when he said his goodbyes after dropping me off. He later admitted that I looked like I was some kind of terrified stranded puppy when he drove away. He wasn’t wrong. I had no choice, it was sink or swim. The first week was quite tough, and my roommate was a proper tool but I think I learnt more about speaking in French in that first week than I had over the seven years I’d studied at school.
I went to as many Economics classes as I could during the week (and there were a lot in comparison to my 9 hours a week at Loughborough. It was almost full time at Lille, which was great for my language development), and loved the environment. When I heard the first English voice at the hall of residence dining area a few days later, I practically threw my dinner on the floor to rush over and introduce myself. It was a huge relief to know there was someone else there I could talk to in my own language. Greg and I got on pretty well and he introduced me to some people from Hull University that he’d met, Kat, Kirsty and Emma. We quickly became good mates, and it was good to jump out of French life to socialise with English friends in the evenings and at weekends when most of the French students disappeared back home. Don’t get me wrong, the French speaking part was great but there is definitely a big cultural difference between the French and English which made it hard to connect on a social level. Benny Hill is one of their favourite comedy shows. I rest my case.
The whole year was amazing, I had such a good time. I definitely developed as a person and became much more self-sufficient. It was by far the best year at University because it was so different to anything I’d experienced thus far. I didn’t do a lot of physical exercise that year as there was far too much going on but I went for the odd run, and that was enough at that time.
I joined the athletics club when I returned to Loughborough University in my final year. There wasn’t really any expectation about competing at a serious level but I was curious to know how I would get on if I put some structured training in. The winter season basically involved a lot of cross country runs and some track work to build endurance. I joined in the middle to long distance training sessions. At the same time I was there, Paula Radcliffe was also a student and obviously a member of the athletics club. One Tuesday session involved a club run of around eight miles around the town, and on one occasion, as we all left, Paula was still chatting to the coaches. At about five miles she came bombing past me, and by the time I reached the clubhouse she’s got changed and left. Different level altogether.
I took part in a couple of cross country BUSA events over the winter which were good to be involved in. I was never in any danger of troubling the fast runners, but it was nice to focus on some kind of racing. As the training started to intensify on the track, it soon became obvious that my knee couldn’t cope with the kind of sessions that were being set. So I drifted away from the athletics and just stuck to more recreational running.
After graduating I didn’t really do anything structured until I entered the Reading half marathon in 1999. I was living down that way as I’d got a job at a company in Bracknell as part of their European Accounting Centre. I had no intention of being an accountant, but I had learnt from a colleague that I was temping with at the time that they were recruiting French speakers. This was part of a work shadowing project to migrate all accounting functions to the UK head office. My colleague had been recruited in to the German wave, and suggested I apply for the French one. So I did. I successfully went through the selection process and recruited in to the French transition team. This meant a 3 week induction programme followed by a four month workshadowing period at the French Headquarters in Cergy, a short train ride from where we would be staying in Paris. All of the recruits in to the transition programme were recent university graduates, with language skills as the primary requirement. As far as first permanent jobs go, this couldn’t have been better. Twenty university graduates dropped in to Paris for four months with a salary and expense account …we couldn’t believe our luck. Needless to say, the assignment was like being a student but with cash. We made the most out of our time, and enjoyed the nightlife of Paris as much as we could.
Reality hit hard when the transition period came to an end. We found ourselves back working in Bracknell doing the day job, Paris a long distant memory. I had done the odd run around some of the local parks in Paris whilst we were there, but it was an occasional thing and probably more designed to cure a hangover than anything else. On getting back to England, having something fun to focus on was required. Hence the application to run the Reading half marathon.
I got myself in to some kind of shape over the winter by doing increasingly longer runs and practising some of the race route. By the time of the race I was feeling good. It was always a fairly well attended event as it was in March just before the London Marathon. A lot of athletes used it as a warm up, and some elite runners also competed. It was the first longer distance event I’d entered. I’d done a couple of 10ks here and there, but this was my first attempt at anything with the word ‘marathon’ in it. I had a good race, and finished in 1 hour and 31 minutes. I was pretty pleased with that. Although the sight of one of the top Kenyan finishers running back along the route when I had three miles to go reminded me just how fast the top runners go. Still, I enjoyed it. So much so that I applied for the London Marathon the following year.