My running journey: The early years (1994-2011)
Although I write a lot about running, I realise I’ve never written about my running journey from the start, particularly the early years. I’m proud of the fact that I started running in 1994 and have never given up. Although in those early years I didn’t run a fraction of the distance I do now.
From when I started running right until when I started training for Bath half marathon, I never had ‘proper’ running clothes. In those days, you could only get them from proper sports brands and for a student, then someone on a low paid job, then a young mum without much money, that wasn’t affordable. So I ran in band T-shirts which had worn out and were too faded to wear in the day, along with cheap cycling shorts or joggers from the supermarket. My earliest pair of cycling shorts was actually a pair of leggings I’d cut down as they had a hole in them.
In March 2011, nearly 17 years after I’d started running and 15 years after my previous half marathon, I ran Bath half marathon. I scraped over the finish line in 1:59:54 – those six seconds were very important to me!
My early days of running go to show that you don’t have to run a lot to be a runner and you don’t need to be running a half marathon or a marathon within a year of starting to run. In fact, you don’t ‘need’ to run a race ever. Just getting out of the door and running makes you a runner and it is all good for your mental and physical health.
Running when you have small kids at home is hard as you just don’t have the time to do it. If you’re only running a few miles now, hang on in there, it gets so much easier when you can leave your kids at home. It certainly did for me!
You can read about that next…
I was inspired to write this post by my friend Joy aka Pink Oddy. She is running a series of inspirational runners’ stories and was kind enough to feature me. When I wrote out my story, it was too long for her, so I thought I’d use the long version myself!
Great to hear your full story Sarah. I love how running is so flexible and can be whatever you need it to be at different points in your life – you’ve shown that perfectly.
Thanks very much. I wanted to show that running is for everyone, however much or little you do.
I feel that with social media new runners can feel too much pressure to be running half marathons and marathons when they don’t really want to or it’s not right for them.
I am so glad I inspired you to tell more of your running story. I do find it interesting that you considered this to be not running a lot when to me it feels like it is – you were running every day for four years – that would create such an amazing aerobic base as well as good mind set. It is the kind of foundations I still struggle to try and motivate myself to do now.
Thanks very much. It was nice for me to look back on and think about where I came from! I suppose it felt like not running much because the distances were shorter than I run now. I actually ran nearly every day for six years – right until I got pregnant the first time.
For me, having a routine is key to finding the motivation. I don’t question whether or not I’m going to run, I just run. But that might not work for everyone!