A sprinter and occasional miler and cross country runner during my school years, I ran occasionally for exercise when I started working. Then I joined a gym and used the treadmill as part of my workout, only running outdoors occasionally. Wind the clock forward several years and a suggestion that I run a 10K race with my brother and sister lead to me finding and joining Fetch at the start of 2005 to keep track of my training. Looking back, I'm amazed I got round the route of the Balmoral Tartan 10K after so little training, but I kept going back and did it 7 times in a row.

A lot has changed since then, having gone from one race a year in 2005-2007, 2 in 2008, 4, including 2 Half Marathons in 2009 before I decided that training for my first marathon would require some extra motivation to get me out doing the longer training runs. I joined a running club and the long Sunday runs became a pleasure instead of a chore and I still look forward to every training run. But even while my running continued to improve until I hit the buffers in July 2012 and was out for almost two months with a knee injury, followed by over two years of further injuries and illnesses that curtailed any racing until November 2015 when I ran in my 'comeback' 10K.

Fast forward to late 2017 and I've almost completed my best ever year of running with PBs at every distance from 1 mile to marathon, (I ran two in one year for the first time). Looking forward to continued good health and an injury free 2018.

Approaching the end of my best ever year of running. 2017 has seen PBs at all distances from mile to marathon and hopefully 2018 will bring more!

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