I started running in my late 30s, with my 40th birthday looming in the future. Now as I’m aiming to be fittest by fifty I thought it might be fun to look at some of my old running photos. Then my fitness focus was running pretty much exclusively, with a little weight training thrown in for balance.
Hard to believe now that I was a runner before I was a road cyclist. I started running through the Running Room’s Learn to Run program and went from 5 km to 10 km to 20 km. (No marathons for me!) Like many people I moved from running to cycling via triathlons and duathlons combined with running injuries. Two summers in a row I had serious stress fractures which put an end to my short lived running career.
But you can tell from the smile on my face that I loved running and still do. These days I just run short distances, for fun, not time, mostly with my dog for companionship. It was clear right away that I was a much faster cyclist than I was a runner and like the speed and the distance and the tactics that go with bike racing better than running.
Biking is also kinder on my body. Still, I love to run. I have a friend who says that you can see that no one likes to run because runners always look so earnest and miserable. That’s never been true for me.
I have lots more cycling photos but I’ll save those for another day.
