I did very little at school, college or university that involved sport. My few memories are:

 

1. Trying out rugby in the first year of high school but deciding it wasn’t for me. I was small. I wasn’t fast.  I didn’t like getting charged under the pretence of playing a game. I was bad at the game and I hated it.

 

2. I remember running some track races. I don’t remember the distances but I wasn’t bad at them. I do remember getting a bronze badge for a 200 metre run when I was at junior school. I ran a 100 metre race and possible a longer 1500 metres too. Doesn’t matter because it didn’t mean much to me then and

 

3. Getting a swimming badge. When I was a kid there was a series of amateur swimming association badges that we could earn. The story goes that they had a special one made for me because of the distance I was able to swim. That distance? A whole 5 metres. Basically the distance I could push off from the side and before I needed to breathe. Get in! I hated swimming. I found almost any excuse to get a note from my mum or doctor or my mate so that I could avoid it.

 

4. Cross country. That was cool. I enjoyed that. It started at the school. Went out to the bottom of the field and onto a slightly unkept bit called the bongs. We used to take asthma tablets to help with the breathing. We always came last. Apart from the asthma kid.

 

5. Football. Playing football at break times. When we could smuggle in a ball to school (football was frowned upon at my high school). At my junior school we played rather more. I used to end up very muddy and grass stained at the end of the day. I used to play when I was in the cubs and scouts too. I was in use team to make up numbers. I wasn’t very good. When I was at Liverpool university studying for my degree I played 5 aside football. I remember being barely able to breathe during the lecture afterwards. When I was at southampton we were run off the ball by some younger students.  That was embarrassing too. And I managed to injure my knee only 5 minutes into the game.

 

So… I was rubbish at exercise, sport and all that stuff at school…. and now as it turns out – I am quite good at running. Who knew?