The usual advice was getting me nowhere. If I really wanted to embrace running, I’d need to go off-piste. It was a journey that took me to some very strange places …
I’ve always hated running. I’ve tried several times in the past, even made it work for a week or two, then stopped. I hated the excess of pain, the minimal gain. I never experienced runner’s high, only runner’s low. I despised the weather, come rain or shine, and the fact I had to be out in it. But most of all I hated the plodding, the tedium, the sheer mundanity of the run. Is that really how I’d choose to spend my one precious life?
Then an old football injury returned, with a vengeance. Doctors had previously rebuilt my kneecap, added titanium and rendered me bionic. But they’d not anticipated Natasha Bedingfield, come midnight at a wedding, and the extremity of my dance moves. My kneecap went a-wandering. It started to catch and click-clack, like castanets. A physio soon gave me the news I’d always dreaded: I had to start running, outside, properly, and often.
Typical running advice had always failed me. I’d tried carb-loading, but I just gained a stone (14lb, or about 6kg). I’d downloaded all the apps, played all the playlists. I’d stretched, warmed down, the whole nine yards. But nothing worked.
So this time I decided I’d reach out to seasoned runners and ask for unorthodox advice. I’d learn to love running, via the road less travelled.
For my first run I left my flat in an M&S T-shirt, swimming trunks (the only shorts I owned) and scruffy Reebok Workouts. I instantly learned that Workouts are terrible for workouts. I learned that Penge High Street in south London is not the best place to jog, with its dreary pavements and immovable crowds, and that swimming trunks tend to slide down. But I managed to finish the run, with a little walking, and recorded my time: 1.51km in 11 minutes and 57 seconds. I was pleasantly surprised.
Now for the improvement. “I went to a sports store and purchased running gear and decent shoes,” writes Haruki Murakami, novelist and author of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. “This is how you become a runner.” Following his lead, I hovered awkwardly around the local sports shop and asked the closest employee for all the help I could get. I soon found myself shoeless, as the man conducted an ocular gait analysis.
“You have flat feet,” he said. “And they’re exceptionally wide.” I nearly apologised. After trying on a few pairs, like a fat-footed Cinderella, I found the perfect shoe. My glass slipper was the Brooks Adrenaline GTS25.
I bought new running tops and short shorts, because runners wear short shorts. I wanted to fit in. And I bought a hydration vest, after reading advice from runners online. It seemed akin to a beer helmet but proved a godsend, preventing the jingle of keys and the bounce of my phone, even if the plastic straw kept slapping my face.
I made some unusual purchases, too, on the advice of Sarah Hartley, a presenter on The Running Channel Podcast. “I want to help you avoid pain,” she told me. That’s how I ended up online, in incognito mode, buying nipple tape. And found myself rubbing anti-chafe balm on the area my nan once described as an undercarriage. I was all in. I’d run just once and suddenly felt as if I was prepping for the world’s most choreographed orgy.
I asked a friend about nutrition. Alex Revell has run a half marathon or full marathon every month of 2026 and his unfortunate advice was a shot of pickle juice on the day of the run (supposedly as good as any shop-bought electrolytes). So, committed to the experiment, with nipple tape on nipples, I opened a jar of pickles. It felt over the top, verging on absurd, but I took a hefty swig and shivered.
I flew on that second run, over 2km. Perhaps nipple tape is aerodynamic. Maybe I’ve previously been slowed by chafe. More likely, the combination of the right gear, the right stretches and the right brine-based hydration instantly elevated me. The pre-run rituals pumped me up, too, forcing me to make the run count. Who knew that preparation actually worked?
I did not run the streets of Penge, but I ran around them. And after a few runs I found the streets incredibly boring. I decided to take advice from Martinus Evans, founder of the Slow AF Run Club: “There is something about awe-inspiring views that helps take your mind off running.” So I decided to search for some awe. And I realised that few things in this world are more awe-inspiring than dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs in Crystal Palace park, just down the road from Penge, are absurdities. They are ridiculous things – a point of pride to locals, apoint of moderate confusion to outsiders, but somehow important in the history of dinosaurs. Dating from 1854, they were the first full-scale reconstructions, based on crude inaccuracies of early palaeontology, and the results are hilarious. They are creepy, overweight and their smiles will make you smile. It’s fun, running with dinosaurs.
New surroundings made the runs less tedious and more fun, but in this second week, my distances stalled. Two kilometres felt easy enough, but then I’d suddenly feel wiped.