I have started running. I never thought I would. I think I was put off running in high school when during physical education they would occasionally force us to run 5k out of the blue. I remember it was torture. I never did particularly well and was sore afterwards so I came to associate it with failure and tedium and so on.
When we moved to Singapore I decided I would do some more exercise and at some point read this thing about how running is a cheap and easy way to get some exercise in and that it is particularly fun to do with your partner.
My wife has always been a runner so I suggested we started running together. She was surprised I think but agreed it would be a good idea. The next weekend I went and got a pair of shoes and that same day we were off to our first run.
In the beginning it was a hard to find good routes. I could not manage much more than 3k which did not help. But 3k turned into 5k. Around that time we found a field in the neighbourhood we could do laps around. When that became boring we decided to switch to the bay, a very popular spot, and we started doing 6–8k runs there. We’ve been sticking to that ever since.
Now we run roughly two to three times a week. Sometimes we try one of the parks and run some trails. I find I enjoy trail running even more because it is less about speed and more about awareness. And there is more to see so it never gets boring.
We were on holiday on Bali the other week and I brought my gear and ran some trails through rice fields and along the beach there as well and it struck me that this is possibly the greatest thing about running. You can do it anywhere you go, and once you build up a decent amount of stamina, your legs will take you wherever it is you want to go. It is an incredibly liberating feeling.
It took a bit of doing to get to that point. But now that I’ve reached it, I’m hooked.