Despite spending quite a few years doing what I suppose you could call quite athletic cycling and reaching a fairly respectable level of strength and fitness (If I say so myself!) I’ve never really considered myself a sporty person. I wasn’t great at sports at school, and always viewed most sport outside of cycling as something that wasn’t really for me.

This sounds a bit rediculous, but I definitely felt some kind of superiority as a cyclist that I had chosen to take part in the best and most fun activity… The thing that allows you to travel, see the countryside, go fast, razz round corners, bomb down hills, and enjoy the wind in your face. I’d look at runners with the sort of bemused look you might give a drunk person loudly shouting nonsense in the street. I just didnt understand it, and it didnt look like as good a time as what I was doing.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve realised how silly this sounds, and this January I joined the vast numbers of people who buy running shoes after New Years day. The main catalyst for this was my body being in a bit of a sorry state for the last year, and really wanting to get moving in some new ways to try and balance myself out a bit.

Anyway it turns out i’ve actually been quite enjoying getting to grips with trying to run. There’s a great simplicity in popping some shoes on and heading out the door, and a few weeks in and my body is already feeling the benefits. Its loosening up my legs and hips and making me feel good in the process.

The other great thing at work here is the joy of doing something entirely new and which you have no prior experience or expectation in. When I’m out on the bike I know for a fact that my power won’t match what I could put out in 2016 without putting a ton of work in to get back to that level, whereas if I head out for a run and go hard, chances are I will go faster than last time, and feel better too. This is nice.

I’ve decided I’d like to try and run a half marathon at some point this year, so there may be a few updates on how this goes, or possibly the sudden reaslisation that I do hate running after all, followed getting straight back out on my bike.