The reason I’ve never been a runner and 5 reasons I’m going to try to start now

By Andrea Zanetich working with Real Insurance

I remember the exact moment I began to hate running.

The year was 1978, I was in Year 1, and it was the annual sports day at my primary school. As the teacher shot the starting gun, I sprinted as fast as my skinny, scab-kneed legs would carry me, swiftly pulling to the front of the pack of pig-tailed girls.

I ran, and ran, and ran as though there was a new Barbie doll waiting for me at the finish line, grinning in triumph as I approached the long thick rope that the grown-ups were holding up for the winner to run through.

Yet as I slammed into that rope, so did another little girl, Sasha*. We had crossed the finish line at the same time.

But against the thud-thud-thud of the remaining competitors’ small feet racing across the finish line, there was a buzz among the teachers as to who, in fact, had won the race.

Hopping from one foot to another while biting my lip, I waited anxiously for them to call out my name.

But instead it was announced that Sasha had won the race “by a bee’s whisker.”

W-w-what? A bee’s whisker?”

As I stood there perplexed, Sasha went happily up to collect her massive and shiny trophy, grinning like the (whiskered) cat that ate the cream.

I was shattered.

Not only had I been beaten in the race, but the grown-ups were banging on about bee’s whiskers, even though I was pretty sure that there was no such thing!**

So set the wheels in motion of my hate-affair with running.

Since that dark day, I’ve done my best to avoid getting on a running track. Those long distance runs they made you do at school? I’d take a shortcut. Those 8 laps around the oval that was a core part of the P.E. curriculum? “Sorry, I’m not feeling well”. And now, when they rally the mums up to race at my son’s school sports days, wouldn’t you know it, an important call is just coming through on my phone?!