The other day a colleague said to me: “I really like the idea of running but I just can’t enjoy it”. My response was “do you eat olives?”

To me running is a bit like eating olives. When you first try them as a child or in your late teens they are vile. To me they tasted like ear wax. I couldn’t understand how people ate them for pleasure and was positive my parents had something wrong with them.

Cut to my early 20s and olives are being eaten by my peers as a sign of sophistication and taste. Not for them a packet of crisps to accompany their drink in the pub but a bowl of olives complete with cocktail sticks – just to further emphasise the difference between them and people that eat crisps. Finger are so ‘teenage’. As opposed to crisps, olives are also good for you.

So under immense peer pressure I put down my packet of salt and vinegar and picked up a cocktail stick. I ate an olive and I didn’t enjoy it. It still tasted like ear wax, but I persevered. Why? Because I liked the idea of being someone who ate olives and I knew they were good for me. Several years later I now actually enjoy olives and I even eat them when there’s nobody around to see me eating them.

Running, as I put it to my colleague, is a lot like eating olives. You might like the idea of running and being someone who runs, but you won’t enjoy it straight away. You have to persist with running. Eventually, though, it will stop leaving a bitter taste in our mouth and you’ll love it.