Often I pull open the vegetable drawer of the fridge to get an onion or an avocado, and there it sits: one lone carrot. I buy carrots planning to eat them. I have grand plans while I’m out shopping to be the sort of person that cuts up a carrot into sticks and takes them to work in a box, pulling them out of my bag at 11 o’clock and having them as a snack. But this has probably happened about twice in my life.

There’s two reasons for this: 1) I can’t be bothered and 2) even if I could, space is at a premium in my bag when I’m running or cycling to work and the carrot is a non-essential item.

I eat pretty well. And as I don’t eat meat or eggs and only occasionally eat fish, there’s usually a lot of vegetables on my plate. It’s just that lonely old carrot that sits in the bottom of the drawer and stares at me as it gradually withers and goes soft before being slung in the bin that bothers me. I’m sorry carrot. You deserved better than this.

I thought about buying a juicer. That would give me something to do with my carrots. I could juice them and save them from an undignified end in the bin. But I remembered that my mum and dad had a juicer about 10 years ago. We used it with great excitement turning the contents of the supermarket fruit and veg aisle into liquids of various colours (some appealing, others not). But then we had to clean it and that put paid to it coming out of its box ever again.

When the people at Phillips offered to send me a juicer, I thought about this. Then I thought about the lonely old carrot in the bottom of my fridge. I thought too about my kitchen – the tiniest kitchen in all of London. If I were to go on ‘Come Dine With Me’ the camera crew would have to stand outside and film through the window. But the juicer people told me it was very compact and that it could be cleaned in one minute. So that’s how I became the sort of person who owns a juicer.

It came with a condition though – I’d have to agree to drink one juice per day for a week. I didn’t know how many carrots that was, but it sounded like a lot of time. I’m very busy. I go to work Monday to Friday, teach two running groups two evenings a week and help out with coaching at my club once a week. I’m training for an ultra marathon, studying for a couple of qualifications and finalising the manuscript of my second book. But then they said they’d send me the fruit and veg necessary and so I could cross ‘Buy carrots you probably won’t eat’ off my list of things to do that week. So I agreed.

On Saturday the juicer and vegetables arrived. I was off to race cross country that day, so I had a ‘Pre workout’ juice (beetroot, carrots, ginger, pasley – surprisingly nice) and hoped I wouldn’t regret it half way round Hampstead Heath.  Saturday and Sunday night I was staying away from home, so I made some more juice (apples, lemon, ginger, cucumber), kept it in a flask and took it with me. It tasted OK the next day. Monday night and Tuesday morning I followed more of the recipes I was given and managed to make a juice and wash up the juicer before work.

Then from Thursday I went a bit rogue, I slung combinations of fruit and vegetables into the machine (watermelon, lime, celery, strawberry and mint – you heard it here first) and may or may not have added alcohol. It was a fun week. While I might not make myself a juice every day, I’ll definitely have a couple a week. And I’ve now got something to do with those leftover carrots.

Philips gave me this juicer and a load of fruit and veg. They didn’t pay be for this post.