I had always thought of myself as someone who could not run. At school I was last in every race, the kid who finished red-faced and gasping while everyone else was already drinking water. So when, at thirty-four, my doctor told me I really did need more exercise, the idea of joining the local running club filled me with quiet horror.
I almost did not go. I changed my mind on the bus three times. But when I finally arrived at the park, the group was nothing like the serious athletes I had imagined. They were ordinary people — a teacher, a retired electrician, a young mother with a stroller, a grandfather who wore the same lucky T-shirt every week. The leader, a woman in her sixties named Joyce, took one look at me and said, "First time? Brilliant. Stay with me at the back."
We walked for the first ten minutes. Then we ran very, very slowly for two minutes, walked again, ran two minutes again. Joyce talked the whole time — about her garden, her cat, her son in Australia. By the end of the hour I had not actually run very much, but I had laughed more than I had in weeks, and I had finished without dying. "See you Tuesday," she said, and patted me on the shoulder.
That was three years ago. I am still not fast. I will never be fast. But I run three mornings a week, I sleep better than I have done in a decade, and on Tuesdays at six I always look up the road for Joyce. The lesson, I think, is one of the simplest ones: most things we are afraid to start are easier and kinder than we expected.