Beginnings

I love running. It's not the thing I live for. I live for Jesus. But I do love running.

My introduction to running was accidental. In my early teens I was crazy about football (UK) or soccer (US). So a bunch of our school mates formed a team. We trained together. Part of the training was jogging. Every time we went for the jog, I ended up way ahead of all others. That was my first heavenly sign!

Shortly after the team broke up, after a handful of defeats by other teams. It's the end of one dream, the start of another. I never stopped the running. I liked the feeling of being free, in control of my limbs, and making my way along roads and quiet paths.

Round about that time, I was also introduced to a world of words, situated at our local town library. While I dig the cartoon section as well as the pre-historic pictorials of dinosaurs, the one favorite section was that on sports. Running to be exact.

I would spend hours seated on the floor at that section, or at the nearby desks when one was available, in awe and inspiration, over pictures of men in shorts and singlets! Runners like Emil Zatopek, Chris Brasher, Henry Rono, Steve Ovett, and my favorite, Sebastian Coe. Pictures and words are potent catalysts for a young mind to dream big dreams, even impossible dreams!

I dreamt, and reckoned that if I can follow their training regimes, I could, one day be as fast as they were around the track. Which child has never thought of going to the Olympics, being in the Olympics? I never bothered to do such a survey, but I did! I lived a dream.

My first pair of running shoe was Adidas Boston. The day my uncle helped purchase that and brought it home all the way from Singapore, I was hooked. Now, with a branded pair of cool looking Adidas runners, I felt as if I have entered an exclusive club. Back then if you wore a pair of branded shoes, you're a few pegs higher in the social order, in the world of a school kid.

I'm on my way!