Bristol Evening Post reporter Joanna Quinn explains why she is taking part in the Bristol Half Marathon in September.

Let’s get a few things straight. I am not a long-distance runner.

At school, I was one of the short, fast people rather than one of the tall, gangly types with stamina.

I hated cross-country runs with a passion that bordered on insanity. I just could not see the point of them. With a sprint, or even a middle-distance race, you are racing to win, you are hurtling round a track towards a finish line and you want to get there first. It’s exciting for the spectators and it normally means you’re finished by lunchtime and can go home.

Anything over 1,500 metres is, to my mind, just unnecessary. Why keep going for hours? Why plod away over miles and miles just for the sake of it? Why do something that is painful and tiring and hard work? And why, oh why, have I signed up to do the Bristol Half Marathon?

Call it an early mid-life crisis, call it a moment of madness, call it a wardrobe malfunction if you want, but for some reason I have decided I need a goal to aim towards and that goal is to run my first ever half marathon.

I think my decision has something to do with the fact that, like many people, I enjoyed sports at school and university, but after I got out into the real world, I let my physical fitness slide. I stopped playing hockey and I started drinking wine.

Read on…