I spent my school years being told how bad I was at sport and as such becoming totally disengaged with sport. I took up running in my early 30s following medical advice to take more exercise, initially trying to get prepared to run the Manchester 10k. Having felt so much better in myself for doing this I started to do more running, 10k and even a couple of half-marathons. I had a couple of years off due to illness but then decided to run Greater Manchester Marathon for charity in 2012. Following this I started doing a lot more running, mostly at half-marathon distance and found that I really enjoyed participating in organised events. Although most of my running pre-2015 was on road, I now spend most of my time running off-road. In 2017 I qualified as a UKA/FRA Fell & Mountain Running Coach (fCiRF) and focus on helping runners to discover trail running.