I’ve always hated running. I’ve tried it many times before, even stuck with it for a week or two, then quit. I couldn’t stand the intense pain for such little payoff. I never got that runner’s high—only runner’s low. I hated the weather, whether it was sunny or rainy, and having to be out in it. But what I hated most was the slow, boring grind of it all. Is that really how I’d want to spend my one precious life?
Then an old football injury came back, and it was worse than ever. Doctors had already rebuilt my kneecap, added titanium, and made me bionic. But they hadn’t counted on Natasha Bedingfield playing at midnight at a wedding, or how wild my dance moves would get. My kneecap started to shift. It began to catch and click, like castanets. A physio soon gave me the news I’d always dreaded: I had to start running, outside, properly, and often.
Typical running advice never worked for me. I tried carb-loading, but I just put on a stone (14lb, or about 6kg). I downloaded all the apps, played all the playlists. I stretched, cooled down, did everything you’re supposed to do. But nothing helped.
So this time, I decided to ask seasoned runners for unconventional advice. I’d learn to love running by taking a different path.
Week 1: brine
For my first run, I left my flat in an M&S T-shirt, swimming trunks (the only shorts I owned), and scruffy Reebok Workouts. I quickly learned that Workouts are terrible for actual workouts. I found out that Penge High Street in south London isn’t the best place to jog, with its dull pavements and slow-moving crowds, and that swimming trunks tend to slip down. But I managed to finish the run, with a bit of walking, and clocked my time: 1.51km in 11 minutes and 57 seconds. I was pleasantly surprised.
Now for the improvement. “I went to a sports store and bought running gear and decent shoes,” writes Haruki Murakami, the novelist and author of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. “That’s how you become a runner.” Following his lead, I hovered awkwardly around the local sports shop and asked the nearest employee for all the help I could get. Soon I was barefoot, as the man did a visual check of my gait.
“You have flat feet,” he said. “And they’re exceptionally wide.” I nearly apologized. After trying on a few pairs, like a Cinderella with wide feet, I found the perfect shoe. My glass slipper was the Brooks Adrenaline GTS25.
I bought new running tops and short shorts, because runners wear short shorts. I wanted to fit in. And I got a hydration vest, after reading advice from runners online. It seemed a bit like a beer helmet, but it turned out to be a lifesaver, keeping my keys from jingling and my phone from bouncing, even if the plastic straw kept hitting me in the face.
I also made some unusual purchases, on the advice of Sarah Hartley, a presenter on The Running Channel Podcast. “I want to help you avoid pain,” she told me. That’s how I ended up online, in incognito mode, buying nipple tape. And I found myself rubbing anti-chafe balm on the area my nan once called the undercarriage. I was all in. I’d only run once, but I felt like I was getting ready for the world’s most choreographed party.
I asked a friend about nutrition. Alex Revell has run a half marathon or full marathon every month of 2026, and his questionable advice was a shot of pickle juice on the day of the run (supposedly as good as any store-bought electrolytes). So, fully committed to the experiment, with nipple tape on my nipples, I opened a jar of pickles. It felt over the top, almost ridiculous, but I took a big swig and shivered.
I flew on that second run, covering over 2km. Maybe nipple tape is aerodynamic. Maybe I’ve been slowed down by chafing all along. More likely, the right gear, the right stretches, and the right brine-based hydration made an instant difference. The pre-run rituals also got me pumped up, pushing me to make the run count. Who knew that preparation actually worked?
Week 2: sexyI didn’t run through the streets of Penge—I ran around them. After a few runs, I found the streets incredibly dull. So I decided to take advice from Martinus Evans, founder of the Slow AF Run Club: “There’s something about awe-inspiring views that helps take your mind off running.” I set out to find some awe, and I realized that few things in the world are more awe-inspiring than dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs in Crystal Palace park, just down the road from Penge, are absurd. They’re ridiculous—a point of pride for locals, a bit of confusion for outsiders, but somehow important in dinosaur history. Dating back to 1854, they were the first full-scale reconstructions, based on the rough, inaccurate science of early paleontology, and the results are hilarious. They’re creepy, overweight, and their smiles will make you smile. Running with dinosaurs is fun.
New surroundings made the runs less boring and more enjoyable, but in my second week, my distance stalled. Two kilometers felt easy, but then I’d suddenly feel exhausted. Based on my research, the problem was my pacing. Learning to run slowly is the best advice for new runners. Evans recommends the “sexy pace,” so named because it’s like running in slow motion on the beach, à la Baywatch. I slowed down so much that walkers passed me, but my distance grew: I ran 3km on my first try, in 26 minutes.
Week 3: zombies
I had all the right gear, the right pacing, the pickle juice, and the dinosaurs, but then came the biggest challenge: existential dread. That had always been a problem for me. I’d manage a few runs, even feel motivated, then the intense boredom and discontent would hit. And it arrived, right on schedule, as I entered my third week.
Runners usually turn to music. I tried strange playlists, as recommended: Detroit techno, grime, even classical. Techno definitely helped with its repetitive beats, but the best was the high energy of early grime records. However, music couldn’t hold my attention for long stretches.
I followed advice from Dr. Chloe Bedford, a psychologist and running advocate, and listened to the same song on repeat. This is supposed to create a rhythm, but it just made me hate Eye of the Tiger. I needed something better to occupy my mind, something to push away the boredom and dread.
So I turned to Shakespeare. “Running is a great activity to do while memorizing,” Murakami writes. “As I move my legs, I line the words up in order in my mind.” A study in the International Journal of Exercise Science found that memorizing while exercising improves recall, so you can escape boredom while learning something new. I’ve always loved Hamlet and never had a party trick, so I decided to memorize the soliloquies.
This is what running is all about. I started the run, listened to two lines of Richard Burton reciting the “To be or not to be” speech, and started the track again. I let it play a little further, concentrated, and learned a few more lines. Much of my run was spent pressing my headphones. By the end, I remembered little of the soliloquy, but trying to memorize it took my mind off the boredom. I went slowly and covered more than 3km, my best run yet.
The lesson isn’t necessarily to listen to Hamlet, but to find something that helps you focus. Bedford offered a few interesting suggestions that might capture your attention. One was to listen to an audiobook only on your runs, ideally one that ends on cliffhangers, so you’ll want to return to the story as soon as possible. Another is to pretend you’re an MI5 agent on a secret mission: “Works best when it’s raining, as it adds a bit of drama.”
Or you can turn to apps for drama. My partner’s cousin, Sarah, used Zombies, Run! to do a Couch to 5k. The app feels like an intense audiobook.The stories always end on cliffhangers. You pick up odd items, finish missions, and work toward zombie-related goals. It was probably too intense for me—the first episodes feature a crashed helicopter, a zombie apocalypse, and pulling the undead out of a town—and I often felt more confused than scared. But it definitely got my heart pumping.
Week 4: Resentment
By this point, I was losing my motivation. Putting on shoes felt like a huge task I couldn’t handle. The heatwave didn’t help, and neither did the early mornings, even though they were cooler. I started desperately looking for excuses and kept finding them: a sore toe, the chance of missing a package delivery, Mercury being in retrograde.
Revell, who has run at least 5k every day this year, says success comes from removing any excuses. “Get everything ready the night before,” he told me. He lays out his running clothes and shoes, prepares all his pre- and post-run food, and even grinds his coffee beans before bed. It’s about leaving nothing to chance and making sure there are as few obstacles as possible before leaving the house.
Bedford suggests bribery: “Give yourself a reward when you’ve finished a run.” I thought, I’d love a cigarette, having quit five years ago. Maybe I could smoke my way to good health. Not sure that’s what Bedford meant. Usually, these rewards are things like chocolate, cake, or maybe a bit of shopping, but I’ve learned to adapt advice to the person. I tried to think about what I’d actually enjoy.
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Bliss. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
So I started sitting under a tree. After the run, I’d grab a coffee and read for a bit, having stashed a book in my hydration vest. My reward was a sense of quiet in the early morning, surrounded by birds. It made putting on my trainers less intimidating. I looked forward to that sudden calm, enough to pull me out of the flat.
Alternatively, you can get motivation from your enemies. Evans recalls how a doctor once called him fat and said running would kill him. For over a decade, he has proven the doctor wrong, all the way to the cover of Runner’s World. In the acknowledgments of his book, Slow AF Run Club: The Ultimate Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Run, Evans addresses the doctor: “I still think you’re a fucking dick and an asshole for saying what you said to me.” You can use that energy and find your own worst enemy.
I thought of something someone said years ago and dwelled on it. And I mean I spent hours dwelling. That dwelling helped me put on my shoes when I really wanted to stay home. If you don’t have enemies, create one. Run against him or her. Run out of spite. Let the anger drive you.
Week 5: Baps
Standard advice says to avoid tips from people on the internet. But I wasn’t looking for standard advice. In the fifth week, leaving no stone unturned, I found a Reddit thread called “unhinged running tips that actually work” and started trying them out.
One Redditor suggested shouting “Fuck!” whenever the run got tough. I did it in the name of science. Any time I felt pain, I shouted, “Fuck!” It was bad enough that I wore a little backpack, with a straw slapping my face, and probably smelled like pickles, but now I was cursing in public, among dinosaurs, like a pirate.
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What happens when you ditch your headphones. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
The interesting thing: it worked. But not as expected. Shouting “Fuck!” in the middle of the park, during school holidays, made me run faster, not longer, because I was sprinting away from a series of dirty looks.
“Rawdogging” was probably the worst advice I tried to follow. It means no music, no zombies, no Hamlet. I was left to run alone with my thoughts. So I wrestled with my own mortality. It was the worst run of my life. I ran very fast and not very long, and I got home like a sweaty Schopenhauer, afraid of existence.
One final piece of advice from Reddit worked really well. It called for a mid-run breakfast.I ran 3km with the dinosaurs, then stopped at the café. I had a veggie bap covered in brown sauce, drank some fancy lemonade, and read my book for a while. It was almost too relaxing. Then I got up, put my vest back on, and ran the last kilometre home. It was fun, but spending a tenner each time isn’t sustainable in this economy. I might treat myself on weekends, though, especially as I start running longer distances.
Week 6: the finish line
For the first time in my life, I’ve run consistently for over a month. A routine has set in. My last run was just over 4km. Now I need to think about the long term – how to make running a regular part of my life.
The best long-term advice I’ve heard, which I’m now following, comes from Hartley. She says success depends on figuring out your running personality.
Hartley suggests a few options: Lover of the Plod, Trail-running Mountain Goat, Running Club Fanatic, or Person Who Jogs to Find Pastries. Finding your running identity makes running part of who you are. It’s empowering and open to everyone. You are a runner. You just need to decide what kind of runner you want to be.
It’s too simple to say I now love running. But this experiment has pushed me to leave my flat and helped me tie my shoes in the morning. I’m learning. I’m making progress. And I’m enjoying my journey on the less-travelled path. Because I’m a runner now – one who relies on historically inaccurate dinosaurs, nipple tape, pickle juice, and Hamlet. I like that.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on your unique title blending practical running advice with a personal story
General The Story
Q What is this bookguide actually about
A Its a memoirstyle guide about how unconventional solutions and a childhood obsession with dinosaurs helped the author fall in love with running Its part personal story part practical running hacks
Q How do dinosaurs fit into running
A For the author dinosaurs represent the cool factor of being tough and resilient Instead of thinking of a run as a chore they imagined themselves as a predator on the hunt or a massive creature stomping through the terrain Its a mental trick to make running feel like an epic adventure rather than a workout
Q Is this just a joke or is there real advice in here
A Its funny but the advice is 100 real The nipple tape and pickle juice are legitimate solutions to common running problems The dinosaur stuff is the mental framework that makes the physical work easier
The Running Gear
Q Why would a runner need nipple tape
A When you run for a long time your shirt rubs against your chest If youre a man this friction can chafe your nipples causing them to bleed Tape prevents the friction
Q Can I just use regular duct tape or BandAids
A You can but you shouldnt Duct tape is too sticky and will hurt to remove and standard BandAids fall off when you sweat You need medicalgrade tape or specialized nip guards that are breathable and sweatresistant
Q How do I take it off without ripping my skin off
A The secret is to take a hot shower first The steam and water loosen the adhesive If youre in a hurry soak a cloth in warm water and press it on the tape for a minute before peeling
The Fuel
Q Why do runners drink pickle juice
