Edited version originally published in ELLE

It’s 7.30am, the sun is still below the horizon, and I’m on my second lap of the park. I’m wearing neon pink running tights and a grim expression of zero tolerance. A dog-walker approaches. I nod at him and he visibly shrinks away from my INTENSE FOCUS.

You see, I am a woman on a mission. Coming up ahead is a hill, and this hill is my nemesis. Today, on this run, I am going to crush this hill. I am going to make this hill wish it had never been born. I am going to hit this hill, and hit it hard. I am going to… sort of rush at it all at once then stagger to a halt halfway up, wheezing like a punctured balloon - just like I did on my previous lap.

I am a bad runner. This is why I run early in the mornings - to hide my shame.

Three months ago, I was at the tail-end of a gruelling weight-loss plan which had followed a long, miserable battle with weight gain. I needed to get in shape and was bored of the strip-lit tyranny of the gym, so one afternoon I crammed myself into a pair of quilted fashion joggers, and hit the pavement. One hundred yards in I developed a stitch. Then my lungs seized up and my joggers started to slide down my bottom. By 500 yards I was limping along, gasping for breath, with a deep ache in my legs.

That’s when two things happened. A much better, more accomplished runner slipped past me - sleek and speedy, ponytail swinging - and a man crossed the road to laugh at me. My earphones blocked what he said, but he was pointing at me, smirking, and making running motions with his arms. In hindsight, he may have actually been trying to be encouraging, but to my mind he was directing the world’s attention to my ineptitude, purple face and wobbly belly. I scowled at him and went home.

After that I was too paranoid to run at lunchtime, and started heading out at 6am instead. But it worked - at that eye-wateringly early hour no one, save the occasional fox, was around to judge me, so I was able to concentrate on my technique. Liberated from self-consciousness I regulated my breathing, settled into a steady, sustainable pace and - unexpectedly - began to enjoy myself.

Beginning a run, for me, is always a bit crotchety and uncomfortable - like hauling armfuls of logs across uneven ground. But the more I ran, the easier it became to find my stride, and at that point my conscious brain would stop concentrating on running and poke around to see what it could think about in the back of my brain. I found myself, rather than lamenting leaving my bed (which is what I do most of the time), absently confronting emotional truths, solving problems, and having creative ideas - all while joggling ungracefully along sunlit streets at dawn.

Running gives me the sort of mental breathing space I rarely enjoy during my busy daily life - and have never experienced while huffing away on a cross-trainer. I also started appreciating my body for more than its capacity for cake (a lot) or how disappointing it still looked in a tube dress (a lot). Every week I was getting stronger and more flexible - and it wasn’t down to personal trainers or instructional DVDs. It was just me, in discount ASOS fashionwear, moving through the world a bit faster than I normally do.

This has given me the confidence run slightly later (7.15am) when, gasp, people were about. While people’s eyes may follow my progress, no one actually ever chases after me with a pitchfork. Even other runners have the decency not to look appalled when I flail past them, panting and puce-faced.

I am still a consummately awful runner. Just last weekend I ran a 5k, and I fell so far behind that a race volunteer kept squeaking “It’s all good!” whenever it looked as though I might keel over. Sometimes I go running with my boyfriend, who springs ahead of me like some muscular blond gazelle, then has to double back two or three times to meet me.

But I keep running - even though I have to cajole myself into it daily (and sometimes, if I’m within striking distance of my period, or I’ve read an article saying short women aren’t designed to run, I may fail), because I’m chasing what I think of as ‘the sweet spot’. That moment where running stops feeling painfully unnatural, and becomes a smooth, clear-headed, expansive experience of being a well-oiled machine skimming effortlessly over the surface of the Earth.

Obviously, because I’m so awful at running, I only experience the sweet spot for a nanosecond each time, but gradually that nanosecond is becoming a microsecond. Hopefully once I improve that will become a millisecond, then - maybe one day - a full second. That’s the dream. I only need one second of sweetness to start my day off just right.