What did you suck at at school?

Pre-London Marathon, 2013. ByTom Price
For me, it was P.E. And the sciences.
And history.
And geography.

But I want to write about the first one. Specifically, running. When it was time for our termly cross country run, Iâd be the kid at the back of the group. You probably couldnât even class my position as being part of âthe group.â I was one of the people dribbling along behind everyone else, wheezing, gasping for air, clutching at my stitch and desperately trying to stumble to the finish.
This evening, I went to my local running club. Iâve now been six times, so I guess you could call me a regular. Iâm a regular! This isnât a âmeet up for a jog around the parkâ affairâââitâs a full-blown, intensive, gruelling, run-âtil-you-puke (I havenât, but another guy did) heavy workout; a mix of drills, sprints, and short distance work at lightning speeds. On a track. Like, a proper running track. No hipsters or yummy mummies in their far-too-fancy-to-run-in sportswearâââjust a lot of raggedy old vests and sweaty bodies.
What changed?
Back in 2010, when I was making music full-time, I spent hours stuck in front of my laptop, sending emails and trying to get people to listen to my pop songs. (Most peopleâs vision of pop stardom is travel, sex, drugs, double-necked guitars, but you actually spend most of your time on the internet. Or maybe I did something wrong.) One day, I became concerned that all this computer time, and very little leaving-the-house time, was going to result in me becoming morbidly obese. Looking for the easiest sport that required the least gear, no one to do it with and that could be done anywhere, I settled on running. I was not a runner.

Pre-10k, 2010. By Tom Price
I bought some cheap running shoes, socks and (very) short shorts and hit the fields next to my house. On my first run, where I ran at a gentle pace for about ten minutes, I returned to the living room and promptly collapsed, tried to swallow down the urge to puke and stared at the ceilingâââwhich was spinning above me. This was a bad idea.
But I persevered. The next run wasnât a resounding success. But I didnât feel quite so awful afterwards. And by the fourth run, the burning sensation in my throat (you know, where you can taste iron and when you cough it feels horrible) had pretty much disappeared. I was starting to feel, tentatively, like a runner.
Needing a goal, something to encourage me to persevere with this wretched task, I signed up for a 10k race. Then a half marathon. And then, after a brief running hiatus, I ran the London Marathon in 2013. And felt really tired afterwards.
At school, no one told me that itâs natural for it to feel horrible the first few times you run. And because I never got past the first few times, I never knew what it was like to run and not feel like youâre going to die. School can be a horrible place, full of bullies who tell you youâre no good, and teachers who do little to encourage you. (While school wasnât as hellish for me as it is for some people, I certainly wasnât one of the popular kids.) And soon, you start to believe it when people say youâre not a sporty person. Or an arty person. Or that you canât write / run / paint / sing / spell / [insert your thing].
I was discussing this with my friend, Mia, and she summed it up eloquently:
âA lot of our sucking at things at school is the result of adults failing to tell us the truth about them.â
No one told me that running gets way easier, really quickly. It does! And itâs good for your mind. I donât get depressed per se, but I have frequent low spells where I enter what Tom and I affectionately call The Pit. The Pit is a horrible place. But I go there less frequently when I run regularly. My brother also took up running to spend less time in The Pit (he spends more time there than I do, often with the Black Dog) and itâs been a wonderful addition to his life. (And to our relationshipâââweâd never been particularly close, due to a 13-year age gap, but we now meet up to compete in runs together.)
While I could regale you with compelling arguments for why you should run, Iâm not going to. Maybe runningâs not your thing and never will be. (Although I should note that most days, I donât think runningâs my thing either. Itâs hard. Some runs are very slow. My legs feel like useless hunks of meat. But some runs are pure elation! Joy! Even after years of running, you still have to take the rough with the smooth.)
My concern is that many of us have decided that we suck at something because of our experiences at school, or in early life. My dad, for example, will frequently say heâs stupid. And while Dad might not have thrived in academia (mind, it was a different timeâââone where he received the cane for being left-handed), heâs far from stupid. Heâs a smart man in many waysâââand I suspect he could do well in academia, too, should he decide itâs something he wants to pursue.
You are capable of more than you know. You are capable of things that you were told you were incapable of at school. You are capable of things youâve been putting off for fear that you wonât be capable of them. Age is no excuse (read Alan Rusbridgerâs glorious book about learning a complex Beethoven piano piece in later life for evidence). And as for timeâââwell, if you want to do something enough, you make the time. Time is elastic.
What did you suck at at schoolâââand is it time to give it another chance?

Post-London Marathon, 2013. ByTom Price
If you want to get excited about running, I recommend What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, and Like the Wind Magazineâââwhich is written by and for runners. We can also keep each other motivated if you add me on RunKeeper.