A bit about me - the early years

Over the next few weeks I am going to give you a bit of background info about myself, mainly from a fitness and health perspective, as well as what I have been doing the past three months. There is a reason the past three months are significant, as you will soon find out.

I grew up on a large sheep and beef farm. Most of my childhood years, when not at our local three room school, were spent running barefoot through cow poo and mud, and building huts in the hay and surrounding bush. I also loved horse riding and spending time caring for all my other pets.

When it came to fitness and exercise as a kid, I pretty much got all I needed from just being on the farm. My main 'sport' was horse riding. I avoided any sport that involved a ball. I was scared of them. If one came towards me my first instinct has always been to get out of the way... I was usually the last one to be picked for any team sports that involved a ball... or running. I couldn't run. At least that is what I thought until I ran in my first cross country and realised I could run, just not very fast. Middle distance turned out to be my thing. I continued with cross-country running when I got to high school, along with rowing and middle distance track. I also dabbled in cricket and volleyball... didn't last long... cricket and volleyballs are even harder than netballs and tennis balls.

As far as food and nutrition went, most of what I ate came from the farm. We had a huge vege garden, an even bigger orchard with every fruit tree imaginable and a farm full of beef and mutton. Mum baked and preserved. There was always a yummy cake or home made bicky in the cupboard (we didn't have pantries in those days). I think that explains my life long addiction to muffins, cakes and biscuits. For the most part as a kid and teenager I was a healthy weight. For a few years at primary school I was chubby and I hated it but that eventually went (for a while anyway!).

Thats pretty much it. I was active and not scared of too much when I was little - as most kids are. I loved growing up on the farm. Even now, I can still picture just about every corner of every paddock we had on our farm, including the patches of bush where I would go bird nesting and the swamps that I would wade through looking for 'things' and end up with gumboots filled with sloshy, muddy water.