History: I have always been adventurous. I love travel. I love new places and exciting sights and smells. At 23, I took off round the world on my own for 16 months before the days of mobiles and email. I’ve lived in six different countries long enough to have a resident permit or citizenship and visited many more.

I didn’t, however, take up sport until I was 38. I rode horses, I skied and I curled (curling) but other than that I had a long term horror of being sweaty and out of breath.

I was born with both hips dislocated and as it wasn’t discovered until I was walking, I had to have both femurs broken and rotated, and spent a year in plaster. Good old 1970s advice once it was all over was “she’ll be fine, just be careful” meaning no follow up physio and being told for much of my life for much of the stuff I tried “that isn’t good for your hips”.

I finally reaslied that I would always be the one on the sofa, hearing about adventures because I had no fitness and no experience to be able to say yes to sporting fun. So I started road cycling. And then I tried ski mountaineering and then trail running. And then kitesurfing. And climbing. And swimming.

I think I will always be a completer rather than a competer, but I am so enormously proud of the journey I have been on to become sporty. It has allowed my inner adventurer to thrive and be pushed so much harder than I ever thought possible.

Here is a selection of the sporting events I have taken part in in the last 10 years. There is so much more to come. I am fitter, healthier and happier in body and mind than I have been at any point in my life. Thank goodness I had that realisation when I did!