YOU WON’T NECESSARILY BE A LOT FITTER BY RUNNING TWICE AS FAST....

7) You won’t necessarily be a lot fitter by running twice as fast. T/F II. Read the text below. Answer questions 8 to 15 with a short sentence. When I was at school, I played some football and rugby. I hated rugby because I couldn’t catch the ball, but I enjoyed football. I started out being a terrible player and nobody wanted me to be on their team. But I started to improve slowly and, after a few years, the other kids in the school accepted me as a player, not a fantastic one, but one who wouldn’t do anything stupid. When I was at university, I stopped playing sports altogether. I was working too hard, started eating too much, and, worst of all, I started smoking. By the time I was thirty, I was overweight and unfit. Then one day, I was sitting in the park, smoking a cigarette. I was watching these guys running. They looked slim, fit and healthy, and some of them were much older than me. When I got home, I looked in the bathroom mirror and, well, I suppose I just didn’t like what I saw. At that moment, I decided to stop smoking and change my life. I went to a sports shop, bought myself a pair of running shoes, shorts and a sweatshirt. That evening I went running around the park – for ten minutes! Physically, I felt terrible. Everything was hurting: my legs, my chest. But inside, I did feel good about it. The next evening, I went again. I still only did ten minutes, but I didn’t feel as I bad as I did the day before. Within a week, I was running for fifteen minutes, then twenty, and after three weeks I ran for thirty minutes without stopping. Quite soon, I was running longer distances and my speed and strength were improving all the time. After six months, I was a runner! That was five years ago. I now run eight kilometres six times a week and love it. My proudest moment was last year, when I ran my first marathon and finished in under three hours. I’m fitter now than I’ve ever been, and am so glad that I went to sit in the park that day five years ago.