Now I understand why we were made to do sports at school.

Out of the last 7 days, I have spent 6 at my study provider in Birmingham and the 7th at work, and I feel drained. By the time I reached study day 4 I could have easily fallen asleep in the classroom.

The simple act of dashing from the classroom to the train station, dragging my study materials with me, really did wake me up and that was when I, finally, made to connection between study and exercise.

You do need to move about to wake you up after intense study periods and that is what they were trying to do for us at school, it wasn't intended to be the torture I took it for.

I didn't hate all sport, I loved swimming, I started going to the swimming baths as soon as I was out of nappies (no waterproof swimming nappies back then) and I was taking lessons by the age of 3 (there were no mummy/baby classes then either), so enjoyed swimming at school always picking it when there was an option.

I also enjoyed hockey, I played in the days of the 'bully off'', no sanitised passback for me.

In the summer, when we had to do athletics, I opted for the javelin, shot and discus, the attraction possibly being that they were all originally weapons, though I didn't make the connection at the time.

So maybe I should be grateful to Mrs Thomas, Mrs Friebe, little Mr Jones and big Mr Jones instead of seeing them as medieval torturers, they were trying to do their best for us!