JULIAN COLE, who is about to do his fifth Great North Run, explains how a onetime school sports duffer turned himself into a pavement pounder.

RUNNING half marathons is a form of jogging for the masochistic. Or it is for those of us who start out as joggers and then get a bit carried away.

Serious runners, the truly athletic, the ones with twisted steel for legs, will shoot off into the Tarmac horizon at an alarming rate, leaving those of us in the middle to get on with it, sweating it out side by side, as our feet eat up the miles. Or at least nibble the miles into slow acquiescence.

Running has great health benefits, so long as you buy a decent pair of trainers. Poor shoes will leave your knees feeling a little on the decapitated side.

The great advantage of running is that all you need are those shoes, shorts and a vest, and you can be off - very slowly at first, if you are a novice, but then gradually building up your speed and distance, week by week, month by month.

By slow and careful progress, you can transform yourself from a onetime school sports duffer who would do anything to get out of cross-country running, into someone who can run for 13.1 miles without stopping.

Do not, by the way, underestimate that "point one" - that cruel fraction can be the truest torture to a knackered runner approaching the finishing line.

My first Great North Run was in 1999, when a team of parents and teachers from Park Grove School in York ran for school funds. I've run every one since, plus one Brass Monkey run in York.

That first half marathon took me two hours and 15 minutes, and my quickest time to date is one hour 55 minutes. Twenty minutes is quite an improvement for the more plodding sort of runner, but I wouldn't expect to get much below 1.55, or not unless someone could lend me a stronger pair of legs. But you never know.

The Great North isn't a fast run, as there are more than 40,000 people taking part, so the route is always clogged. Sometimes it feels like one big human traffic jam. This can be frustrating, but being part of this mass of runners is also the joy of the run, especially at the beginning, as the still-cheerful hordes cross the Tyne Bridge in one heaving, jolting mass, chanting and cheering.

I've not been sponsored for a while but this year I am running for Christie's Hospital in Manchester, where my father has been receiving treatment for cancer. This is not a local charity, I know, but anyone who would like to sponsor me can contact me at the Press.

But that's enough writing. It's time to put on the shoes and go for a final training run.

Updated: 11:37 Monday, September 15, 2003