I'm a student living in the Netherlands and currently studying at Windesheim. I'm 25 years old and only started running last summer after a pretty bad accident. I pretty much made a complete lifestyle change last summer by eating healthier and stopping with smoking. So far its still going great. I kept running three times a week in the winter and still do now.

In the beginning of 2010 I dislocated my shoulder while I was skiing in France . It hurt a lot and wasn't allowed to move it at all for six weeks or so. I couldn't cycle or do any other exercises even jumping was painful for my shoulder.  After a while I had to practice my arm by doing little exercises. I could do small things again like picking up a bag of groceries or reach for the toilet paper without pain. After a while I was at the point I could use my arm properly again. I was itching to exercise again but It was still too painful to play tennis or golf so I had to do something else. So I started running.

My first run went horrible. I started way too fast and had no clue what I was doing and was out of breath within a minute. Maybe it was because I researched absolutely nothing before I started and running on my tennis shoes might not have been a good idea either. I returned back home and lit up an amazing cigarette (Yes, I smoked back then). I went back to my daily job of making sites and doing minor things for school.

After a few weeks I tried again. However this time I read some beginner schedules and was prepared with some brand new Asics running shoes. The schedule trained me to run for 30 minutes in a row which seemed impossible at the time but after ten weeks I finally did it. It seems like a minor thing now but I was really proud of myself and I mean really proud. This might sound odd but there haven't been many moments in my life where I was this proud of myself. I felt so much better both mentally and physically and its the reason why I keep running now.

A few months later I was shopping for some proper running clothes since I didn't have any. I saw some nice looking Adidas Adizero ace shoes. They were blue and looked pretty cool for running shoes and they felt so light. They were completely different from my Asics. These shoes made me land on my forefoot instead of my heels which felt much nicer and less painful on my joints. I went about a half a mile faster without any additional training. That's an enormous improvement for me and the reason why I haven't touched my Asics at all anymore.

And this is where I'm at now. My latest shoes are the Adidas Adizero Rocket which are pretty much flat shoes. I run on both adizero shoes and switch em around a bit. I try to run about an hour at least three times a week and if possible I do more. I'm still pretty new at running and pretty slow compared to other runners. I try to avoid to look at other people's times since there is a 99% chance they are way faster then me. But slowly I'm improving and getting better.

My goals for this year are doing some 10K races to start with and maybe, depending on how well it goes, some half marathon races at the end of the year. 10K is really my main focus for now.