I could have been an Olympic athlete....honest!

The Olympics has started and people all over the world will be glued to their screens for the next few weeks.

When I was in my teens, my family were heavily into athletics and all my brothers and sisters, bar one were members of the Elgin Athletics Club.

My brothers Stephen and Michael were the fastest but my sisters and I held our own. I could never beat my brother Michael as he was such a speed demon, so much so that he has won medals galore and he has run all over the world while he was in the RAF breaking a few records on his way.

One of his cool trophies

He broke the record!

We used to train around Elgin Academy, which was perched on a hill and the back exit from the school was the quickest way home but it was very very dark and quite scary.

One night, after training, Michael and I were making our way down the hill in the pitch black when suddenly this loud booming voice shouted from behind us "YOU BOY!". We stopped chatting, turned and looked around us but could see nothing so we carried on chatting and walking down the hill. Seconds later, the voice shouted at us again, this time, it felt like it was right behind us, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

We stopped again and looked around. As my eyes travelled over the school's perimeter fence, I saw a huge bulky shadow moving along it and my heart nearly stopped. Not even stopping to think, I took off in a sprint, running for my life!  I wasn't aware of anything but my heart trying to burst outta my chest and the wind whipping my hair around my face.

Pic from here

Michael hadn't even noticed I had gone and by the time he did, I was over the little bridge and sprinting like a demon past the football ground. He took off after me at great speed, yelling my name but I was oblivious! Finally I heard him yelling at me as I reached the swimming pool so I slowed down and when I turned around, he was clutching his sides, panting and totally out of breath.

My heart was still pounding with pure terror but then I started laughing hysterically about the fact that I had taken off as if the devil himself was after me and I wasn't even that out of breath whereas my brother, the faster of us both, hadn't been able to catch me and was bent double and breathless. Then he was laughing as he told me he's seen the same shadow as I had but he had turned to me, to ask if I had seen the same thing only to see this tiny speck sprinting away into the distance.

He couldn't believe how far and how fast I had run. It was the one and only time I ever raced him and won.

He was telling this story to Holly when he was visiting from Berlin earlier this year. He told her that "your mum ran so fast that night that even Usain Bolt wouldn't have been able to catch her and he's the fastest man in the world!" I roared with laughter at that comment but I think it could have been true.

yes I was this fast!

At school, I was always in the relay, 60m and 100m sprint, long jump, hurdles, 200m and the 3000m and cross country running. I wasn't the fastest girl in the school but I nearly always came away with a silver certificate at the end of sports day.

I was heavily into gymnastics too and Nadi Comaneci was my hero at the time. I had dreams of being an Olympic gymnast but sadly it was not to be.

One morning, I woke up with two appendages on the front of my chest and was appalled to discover that the boobs I had so longed for were gonna seriously get in the way of my athletic career. I mean, have you ever seen a gymnast with a decent set of boobs? No? Me either.

My running became more of a problem because back then a "sports bra" was unheard of in my world. Any kind of running, even just running up the path would be painful and one time, my sister's boyfriend actually asked me if I'd blacked my eye! I was totally mortified.

Pic from here

I knew my athletic career was over when I had to run the 100m hurdles and all the boys came to watch as I ran and my boobs jiggled up and down! My cheeks were red when I got to the end and not with exertion!

I remember going home, crying saying to my mum that "these boobs were a curse" and she replied " no Lynne they are an asset." I remember turning on her and growling "that an asset was something you could buy and sell and since the only way to sell these was to become a prostitute, it was hardly likely that it was something I was gonna do!" She was bent double with laughter when I then added "I could always become a Page 3 model I suppose." And for a while, I seriously thought that was the way to go!

Eventually I started saving up to have them reduced but that soon fell to the way side when I learned to cope with the attention they brought and when I became old enough to drink, my boobs became very useful in attracting the attention of the barman and jumping the queue!

I knew there had to be a perk.