How returning to competitive sport after 25 years taught me resilience – and the joy of new friends

Jenny Knight, an author who was a teen world rowing champion, is rediscovering the benefits of exercise after joining a local netball team

When I was 17, my rowing coach announced that taking a day off was unnecessary. That one time of the week that I left school at 4pm and watched Neighbours was now gone. I think that's probably why, when I gave up rowing, I stopped doing any exercise at all. I'd had enough. Exercise for me equated to diehard commitment and someone shouting at me all the time. So I did nothing. Which in retrospect was a bad idea, because there were times in my life - getting RSI when I tried to write a book while holding down a full-time job or having a baby and getting swamped by anxiety - when exercise would have helped enormously.

It was when I had come out of the baby years, moved to a new area, but worked from home, that I felt the pull to be part of a team again. But I didn't know how or in what sport - there was no way I was going back to rowing.