Six years ago, Michael Roberts was diagnosed with an enlarged heart, caused by undetected high blood pressure. This is his story of how running has helped him live his life.

I had just moved back to the village where I grew up and, whilst re-registering with my doctor, I had a chance meeting with the nurse who took my blood pressure; it read something like 205/100, which is very high.

The nurse asked to be excused and went out of the room. She came back in and linked me up to an ECG machine and did a scan which showed the LVH - Left Ventricular Hypertrophy (enlarged heart).

I was immediately put on medication and advised to make drastic lifestyle changes as I was now in a high risk group of people likely to suffer heart disease or stroke within the following 10 years. My cholesterol was also high at 8.4 which also didn't help the situation.

At the time I was working shifts and would think nothing of eating pork pies and sausage rolls during my 3am break-time.

From that day on my girlfriend (now my wife) took over my diet, I got back into exercising and within six months my cholesterol levels had reduced to six and my blood pressure had lowered, but not as much as the doctors wanted.

I had always exercised by running and cycling but my shift-work patterns had got me out of my routine and my training schedule was now non-existent.

I started running seriously four or five times a week, ate sensibly and, within another 6 months or so, had my blood pressure down to a controllable level, lost a lot of weight and had further reduced my cholesterol (five).

Running gave me the chance to get my life back on track and I am now at a point where my blood pressure is stable and I have significantly improved my quality of life both now and for the future.

I will never be able to stop taking medication for my high blood pressure as the underlying cause is unknown after several tests but, as long as I can run, life’s worth living.