Ramya Raghavan is the first to tell you that she absolutely hates running.
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But it's a cause close to the 22-year-old's heart that's convinced her to lace up and tackle the five-kilometre run at the Canberra Times Fun Run this year.
The engineering and economics honours student from ANU lost her father B. S Raghavan suddenly at the beginning of the year to a heart attack.
"It was tough. I was just supposed to go back into uni and act like everything was OK. And everybody else came from pretty nice summer vacations and I had this huge weight on me," she said.
"I feel like people my age don't really know how to deal with it. So I kind of had to hide my grief with my friends and I realised that's not enough for me - I need to confront it and I needed to find a way to not just sit alone in my room and cry. I needed to do something which actually made his life mean something after it's gone."
While she admits she's never delved much into the world of exercise - "I was the worst student at PE, always last picked" - she figured the fun run was both a good chance to raise funds and awareness for The Heart Foundation, and also help keep her own heart healthy. The event also, fittingly, falls on Father's Day.
She started going to the ANU gym, trying out every class on the schedule and has slowly built up her running.
Raghavan, who will be running with her boyfriend on the day, has seen improvements in more than just her fitness.
"I've noticed that my concentration in classes has gone up and my ability to get assessments done effectively and efficiently. So it's just really important for everything," she said.
"In my house especially, academics was above everything else, so fitness and physical activity was always on the backburner. But it's too important - you have to make time for it."
And she thinks her dad would find the whole thing quite humorous.
"I think he would laugh. He used to always say that I'd been putting on weight, and I've never been the physically active one. I used to to be the dancer of the house, but me running is just a joke.
"A lot of people, including myself before this whole thing happened, think that fitness is just for skinny people and it's absolutely not difficult to get started. It's just a mindset thing. I would encourage people to get their fitness because you don't know what's going to happen even if you don't have it in your family, it can happen."
The Canberra Times Fun Run is on Sunday, September 4. Registrations are open at canberratimesfunrun.com.au.
