at a time, thus opening up the trail for yet more enthusiastic, gullible chumps.The horses had more sense. Only seven of them were sufficiently misinformed or stupid enough to show up, and one of those had the good sense to pack it in halfway round

bank your cheque and send off your number without a stamp. It will then turn up two days after the race, plastered with official threats and insults.I also learned that two-lap races are at least twice as hard as one-lap races. In a one-lap race, you

In the last 20 years, running has become inextricably entangled with fund-raising.Correct me if I’m wrong, but until the first London Marathon we ran only for ourselves. When we turned up in the rain to plod round the Cabbage Patch 10, the last

children like pulling the legs off flies.I’ve always hated stretching. Warming up, it seemed to me, was a waste of time. As far as I was concerned, the first 10 miles of the race was my warm-up. Result: I am barely able to touch my knees, let alone my toes

, containing a dollop of the synthetic testosterone that differentiates a good fighting lager from the flat and impotence-inducing gruel so beloved of pale, round-shouldered geography teachers. The third is a truly serious proposition – a weapons-grade tipple