If the ‘World’s Toughest Foot Race’ was merely a race to develop the world’s toughest foot, I’d be laughing. I’d spend a couple of weeks firewalking in Haiti, soak the old plates of meat in permanganate, and bingo! – I’d be quaffing my Special Brew

and whimpered in a sort of hurt, bewildered way. There could be no other explanation – the World’s Fittest Dog was injured.It felt strange, leaving the house without him. For one thing, I didn’t have to stop five times before the end of the road while he

’were ’is next door neighbours, like. To make things worse, he were sick on their cat.”“Aye. He ran a crackin’ race next day though. Knocked three seconds of t’ Commonwealth 10,000m record, as I recall.”“Four, actually.”“Ah,” says the angel on my left

for a jog’. It would be, ‘I’m just nipping out for a life. Back in a few minutes.’Paula Radcliffe famously sleeps for 14 hours a day. Indeed B’noko Banumboki, the fabled Kenyan marathon runner, slept continuously, except when competing. He was carried

this week I decided to secure a bit of moral support: I called up my old Marathon de Sade crew and tried talking them into joining me on the Jordan caper. Eadie, a veteran of the Himalayan 100, was cheerfully apologetic. “Sorry, sport, I’m doing a 200-miler

resemblance to the editorial department of RUNNER’S WORLD. In the middle of the clearing, on an ancient Aztec throne, sat Seaton. Slowly, he turned his enormous, shaven head towards me. The firelight danced on his oiled torso. My mouth was dry with fear and a

ahead of Ajdjiti M’bmti, reigning world champion, then collapsing into the enfolding bosom of Shania Twain.Insane optimism is just as dangerous as leaden-footed self-flagellation. I’m sure that really great runners don’t have OMOs. They’re just them

and Abbot already enquire, “Pint of cider, Andy?” as I stagger into the pub at 6.50, still shaking from the lunatic race up the A1 on the Ducati.Life in Litlington is like an endless edition of the Archers. Nothing wrong in that. I remember doing

Harriers’ morning run. It can’t resist lounging in the pub at lunchtime when it promised Barry it would go to the gym with him. It can’t walk past the Agra Tandoori House at 11.15pm. It can’t bear to shed two stones of its unsightly flab, when this would

-mail, every column in RUNNER’S WORLD, commits me more deeply to this unthinkable madness. All that can save me now is a Blighty – a running injury so persistent and deep-seated that the Trans 333 would be entirely out of the question. Such an injury would