-increasing knackeredness. Soon, merely putting on my shoes was enough to exhaust me. I weighed myself. I was the heaviest I’d ever been. I embarked upon a virtually fat-free diet: tuna and baked potatoes, obscure leaves and roots, soya, pale, thin milk like blood

’t run another step. But that feeling is no more intense after 100 miles than it is after two. So why should it be any worse after 145, or 200, or 500? Given water, decent shoes, enough blister dressings to wrap a mummy and an infinite supply of power

does the same, but from the inside.As I read the entry on filiariasis, I realised with a flush of panic that my shoes felt tight. I was certain that by the time we landed at Orly, the tiny worms infesting my lymphatic system would have caused my legs

I rose early this morning, as I have done every Sunday for 20 years. The old hip was a bit stiff, and a familiar twinge in the left calf reminded me that these days I ought to sit down before putting on my running shoes.I sifted through a heap

down Santa Monica Boulevard towards the ocean. Strangely, I seemed to have become the star of a continuous Beach Boys video.A light, warm breeze played in my hair as I pulled over and slipped on my running shoes. I set off along the Tarmac track

reduced my stock of old running shoes from 23 pairs to two. One pair of elderly Bradford & Bingley Airsoles were host to a remarkable species of lichen previously unrecorded, according to a botanically-minded acquaintance, outside Micronesia.An old Joss

, on an empty stomach, quickly renders you insensible. By the time you regain consciousness, you’ve missed dinner.The effect on one’s running is dramatic. You feel as if someone’s lifted a hundredweight keg of lard from your back and grafted wings to your shoes