railway trains and giant rodents. The few waking hours available to elite runners are devoted entirely to training. It’s the track, then the gym, then a carton of some unspeakable complex carbohydrate with the taste and consistency of estuary mud

I strongly recommend Man v Horse. You’ll enjoy every moment – the long sweeps along remote forestry tracks between stands of dark and silent pine; the soaring leaps across sucking bogs; the exhilarating scrambles down steep, broken ground

shoulder ligament and a nasty cut above the right eyebrow. So now, if you’ll be good enough to pass me the ibuprofen and the absinthe, I’ve got a track session to run.

and sacrifice. Blackford, they said, you must run up-country, into the very heart of darkness, and persuade Seaton to give himself up.For days, I jogged along forest tracks with no sustenance except two pieces of string and a sackful of unpronounceable medicines

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

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

one lissome human greyhound. “You’re better off keeping it down to 80, plus a couple of hard track sessions.” I smiled wanly and limped off to the bar. As it happens, I beat that particular smug man by a good two hours. It turned out that the Gauntlet

and tracks that were supposed to lead us to the ridge of the Malverns.Steeple chase: the race was run against a backdrop of villages, churches and rolling hillsI suppose propelling us up a 1:4 incline bearing 10kg rucksacks at the height of a heatwave