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

the first race in 1979.Horses, having twice as many legs as people, invariably win – despite compulsory vet inspections. This is just as well for sponsors William Hill, because they’re offering £20,000 to any runner who beats the horses to the finish line

to straighten me out. And while I am now satisfied that pain does not exist, I’m having a hard time convincing certain wayward elements in my non-existent body. Take my right hamstring, for instance. It all began 20 years ago when I fell down the lighthouse

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

“This is WKLA, comin’ to you from the heart of downtown Santa Monica. It’s another beautiful morning here by the ocean – and this is Steely Dan.” I turned up the radio and wound down the windows of the absurd, grey 1965 Oldsmobile as it wallowed

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

a week before the race, when I went out for a 15-minute jog and almost collapsed with exhaustion. At Heathrow, the other runners were comparing training regimes. “I find that there simply isn’t any point in doing more than 90 miles a week,” opined

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