of ultrarunners. Rory Coleman, the race director, was characteristically neither peaceful nor nervous. “First of all, welcome to the first-ever Children With Leukaemia Marathon of Britain! For 12 months, this has been my dream – now I want it to be your dream!” He

is oversubscribed by a factor of five. There remains only the technical question of how one trains for these hyper-mega-ultra events. After all, to prepare for a marathon, you need to put in a handful of 20-mile training runs. So should I bash off three or four 100

and Stanley Matthews football shorts. My compatriots here at the Hotel Bunda, Davos, giggle nervously and do that ‘scary’ thing with their eyes and fingers. But as a newly registered entrant in the Zen UltraMarathon of Life, I don’t see what all the fuss