One Sunday morning in 2011, I found myself garbed in comical spandex clothing, clutching a doughnut-hole drinking bottle, as I limbered up among the crowd to run a provincial half marathon. I am still not entirely sure what I was doing there, other than pursuing a fantasy of the lissom youth I had never actually gone in for first time around.

I was a long way off from the elite athletes, wedged in instead at the rear of the crowd with the fat people, the runners dressed up as bananas, gorillas and, on this occasion, a duo of large, white Styrofoam lavatories. Before the gun, the atmosphere was skittish, nervous, with much unnecessary stretching and jogging on the spot; people saying things like, ‘well, this is it,’ or ‘there’s no going back now.’ All of which might sound a bit silly were it not for the fact that when the starting gun fired, the race began and everyone did their utmost to run the allotted thirteen miles, whether nature or training had equipped them adequately to do so or not. Risking pain or humiliation or both, here were people puce in the face, silvery-haired pensioners, a pair of soldiers in full combats lugging sixty-pound day-sacks, students with hangovers and fairy-wings, bald men lolloping, matronly women wobbling, a blind man with a hand-written sign taped to his back, politely requesting you gave him space as you passed.