I ran towards a cross road. My plan was to reach it and turn left back along a path towards home BUT coming from the right path was a group of 6 runners.

We were going to reach the crossroad at the same time.

At this point I had to decide:

a) Do I speed up and get to the crossroad first? The problem was that there’s a mile until the next opportunity to change direction. I’d have to keep ahead of them for all that time. I’m competitive about most things so there was no way I’d let them overtake me!

B) Do I slow down and let them go ahead and therefore avoid the shame of getting overtaken?

I quickly sized them up. They all had good gear on, they looked to be running within themselves. I decided it was safer just to drop in behind them.

I soon realised the problem this presented. As I ran for a mile about 10 metres behind the group we passed a number of dog walkers. Each walker looked at me with pity! They assumed I had been dropped by the group and was trying to catch up!!!

I wanted to shout at each of them

“I’m not with them!”

Instead I dropped off from behind them as soon as another path appeared.