I was told the hardest part of my training for the London Marathon was going to be mental, not physical.

I can understand that. The human body adapts so quickly to change, so the physical body never felt like it would present a challenge (not in training, anyway). I’m doing things now I could only have dreamed of as I lay in my hospital bed back in 2018 with metal freshly inserted in my back. I usually hit a PB, or at least something in the top three, on every run, and the thought of doing a 5km run now feels almost pointless to me. Even five months ago, I couldn’t run a kilometre without stopping; now, I’m annoyed if a car makes me step onto the grass and slow down after 10km. That’s the wonder of the human body, it’s resilience and ability to adapt.

However, mentally, I’ve had no issues either. Things have been a bit tough over the last few weeks away from running, and I’ve always found a run is a good way to shut that off. I needed that today; today’s run felt like a watershed, like the start of the next chapter. The sun was shining for the first time this year. I was woken by the birds, not a sugar beet lorry spraying mud over my van, and everything just felt different. So, I decided to run somewhere different to help reinforce those images of change and progression.

What a fucking stupid idea that was.

I started running around Withcall and the Wolds in the early part of my training, but the hills nailed me. I switched to Wragby, where it’s flat, but I’m doing the same loops all the time, getting annoyed every time I run past the same discarded gel wrapper (not mine) near Apley. Each lap of Wragby creates a mental benchmark, so I turn a corner and think back to the last time I did that and the time before. Memory works on triggers, so if you’re listening to a song and something bad happens, that song can trigger negative feelings. A run is the same, so as I’ve been struggling a bit, certain landmarks on my Wragby runs trigger the things that have been on my mind. That’s why today, I chose Horncastle, no triggers, apart from perhaps some from 30 years ago at school.

I like the idea of doing the trail that goes from Horncastle to Woodhall Spa, and today’s run was intervals. That meant I’d have to be careful of how far I went, but I thought that would be okay. I’m getting better at working out distances, and at least the trail is flat, meaning I could just concentrate on pace. I got in my van and headed off for the Wong. That was the last time things went to plan.

I’m a man of a certain age, and usually, whenever I arrive anywhere, my first port of call is the little boy’s room. Over the last few weeks, it’s been Wragby Marketplace, but today I figured I’d have to park at Tesco in Horncastle and use the public loos. By the time I got there I was desperate, so I parked, paid, and jogged to the toilets. Closed.

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By now, the need was beyond pressing, so I jogged to Tesco and discovered they didn’t have any loos either. Most other places frown upon people just using the conveniences, which left me in a real pickle. I panicked and got in my van, headed round to the Indoor Bowls place where the trail starts, and tried to go in there. It was closed.

Solution? I won’t furnish you with the facts, but it’s a good job I have blacked out windows in the van.

Finally ready to run, I stretched and made my way to the start of the trail. There was my second error – or rather, the town planner’s error. There’s no obvious start. There’s a trail that goes down the side of the bowling place, one either side of the swimming pool, and then a bridge that crosses to another trail running down the side of the old Jackson’s branch I was once interviewed for as manager. There wasn’t an obvious start to this much-celebrated trail.

I chose a path that I thought was the Viking Way and set off, with the canal on my right. I soon realised it was the opposite bank to the one we used to be forced to do cross-country running on at school (memory trigger, FFS), and it is still very much cross-country. Glancing over the river, I noted a nice gravelled track and some boards telling visitors all about the Horncastle to Woodhall trail. I was on the wrong side of the river.

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Another couple of cross-country kilometres later, I reached a little bridge, which meant I could finally get on the trail, much later than planned. Now I was happy; I could open my legs a bit and get a stride on. I needed another four kilometres before I could turn around, but if I felt good, why not go all the way to Woodhall Spa?

To answer that question, the reason not to go all the way to Woodhall Spa is that, after perhaps a mile on the trail, I went under a bridge and hit a huge sign that said, ‘Trail closed for tree felling’. I was just a quarter of a mile into a two-mile interval, which meant I was going at pace, and I had to turn around and head back. By the time I got back to the swimming pool, I still had four kilometres running to get in and no idea where to do it.

Not one issue, not two, but three to deal with. There was no time for me to clear my thoughts, focus on my plans and generally enjoy the run because now I had to think where to go. Where could I cross a road? Should I run through the town centre or out towards Polypipe, where I used to work? Would loops of Dymoke Drive and N’Dola Drive be enough to add a few hundred metres? Genuinely, it felt stressful, and I’ve come home not happy with my run but jaded at what feels like a wasted effort.

Also, the sun went in as soon as I started, and as I sit here writing this, it is back out.

After my run, I popped into Perkins on the corner of the market square to get a big bottle of water (I’d had to empty one at the van just before my run for another use…). I grabbed my water and got stuck behind (I shit you not) a woman collecting a parcel, another who couldn’t get her card to work and spent five minutes trying before finally paying cash, and a couple who had found a book on the shelf with no price, negotiating as to what they felt they might be able to pay for it in a very British way. The woman behind the counter named a price, and then they spent three minutes agreeing it was a decent price, but checking each other was happy with it.

By the time I got my water, I could have run home, drank some from the tap and run back to get my van.

I’m not sure whether the mental or physical challenge will be the Bain (niche joke) of my training, but with 61 days to go, neither feel too challenging. I’m beginning to wonder if all my issues are going to be around bloody logistics.

Still, the point of this piece is to show you that runs are not always the head-clearing oasis of serenity that I make them out to be. Sometimes, they feel like more trouble than they’re worth! I still got my third-fastest two miles, only four seconds off my second-fastest.

If only I hadn’t had to turn around halfway through the interval……

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me already – I’m now up to £2468, which is a great effort, thank you.