My response fits the situation, I’m the sole inhabitant of the temporary river, a cyclepath psychopath, and laugh like a madman...

“The benefits go beyond exercise and fitness” he explains – “coming here teaches our children discipline and dedication, and ensures they grow up with a strong sense of community and understand the value of commitment”.

The decision to face the struggle head on, the refusal to surrender to the onslaught, was the spark that gave birth to the fire, their inner furnace feeding the inferno of the desire within, and as each day in the dark passes, their engine room grows stronger, and every sub-zero slog throws gasoline onto the flames.

When it’s all stripped back, it appears pretty much the same stuff the old guard have been doing for decades, just re-packaged, regenerated and bestowed a fancy title to create a facade of ‘new’ and in vogue.

The Start Pen is a curious place - the weird and wonderful - a delightfully eclectic blend of naivety, nerves and narcissism. Sugar, stretching and spouting.

So what do we do? We stock up on our glories - and whilst our definitions of success may evolve, they’ll be all the sweeter.

It appears the aura of the my surroundings and environment have aroused the furnace within - everything is loose, fluid and as though the eternal promise of the Canary Islands had been the missing ingredient - I find myself in a full effortless flow.

Yet running’s greatest strength, and it’s recent rampant growth in popularity, brings with it a flaw seemingly not as abundantly present in other sports - the gross deluge of misinformation, or as I shall refer to them, myths.

The sanction for a careless ignorance disproportionately outweighed the crime, my incarceration was unjust. Yet the sentence stood - internal pleas to any figurative jury falling on deaf ears. 

What followed was a systematic physiological and psychological meltdown on a spectacular scale. Forget the wheels coming off - the entire chassis crumbled, cogs flew, dense black smoke billowed from the exhaust, hazard warning lights blinking furiously.

There is the occasional nocturnal soul - dog walkers and early shifters making up the majority of a sparse few. The remaining minority appear to be cast at random from a pool of drunks, stoners, walk-of-shamers and downright wrong-uns.

Yet, here we were, 12 months after I’d assured him I’d “always look after” his daughter, and I’d allowed the situation to escalate to such an extent that medical intervention had become a very realistic possibility.

The concoction was devoured and days later, it’s poison began its infiltration. If the venom held a long-term agenda then it’s objective has most certainly beared remarkable fruition

By now I’m emitting sounds akin to an ocean liner, the fatigue is debilitating, the exertion inflicting conflicting senses - atrociousness and magnificence concurrent, a harmony of opposing emotions.

It was an insurmountable challenge, one that at times threatened to be a case of ‘if’ rather than ‘when’. It was a mountain to climb, the summit of which could not be reached with sheer forceable passion, persistence and perseverance.