You think that I’m strong. You’re wrong

I had completely crashed. No energy. No strength. No idea why.

But I did know that my body craved carbs and salt. Luckily, the fish and chip shop was right there, and I went in and ordered, then gobbled it down while walking along the south London pavement.

Two miles later, it happened again.

And again, fortuitously, a chip shop appeared like a mirage in the desert, and I repeated my order of 20 minutes earlier!

Just one of those runs.

Another time, another place. I was waiting in the rain for the buses to take me and hundreds of other runners to the start of the 2009 Snowdonia Marathon.

It was teeming down. We had had to leave our outer clothing in the baggage drop back at the finish. The buses were delayed.

I remember thinking, for two pins I’d turn round, go into that café (that I could see across the road, and where my then-girlfriend was ensconced) and have hot coffee and nice food.

Another time, another place, another weakness.

When I was race walking, I attended a seminar given by the national coach. He said that every 50km aspirant ought to train for 4 hours every Sunday morning.

A-ha, I thought, THAT was the route to the top. That is what I needed to do.

So I did. Every Sunday, bl**dy Sunday, I walked for 4 hours.

Until I didn’t.

One bright Sunday morning – it had been a hard week at work, and a late Saturday night, and I hadn’t slept well, or eaten sensibly – and I set out on my weekly trek, got 10 minutes down the road, and I just couldn’t go on. I had to turn round and trudge back home.

It wasn’t physical; it was mental.

I have to say that I beat myself up about it all week, and the following Sunday morning made myself complete a particularly brutal session, by sprinting the third hour of four, thus making the last 60 minutes pretty agonising.

Another time, I was doing the London to Brighton Run. In the second half of the race, I was starting to pass people. I had gained a very slight reputation in ultrarunning circles by this time, of being quite strong – having good endurance – able to run fast towards the end of these races.

With about 10 of the 54 miles to go, I passed another runner.

We glanced at each other and grunted words of encouragement. Then he said something which has stayed with me over the intervening 40 years.

“I wish I had what you’ve got.”

My first reaction, right there and then on the Brighton road, was to thank him. And that response is no less valid for the different feelings that followed on behind it.

You could have this too, you know, I thought.

It’s just willpower – first the will to do the training that gave me the strength, and then the will to deploy it whilst in the grip of extreme fatigue towards the end of a long race.

And willpower can be developed.

Emil Zatopek, Czech winner of four Olympic gold medals, said, “If one can stick to the training throughout many long years, then willpower is no longer a problem.

It’s raining? That doesn’t matter. I am tired? That’s beside the point. It’s simply that I just have to.”

Ask any athlete, even the seemingly superhuman ones, and, if they are honest, they will tell you the same thing.

We all have bad days.

We all have days when our body, or our mind, or our spirit, rebels against the plan – and refuses to carry on running without a bag of chips, really does not want to run a marathon in the cold Welsh rain, or to race walk for four hours on a Sunday morning – doing it just because that’s what the schedule demands.

I remember attending a London Marathon Q&A session with Rob de Castella in the early 80s.

Here was the man who had set a marathon world record at Fukuoka in 1981, won the Rotterdam and Commonwealth Marathons in 82, and the inaugural World Championship Marathon in 83.

The audience of runners knew that he ran 10km every morning.

Asked about his schedule, he admitted that occasionally he was so tired, that he only did 8km in the mornings, instead of 10. There were murmurs around the room that he was human after all!

I have told the story of race walker Roger Mills before.

I was a fledgling walker back in the 1970s. I’d finished down the field in a 10km race over in Essex.

And I happened to be leaving the changing room to walk round to the post-race refreshments in the church hall, at the same time as Roger, who’s from Ilford.

Now, he had been European bronze medallist in the 20km walk in 1974, and he had just won the 10km race.

I had seen him break the world mile walk record (6:08.9) at Crystal Palace that year. I had even asked for his autograph afterwards.

He was my hero. I didn’t dare talk to him.

But he turned to me.

“You know, Steve, I’ve been looking forward to this cup of tea for the last four miles,” he said.

And at that moment I realised – he was human like me.

So, don’t look at a good runner like I was once – or even at a great runner like de Castella or a great walker like Mills – and think that there’s something superhuman about them, that there’s an unbridgeable gap between them and you.

Work on your willpower. Sometimes you will fail, or more accurately, your willpower will fail you.

We have all failed.

But if you can tuck away those chips and carry on – or get on that bus, or maybe just come back tomorrow, or the next week, most of the time – then a running life of great satisfaction can indeed be yours.

And that’ll make the celebratory fish and chips taste all the better.