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enjoy this ?  They’re lying, I decide, after about five minutes.  I’m hot, my boobs are flopping around and I’ve got a stitch.
    Ok.  Would Bear Grylls or Robson Green give up?  I don’t think so.  Therefore, I will not be defeated.  After all, nihil temptatum, nihil adeptum - nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I walk until the stitch goes, which in due course it does, at which point I jog again, only not looking where I’m going, I narrowly miss a girl pushing a pushchair.
    ‘Mind out...’  The girl - his mother, I’m guessing , looks about the same age as me - and less than pleased.
    ‘Oops!  Sorry!’  I glance at the child strapped into it, who seems relatively unconcerned at colliding head-on with a sweaty red person.
    Only then do I notice that the heavy looking buggy she’s pushing is more like a wheelchair, its small wheels jammed against the roadside and pointing any direction but forwards.  As I look at her, her face is vaguely familiar, with clear hazel eyes and smooth dark brown hair halfway down her back.
    ‘Er – do I know you from somewhere?’
    ‘I don’t think so…’  Flustered, she pulls at the buggy which is by now wedged firmly against the kerb, refusing to budge.
    ‘I think one of the wheels is stuck - want a hand?’
    ‘Thanks.’
    As she lifts the back and I lift the front, I can’t help but notice the child’s eyes, pale and blue and somewhere far away. 
    ‘Thanks,’ she says, sounding marginally less irritated.  ‘Sorry I interrupted your run.’
    ‘Oh, don’t worry about that… I don’t think running’s for me, actually.  I’m awfully unfit.’
    ‘I used to run.  Before…’  She nods towards her son , who seems oblivious to what’s going on around him.  ‘Don’t give up.  It’s worth it - just takes a while to get into it!’
    She continues pushing him down the road and I carry on along the pavement before turning down a quiet lane where I try again.  And after a few minutes, it seems she’s right and as I fall into more of a rhythm, find my stride.  Stupidly I burst into a full blown run.  This feels great!  But my elation is short lived.  My ankle gives way and I crumple in a heap on the verge.
     
    After hobbling uncomfortably home, I shower away my aches and pains, then wrap myself in a towel just in time to take a call from Lizzie’s ecstatic mother, who wants to tell me in painstaking detail all about yesterday’s wedding.  And about how particularly thrilled with the flowers she was, she tells me.  How producing those cream roses at the eleventh hour was nothing short of a miracle… She was going to tell absolutely everyone she knew how clever we’d been.
    ‘You know, we were awfully lucky to get them,’ I say, horrified at the thought that if word gets out, we’ll have dozens of other brides doing the same.
    Then as my poor ankle is throbbing painfully, I rummage in the freezer for some ice.  As it works its magic, I contemplate the reality that marathon training isn’t as easy as it sounds. 
    That evening, wearing suitably flat shoes, I catch up with Alice, who’s my practical, organised, big sister, a fact which never ceases to amaze me.  Alice lives near Sevenoaks in a spacious Victorian semi, a gorgeous house with wood floors and big windows which could easily look austere, but for the clutter of squidgy, brightly-coloured cushions and piles of magazines scattered everywhere. 
    It’s a picture of perfect domesticity, which is another miracle, especially given our upbringing.  To this day I’m not sure why our mother had children.  I don’t think she knows herself.
    Three boyfriends and a social life  - oh, and two daughters on the side! 
    Ju lia  – not mother, please darling… such a stereotype -  would laugh as though she thought it was hilarious.  Being a side dish as Alice and I were, was much less so. 
    We were born to live in her shadow.  It’s occurred to me that’s why I expect so little