TAKE ADVICE, ADD A GENEROUS PINCH OF SALT, THEN TASTE

When I was a nervous novice, 20 years ago, I was desperate for running advice. Hardly anyone I knew ran, and in those pre-internet times, gleaning running information was difficult. I worked on a health magazine, so before I discovered Runner’s World, the few nuggets of advice I garnered came from the experts my job brought me into contact with. But I soon learned that even the experts don’t always know best. Take, for example, the personal trainer who, when he heard I was into marathon running, said, ‘Everyone only has one good marathon in them and you’ve probably had yours.’ At that point, I’d run two. If I’d listened to his doom-mongering, my marathon career would have ended in 1999, rather than continuing past 100 marathons to today.

Then there was the massage therapist I consulted. ‘Your glutes are weak, your hamstrings are tight and your quads are underperforming,’ he told me a few weeks before my first 56-mile ultra. An hour of pain followed but I felt no better afterwards and decided that if I really was as crocked as he’d made me out to be, I’d probably be on crutches, so I never went back. Thankfully, despite this psychological battering, I managed to come home with a medal.

But the oddest advice I’ve been given has come from friends and family. My sister Loren, a keen runner, suggested I could shave minutes from my marathon times if I could learn to pee on the run like many South African ultrarunners did, so I thought I’d give it a try. The only question was where; I didn’t want to bump into someone I knew while plodding Croydon’s streets with pee trailing behind me. A camping trip to France provided the perfect testing ground, when I found myself alone on a beach without a soul − or a toilet − in sight.

Convinced that perfecting this technique was going to see me sailing past portable toilets while casting pitying glances at the queues, I decided to go with the flow. Or rather, let the flow go. To my horror, however, the pee failed

to fall in a straight line between my waddling outstretched legs, but instead trickled painfully over the chafe marks on the inside of my thighs, making me wince as my shoes filled up with malodorous fluid. By the time I got back to the campsite, where I had to explain my squelchy, stinky shoes to my husband, I’d reached a firm conclusion: a pee in the bush is worth two in the shoe.

Further dubious advice I’ve tried but discarded includes being advised to wear two pairs of socks for my first ultra. Unfortunately, it coincided with another suggestion from a runningclub buddy that I should wear flight socks to prevent blood from pooling in my legs. On race day, I donned all three pairs of socks and managed to cram my feet into my trainers, only to develop blisters between my squashedtogether toes even before the gun went off, something that very nearly cost me my medal.

The final piece of advice I listened to and regretted was from my runningguru friend, Bridget, who advised that if I felt faint during a race I should lick my sweaty arms. When I was in need of electrolytes during the Niceto-Cannes Marathon, I remembered this nutty-sounding nugget and so, cat-like, gave my arms a good going over − not realising that I’d chosen to do so precisely at the point where the course passed a row of pavement cafes. The eruption of laughter that I heard from the bemused waiters and their patrons turned my face the perfect shade of flamingo pink. So, my advice to you about heeding advice? Frankly, if something sounds bonkers, it probably is. Oh, and if the opinion is discouraging, it needs to be taken with a big dose of salt, preferably not some you’ve just lapped up off your own arm.