Bryony Gordon We should stop running joggers down

‘The running community is full of some of the loveliest people there are’

Up and down the country people have spoken of little else all week. From Lerwick to Lymington, the chatter has reached fever pitch. Forget the growing tensions between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. Let us cast aside the asteroid the size of a house that will shave past Earth in the autumn. Who cares that we have spent the summer eating egg sandwiches laced with poison? The only topic of conversation to dominate dinner tables this week has been this: just who is the Putney Bridge Pusher, aka the jogger who shoved a young woman into the path of a bus one morning this Spring?

I thought that this was just a London thing, a capital-centric story that wouldn’t interest anyone outside the M25 and was thus not suitable for this column. “Literally nobody who lives anywhere outside of … well, Putney or the surrounding south-west London area will care,” said my husband, who prides himself on being able to read the temperature of the nation because he was born in Aldershot and went to university in Hull. No matter that he resides in the area of south-west London that surrounds Putney; he is, apparently, the man on the Clapham Omnibus, even if Clapham long ago became shorthand for “a place full of braying rugger buggers and yummy mummies”. “Because you grew up in London, you have no idea what the rest of the country feels,” he said, rather pompously. “It’s just presumed that in the capital, a pedestrian is pushed into the path of a double decker bus approximately every 15 seconds.” (If there is one thing worse than a Londoner who thinks they know everything because they live in London, then it is someone who thinks they know everything because they don’t live in London.) Anyway, then I travelled to the in-laws in Wiltshire and people could talk of little else than the Putney Pusher. The arrest of a 50-year-old man on Thursday on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm did little to quell the speculation. While he sharply denied being the jogger, saying he was in the US when the incident happened, I think we can all agree on something this week: that from Land’s End to John O’groats, we are united by a passionate concern for how people behave on our public highways and pavements. Lycra louts have long been the scourge of the country’s roads, motorists and pedestrians bonded through a mutual dislike of those men and women who seem to believe they are Victoria Pendleton or Bradley Wiggins. My fear is that, in light of the Putney incident, runners are starting to get a similar reputation. I’ve noticed it on social media, where people have used this incident as an excuse to vent their fury over anyone who leaves the house in “athleisure” wear. “While we’re on the subject of runners,” posted one friend on Facebook, “I’d like to express my profound irritation at those groups of humans who get together every Saturday morning and take over my local common to do their park runs. MUST you start the weekend so smugly? Why can’t I be hungover without also being run over by groups of sweating, puffing joggers?” I’m quite new to this running malarkey and at first I, too, was put off by people who would leave me choking on their dust as they sped past. I begrudged the bean poles who expected me to get out of their way as they galloped through the park like gazelles. All of this contributes to the idea that runners are vainglorious b------- who just want to show off how quickly they can run 10k.

But as I have got more into my ponderous jogging (I run a 12-and-a-half-minute-mile) I have learnt that the running community is full of some of the loveliest people there are. People who want to use the ability to move on their own two feet as a tool for good – currently, there are several running “crews” such as the “Backpackers” who show that to exercise, you don’t have to be a preening pillock. The Backpackers show up to races and cheer on the people… well, at the back. They are just one of many groups using movement as a tool to promoting mental as well as physical health. (A study revealed most men cycle for their minds rather than their bodies, so maybe I should be kinder to the Lycra louts after all).

The This Girl Can campaign has gone a long way to changing the perception that you have to be strong and fast to do sport. All that matters is that you do it. This morning, on a run through Salisbury, I was smiled at by a cyclist, wished a good morning by a dog walker and waved at by a jogger. I realised then that whatever way we did it, we were all just trying to put one foot in front of the other. We were all just trying to stay alive. And as long as we remember that every time we put on our athleisure wear and take to the pavements, the world will be a happier place.