The Flamingo Diaries Lisa takes inspiration from the masters

Inever thought I’d buy into those TV adverts in which eight out of 10 women surveyed by a company worth trillions ‘agreed’ that whatever concoction they’d smeared on their fizzog had left them looking younger than a day-old daisy. And yet, when the postman knocked on my door, there it was in all its Jiffy-bag-wrapped glory: a pot of wrinkle-repair cream. The day had finally dawned when I’d been forced to accept that, although, like Cher (74), I feel ‘immature and like an older teenager’, I probably don’t look like one anymore. I’d always thought getting older was something to be feared. Until I became a runner. Because the incredible older people I’ve been privileged to run with – my mother, my auntie Rosie and countless strangers around the world – have shown me it’s possible to stay active and young at heart.

What’s more, almost every one of them has had the bad manners to beat me! Take Robbie, for example. Robbie was a late-onset runner, only starting when, aged 47, he’d been shocked to discover that the bloke with the beer belly in his cricket clubhouse, whom he hadn’t recognised, was himself, reflected in a mirror. I met Robbie, a white-haired gentleman in a red beanie, at the Thames Meander Marathon. ‘My wife Gloria and I used to be dance champions,’ he told me, before putting on an impromptu display of jive moves at a refreshment table. Robbie was 80 and gunning for an unbelievable 450 marathons. ‘This is nothing,’ he said after tripping over one of the cobbles, blood pouring from his hands, ‘the races I have a bit of a problem with are the ones with stiles.’

The next marathon where I encountered Robbie was the Beachy Head Marathon, notorious for its hills, steps and, you guessed it, stiles. Knowing the race had a nine-hour cut-off, which I’d struggle to beat, I greeted him warmly but said I couldn’t run with him that day, as I wanted to get a head start.

It was near the end of the race, standing on number three of the Seven Bitches – as race regulars have dubbed the seven steep chalk cliffs better known as the Seven Sisters – that I saw a stooped, red-hatted figure hobbling towards me, leaning heavily on his running pole. At that moment, I truly felt I couldn’t go a step further and had stopped to admire the view of the English Channel (OK, have a private sob).

‘I’ll wait for you at the finish,’ said Robbie when he reached me. I stared, dumbfounded, as he ploughed up the hill and disappeared from view.

‘Bloody hell, I’ve just been beaten by an octogenarian,’ I thought. And it wasn’t to be the last time. At the Boston Marathon, I bumped into a US senator doing the race for the 36th time. ‘Let’s stick with him,’ I whispered to a running buddy

I’d met at the start. ‘If we tell the marshals we’re helping him, they’ll never be heartless enough to throw us off the course!’ Sure enough, by pretending to assist the senator, I managed to bag my medal. A few days later, I discovered that, although we had finished holding hands, he had pipped me at the post, as he’d started a few minutes after me.

With remarkable runners like these as role models, the knowledge that running regularly can extend your life by three years, and armed with a pot of anti-wrinkle cream, I’m looking forward to seeing what the next few decades have in store.