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BY THE time this article appears, I may have gone for a run. On Thursday morning, I made a bold move towards this aim by dressing in Lycra — my thinking being I’d feel sheepish if, by the end of the day, I’d done nothing more vigorous than hang out the washing and type some words.

Mid-morning, after fretting about the state of my trainers and where to carry my mobile phone, I sought my husband’s opinion on whether it might be bad for me to go running, as I had swum 2km the previous day and had further exercise planned for the week ahead.

Clearly his suggestion I could try for a compensatory endorphin buzz by shopping online for running accessories was meant mockingly.

I love how you feel after a run, but on one last year, I suffered imposter syndrome. A taut marathon-running mum I know from school drop off greeted my shambling efforts with: ‘I didn’t know you were a runner.’

I wheeled around so fast to see who she was talking to that I cricked my neck.

Exercise should feature more in women’s fiction, as lots of us do it. In The Woman Who Ran, by Sam Baker, Helen is in flight from an abusive relationship. When running, she is reminded of her own strength — it is ‘freeing’, but also gives ‘purpose and structure’.

In Curtis Sittenfeld’s hilarious Eligible, which updates Pride And Prejudice to Cincinnati, journalist Liz Bennet and haughty neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy overcome initial hostilities after falling into a rhythm together while running. Soon they are having ‘hate sex’.

Lou Clark, the heroine of Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You, moves to Manhattan in Still Me to assist the super-rich Mrs Gopnik. The ‘antisport, sofa-dweller’ Lou is alarmed to learn she is expected to accompany her boss and personal trainer, George, on their sessions.

‘I had heard the expression “hit the ground running” but until George, I had never truly understood what it meant.’

Soon, however, Lou is hitting her stride like a native New Yorker.

I, meantime, am running out of excuses.