Paris ’24 – 11th July. It’s not just professional sportsmen and women…

I am a true amateur. The amateur image is a ‘normal’ everyday man or woman holding down a full-time job, maybe children to juggle, shopping to do, holidays to save up for, the dentist to avoid, the deny all hygienists oxygen.

The thought of an ordinary pleb having a back-up system of physios, sports psychologists, weights, ice baths, and so on, just to don your shorts and stumble outdoors…is as unlikely as it is often quite true.

This 65-year-old has just spent an hour being manipulated by an osteopath, tomorrow I have a physio appointment, then a muscular-skeletal doctor’s advice about choosing either surgery or steroid injections following an MRI on my left foot.

As for sports psychology…I would, of course, but I can’t afford it.

All this just to get out and try and run sub-30’ 5K and maybe sub-25’ 5K before the leaves turn yellow and maybe a sub-55’ 10K before roasting chestnuts and thinking about sprouts.

That will leave 6 months to beat the 10K qualifying time of 27 minutes.

Maybe I need to sign up for the Sports Psychologist after all, if only for pre-Olympic-failure-counselling?