wordsmith.social/jonbeckett

After watching the alarm clock digits tick over for the better part of half an hour this morning, I eventually slid out of bed and retrieved a pair of running shorts from the bedside drawer.

After half a glass of water at the kitchen sink, I pulled on the no-name running shoes I bought from Amazon a couple of years ago, and wandered out into the morning air.

For the next half hour, the Truman Show rain clouds overhead delivered a steady pitter-patter of rain. It was quite pleasant to begin with – refreshing, awakening. Unfortunately after half an hour my t-shirt and shorts had become shrink wrapped to my body, and sweat was running into my squinting eyes – burning them from their sockets.

I suppose in a way the burning sensation distracted me from the imminent “end of all things” feeling that often greets the final yards of a run.

I ran four kilometres. I only found this out afterwards, after plugging my route into a very clever looking website. I'm purposely not logging my runs in Strava, or any other social one-upmanship hell-hole app. I'm just going out running.

This morning was my first departure from the “Couch to 5K” programme. Having worked my way through the programme in recent weeks to accompany a good friend as she did the same, I had begun to grow bored of the celebrity advice parroted into my ears. Of course the rain this morning meant my earbuds didn't stay in my ears anyway. Bloody things.

I ended up running for four kilometres. I forgot to look at my watch as I left the house, which is probably a good thing. I don't really want to know how fast or slow I went – I'm more concerned with how my knees hold up.

I injured my right knee a few weeks ago (while carrying washing up the stairs – work that one out), and it's been taking forever to fix itself. I'm gently stretching every day, and running every other day – sometimes every three days – but it's still stiff. I imagine this is “getting old” – where your body takes several times longer to correct anything stupid you've done.

Getting back to the Truman Show theme, every time I have run over the last few weeks I have become more convinced that I'm starring in my own TV show. Yet again today, as I approached a road junction that had been empty for several minutes during my approach, it filled with cars and bicycles. I almost started looking for cameras.

I wonder if Ed Harris will talk to me from the sky if I buy a rowing boat, and set off from Central London for the new world single handed ?