‘I’ve turned into the midlife running man – and no one is more surprised than me’

At the end of the summer this year, I started street running. I hadn’t done it regularly for years, but after a course of Ozempic weight loss jabs, I’d shed enough pounds (nearly two stone) to run again without damaging my knees. What I didn’t expect was how brilliant a season autumn is to run in the local parks. And as we slipped into deep winter, you can still find me running around the ponds in my local most days.

I particularly like being by the water. Someone told me that just 20 minutes spent by open water is good for your mind, and I find it calming. It makes me think about my mum when I run past it. The last thing she ever said to me was “Go for a walk by the river”, as if it was a solution to something I’d just said, only I hadn’t. Maybe it was a solution to what was coming. The next day she took her own life.

Although this happened when I was 26 – over 30 years ago – the memory of those final words is still fresh. I’d be devastated if I ever forgot what they sounded like, and while I now think about our last conversation with a deeper acceptance, rather than raw pain, I feel it’s important for me to keep going, to stay alive.