People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest.

We didn’t see an antelope 5km away and just start running after it. It was simply not worth the effort and would lead to a negative calorie outcome. We developed a perception of effort in order to avoid expending energy for no reason.

MAKING PROGRESS Regular running is satisfying in itself.

Fundamentally, I was not only concerned about whether we in the Western world could still run like those East Africans but whether, in two generations’ time, East Africans would be running like us! What we had fallen for, they were falling for.