Brain Epitaph

A man signed up in January for a marathon in September. For weeks now, he has been calling himself "deep in taper." His own training log says otherwise.

Per your file, your last continuous effort over twenty minutes was recorded in July. You have been moved to Pace Group E: Social.

His last real run was a lonely 5K in July, and his body ended it before he did. He did not make the petrol station in time. He finished the last four hundred metres carrying his own shorts, in a car park, in daylight. He logged the stop as "planned break, GI." He rated the whole effort "strong."

Since then, two dog walks have kept the account alive. Both are logged as runs, at a pace not much faster than the dog, which he calls "recovery." Each one ends at the pub, where a pint gets logged in the app's nutrition tab as "electrolytes." Kudos comments stack up underneath anyway. Nobody in the group has done the math.

He has already picked his outfit for race day. He mentions it often, to anyone who will listen, and says it is "basically ready."

The outfit turns out to be a fleece and a folding chair. The shirt from two Christmases back no longer does up over his stomach. He downgraded his own entry from Runner to Guest the same week as the 5K, and never mentioned it again. He is already telling people he is marshalling.

The club's committee does not know any of this. Its downgrade email is generated straight from his mileage, in the flat language of an HR notice. "Per your file, your last continuous effort over twenty minutes was recorded in July," it reads. "You have been moved to Pace Group E: Social."

Other members have quietly started checking their own numbers before Tuesday meet-ups, and nobody has said why.

This newspaper has sponsored a runner in the same race for years. We have never once asked to see his log. We are also deep in taper.