Colin Sheridan: Marathon efforts so tough for Olympians and plodders

JUST put one foot in front of the other, that’s what they say, but, despite that straightforward maxim, running a marathon is anything but simple.

ONE STEP AT A TIME: Sifan Hassan celebrates winning Women's elite race during the TCS London Marathon. Pic: John Walton/PA Wire.

“Sometimes I think that I’ve never been so free as during that couple of hours when I’m trotting up the path out of the gates and turning by that bare-faced, big-bellied oak tree at the lane end. Everything’s dead, but good, because it’s dead before coming alive, not dead after being alive”

— Alan Sillitoe, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.