I powered round the last bend of the race cheered on by FM. With a personal best of 48 minutes, she glowed with pride. There were just a few hundred metres to go and even I would make it within the hour, most likely with a remarkable finish time of 53 minutes! Then I spotted the yellow diversion sign. Ever-obedient I sped along the path into the supermarket car park, through the automatic store doors, and into the biggest Wal-Mart I had ever seen. A fully-functioning IKEA store was contained within it and – to my horror – I realised that I was running against the flow of Sunday afternoon shoppers. All my dreams of a sub-60 minute race were well and truly over.