A 23-year-old graduate trainee training for his first marathon has stopped going to club sessions because he cannot finish one, and now runs loops that stay within a few streets of his flat so he can stop without being stranded. He walks the last part of almost every run. It has been three months and he has kept training through it, with no fall, twist, direct blow or change of surface. He has read everything ever written about Pheidippides and points out, unprompted, that the man died at the end of his run, which he says is not encouraging. Sitting in the clinic he has no pain at all and says he feels like a fraud.