The Hour

• Distance this week: 10,700 metres
• Total distance: 576.9 metres
• Running track of the week: Rage Against The Machine – Vietnow 

Well, if there’s one thing I can almost certainly guarantee you, it’s that this is the only running blog you’ll see this week to have a Right Said Fred reference for the headline. (By God, I hope it is anyway.)

But it's an appropriate reference, I firmly believe. So far this month I’ve ran only 74 kilometres, generally due to festival activity (such as RockNess) and other busyness.

It’s not an embarrassing amount to have jogged over the course of four weeks – after all, even if it was but a single kilometre any slice of exercise has to be good – but it’s not exactly taking advantage of the summer weather. (‘What summer weather?’ I guess some may rightly ask.)

While merely envisioning the amount of endurance running I was to try and do this year, I guess I found it too easy to forget about how much time it all takes.

The running’s the least of it. Though my warm-up routine is so non-existent it literally takes 10 seconds of me pulling each leg backwards until it hits my bum and then letting it go again, afterwards there’s still the cool-down period and the shower.

Which I guess is in itself a decent amont of time, though the main problem is what I’d call 'the fiasco of the beetroot face’. While doing physical exercise my fizzog goes about as red as can be, and takes a good loooooong time to go back to anything resembling an acceptable pallor for public outings.

Thus I've pretty much completely ruled out running during the lunch hour, or before work, or prior to any dates with glitzy glamour models. Could you imagine the shame?

Instead I have to pick my moments when I can skulk away in the gloom of my flat afterwards – and right now it’s hard to find many of those. Since I’m still ahead of my year’s target I’m not too worried right now, but another month of this and I might have to consider alternatives. (Though if wearing hoodies are supposed to be a societal no-no, I’ll take a leap and assume sporting a balaclava for my Saturday shopping won't exactly calm any old dears on the streets.)

• You can track Michael’s progress on his RunKeeper page. He is raising money for Cancer Research UK through the million metre challenge, and you can donate at justgiving.com/michael-maclennan.