Across the UK people are growing facial hair this month for male cancers. I, not through my lack of ability to grow facial hair if I wanted to, have been taking on a much more difficult challenge: not running. No-run-vember as Cake of Good Hope christened it, shares with it the same principle at the heart of Movember – you stop doing something that you usually do on an almost daily basis and feel a bit weird as a result.

It’s precisely three weeks since Venice Marathon and I haven’t run since. I’ve run three marathons this year and the plan had always been to take a break from running to let my legs – which had been plagued with niggles in the past couple of months – take a break.

“Aren’t you worried you’ll lose fitness”, said a colleague of mine who ran Beachy Head Marathon the same weekend that I ran Venice and promptly headed out for a lunchtime run three days later then wondered why it didn’t go well.

“No. Fitness comes back quicker than injuries heal. And you’re going to do yourself a mischief heading out for a run so soon.”

The rules of No-run-vember have been simple: no running. That doesn’t forbid any other forms of exercise so cycling, swimming, spinning and even dancing have all been available. On Wednesday I went for my first ever spin class. Now, I’m not adverse to getting a bit sweaty – I’m someone who has been known to run 15 miles in the sun and then take a picture and post it on her blog.

Nothing, however, not running in the Australian outback, not running a marathon in the heat, could have prepared me for the amount of moisture that would attempt to leave my body during that 45-minute spin class. The floor around my spin bike looked like the end of The Snowman – just a carrot and a puddle.

On Friday I was talked into going to a ‘music video dance class’ at Frame Shoreditch by a friend of mine. This was the first time I had danced in front of strangers sober since I was in a ballet recital aged five. Though the moves I was busting were probably not worthy of the word ‘dancing’.

The first six steps I had down (the routine opened with eight steps in a straight line and yet I couldn’t even get this right). But after that it all went a bit wrong and I spent the second half of the class wishing I was running 26 miles through a gale rather than walking eight steps through a dance studio.

On the plus side, I’ve swum further this week than I have in the rest of my life combined and I rode my bike 9 miles yesterday without falling off it. But I’m starting to miss running. Which brings me back to the point of No-run-vember. As well as letting the legs recover, a little break from running can do amazing things for your enthusiasm for it.