2) The little alien living in my right leg doesn’t like the winter. I only ever seem to hear from it once the weather gets better.

3) It’s best to try not to scream when you wake in the middle of the night with your leg in spasm if there is someone else in your house. The noise of someone screaming at 3am isn’t a restful one.

On Saturday night, I woke up twice – once with an alien tearing through the fibres of my right calf and then again a couple of hours later in my left calf. As it seems my little ET has got himself a friend now, I decided that I needed to know more than these three things alone. I need to know how to stop this running-induced misery.

I say ‘running-induced’ cramp because, although it doesn’t happen while I’m actually running, I have only had this problem since I’ve been a runner and it usually happens the night after a long run. So off to Google, I went. Five minutes later I’m pretty much convinced I’ve got a list of conditions from kidney failure to scurvy. Self-diagnosis via the internet is one of my favourite pastimes, but as this is very definitely a running problem and I haven’t been spending much time on pirate ships recently, I tried a more refined search.
Apparently the millions of pounds that is spent on running and exercise research every year has yet to come up with a definite answer or cure for my cramps. They’re like the common cold of the running community. But the internet did have a few suggestions – keep well hydrated, stretch regularly and eat well. This was not the news I had been hoping for.
I’ll be giving the wacky new regime of drinking water, eating a few vegetables and stretching a go for a week or two. But if it doesn’t work I’m conducting my own study on the effectiveness of a glass of wine and a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch while watching TV on the incidence of running-related calf cramp.