I'm used to people staring curiously at my artificial leg when I'm out running, but a kid who saw me limbering up for the Great South Run yesterday had a novel explanation for the strange-looking piece of carbon fibre attached my leg.

"Daddy, is that man a robot?" she asked.

The weather for the GSR couldn't have been worse -- torrential rain from start to finish and stiff sea breezes. I thought my finishing time of 1:28:13 was fairly respectable given the conditions.