View from the sofa: If Paula, James and the rest can do it, I'll blaze my own trail one more time

The London Marathon BBC

Paula Radcliffe after finishing the London Marathon - the final competitive race of her career (Getty)

I signed up for a marathon on Sunday. Not the marathon, of course – entries didn’t open until until Monday. Instead I put my name down for a trail race taking place this autumn. But it was the London Marathon, or more specifically, BBC’s coverage of the event, that inspired me.

It wasn’t the impossibly good-looking pair of Jenson Button and his wife, Jessica Michibata, chirping about how much they love training together that did it (incidentally, the host, Gabby Logan missed a trick by failing to ask the Formula One driver, whose 2015 McLaren is a lemon, whether this was the one race he had a hope of actually finishing this year). Nor was it the sight of the 1968 Olympic 400-metre hurdles gold medallist David Hemery refusing to let an Achilles injury get in the way of him finishing his first marathon, at the age of 70. “The doctor has told me I can’t run, so I’m going to walk it,” he said.

It wasn’t even the trio of women running under the “too fat to run” banner (hint: they weren’t) saying they were sick of being “scared to run” because of peer pressure or worries about their body shape, in a pre-race interview with Logan.

It wasn’t even the theme music, which despite being Ron Goodwin’s theme tune to a film called The Trap, about a fur hunter and a mute orphan, gets the blood pumping in all but the most shiftless among us.

Instead it was the combination of two things: the sight of a portly bloke named James trudging through south-east London as the clock nudged two hours (hey, if he can do it...) and of Paula Radcliffe dragging around her arthritic body that had only just recovered from an Achilles injury – at a pace close to the winning time (hey, if she can do it...).

Before the race she was also interviewed by Logan and as she struggled to keep her emotions in check, she said: “I’m proud to call myself a runner and to have done the London Marathon – big family. When we finish all 38,000 of us can say we have all done it, we’ve gone through the same experiences, some rough times and some good times.”

As she crossed Tower Bridge the look on the face of a man called Chris was priceless, as the women’s world record holder passed him. Denise Lewis, the former heptathlete and current BBC athletics pundit, was there to buttonhole her for a quick interview but Radcliffe refused to slow down.

Lewis sprinted. “Paula, Paula,” she shouted. “How are you feeling?” Radcliffe garbled something about it being mad, then carried on, with a massive grin on her face.

Then as she ran up The Mall, having left Chris well behind, the grin turned to tears, as all the well-wishers overwhelmed her. But after she crossed the finish line, the grin returned – in stark contrast to her husband’s glowering face, which, it later transpired, was hiding the urge to break down in tears.

On finishing, she spoke like one of us. “I was so tired,” she said. “The time didn’t matter, but you can’t do the London Marathon without giving it an honest effort.”

So thanks, Paula. James too. You’ve inspired me to go through the hardship of training one more time. And in a few months’ time I’ll be boring people senseless with inane motivational quotes from former athletes, world leaders and Gene Simmons the singer from Kiss (“if life is a radio, turn up to 10”) on my Twitter feed.