Anxiety is the price we pay for being able to predict the future.

I don't recall being a particularly anxious person back when I used to gobble up these kinds of events for breakfast. That was a strength: not dwelling too much on what has been and what is to come, just focusing on what is happening now and what I can do about it. It stops the expenditure of mental energy, which is key to managing these things.

But over the last few years, my mind has constantly made predictions about the future and how it can go wrong. It's exhausting, and I know doing this much of it is unhealthy.

My kids have been cycling to school for the last few weeks. It's been amazing. Their school has about 1.5m of footpaths and a few road crossings. They are 9, and of course, I got anxious about them riding their bikes. What if they fall off? What if they forget their brakes and go into the busy road? What if a dog startles them, and they steer into nettles?

Day by day, I let them go further, running behind them. Getting a nice 5k round trip in the morning is lovely, even if the first half gives me palpitations. I would not let them get out of sight for the first few days, but then I relaxed and said, "Go as far as the bridge, as far as the road, and wait."

But more recently, the kids said, "Daddy, just give us the house key, and we'll go straight home." Reluctantly, I did, jogged home to find both kids had already parked their bikes in the garden and lay down on the sofa watching mindless tik-toks about squashing various household items with an industrial press.

It was nice to let go.

Every mile of the South Downs 50 felt like a battle in my mind, telling me that things would go wrong, which probably contributed to the problems. I finished the race barely, but more concerning was that I just didn't like it from start to almost finish. I was glad to have finished but spent lots of time questioning whether I belonged there in the first place.

I came into this race a little fitter, with a few more miles in me, and hopeful that I would be okay. But everyone says the NDW50 is harder than its Southern counterpart. I barely finished that under the cutoff, so let's see.

Apart from the Spartathlon, where most people have to worry about cutoffs, I've never had to worry too much about them.

I would take inspiration from football managers and take each mile as it came. That was the mantra: " Try to win the mile you're in."

I need to complete each of them in less than 15 minutes. If I do, I will finish the race.

Winning was easy at first; all the miles seemed to pass by with minimal resistance. It was a great start to the season, with 10 wins in a row. Fans are starting to dream about great things, but it's important not to get carried away. It's a long old season.

I almost fell over in the first five miles. I stumbled and did that cartoon legs on ice thing to stay on my feet. I felt something in my hamstring, but I didn't panic. I'm going to take each game as it comes.

This was the first race I put my number on my shorts rather than my shirt. I'm not accurate with safety pins, so this felt like a nod towards the future.

I was pleased with being able to scoff some food and drink at a checkpoint, walk a bit, and still win the mile. There were a couple of close calls in the second 10, a 15.09 while I was at CP 2 and walking guzzling some coke. I called that one a draw, as the average pace needed for each mile was a smidge over 15, innit? All of these miles are building me a huge goal difference, which may be worth a point later.

So after the second 10, my record was still undefeated, with 9 victories out of 10. But I had a few tough fixtures coming up.

There's a relatively lengthy stint of 10 miles between CP 2 and 3. about 10 miles. I was only carrying half a litre of water as all my water bottles were cursed; they just exploded whenever I put water in them, so I left one empty. I didn't struggle with dehydration or the heat; we were covered well for most of it. I heard many people say, "Oooh, it's a warm one, isn't it" but I didn't really feel it; perhaps I'm getting that weird heat shield back that I used to have when running on roads in 40c. Ooh, that would be nice.

CP 3 is at the bottom of Box Hill, the 24-mile point. I knew that mile 24 was going to be the last "easy" one for a while, but that was thinking ahead, which I was trying not to do; all I was focused on was winning mile 24, which involved having to run alongside the road into the underpass and shuffle past a load of tourists.

Now the season really starts, about halfway through. No more easy wins, not more running miles against Leicester and Southampton.

Going so fast I almost have a foot off the ground!

Mile 25, my first defeat and a heavy one! 19 minutes to eat some food and crawl up a hill.

What do I tell the fans about the defeat? Of course, it was a tough mile, about a trillion significant steps [citation needed] up a steep hill, each with about 15 Girl Scouts on each step [citation needed]. Most of the teenage girls were cheering and shouting as I passed; perhaps I looked just like Justin Beaver. A curse, I tell you.

But then mile 26 was a loss, too, and so was 27. Three losses in a row! How am I going to explain this to the board? Well, we've got a great bunch of lads and are working really hard to turn this around. We've been a bit unlucky with injuries and kissing gates, but we're on the right track, and we've got a great bunch of lads.

Of course, anyone who follows football knows the best way to end a losing streak is to visit Dr. Spurs.

The next mile was a lovely downhill; it just lay down and surrendered, with no kissing gates, no crowds, and a soft, soft trail covered from the sun. This was Dr. Spurs just lying down and letting me have it. Even with a little walk, I clocked this one way under the 15 and celebrated a resounding victory. I might even have chanted, "Can I run you every week?"

Being a Leicester fan, I can hardly take the piss too much; if I'd approached this race like our leader Ruud Van Nistleroy, I'd still be glued to the start line in a pair of Nike Air Jordan Ayews.

But it was nice to get a couple of miles done back under pace. I'd only borrowed about 5 minutes in total out of the reserves, which was fine.

Serious point for anyone who might want to try this. It sounds a bit "no shit Sherlock" about running each mile quicker than the average pace needed, but this really fixed something for me. I didn't spend any energy trying to extrapolate what paces I needed to finish; as long as I hit each, I felt fine. I did spend a little time considering where I was in the big picture. I got halfway in about 5 hours, which gave me 8 hours to do the second half. That's like a 3-hour head start on the second half. Then I got to 32 miles in about half the time, so now I just need to do another 19 ish miles in the same time I did the 32.

So, there is no need to stress about it.

At the South Downs, I got myself into a state just thinking about missing cutoffs, which pushed me closer to the cutoffs. But now I wasn't thinking about disaster. In fact, I realised I had not felt any discomfort in my hamstring from that fall for at least 10 miles; it had just gone away. I bet I could have willed it into existence, but I wasn't doing that today.

I still stumbled as much as I did on the SDW. Still, every time I did, I just wrote it off. Last time, I would get annoyed at myself for being lousy at running and wondering why others don't trip up as much as I do. 100000 steps in a race, some of them will land funny.

The "win every mile" thing seems insultingly obvious, but it changed my behaviour during the race. I may be 0.8 into a mile, but that looks slow, and it made me decide to attack an incline more or not walk some uneven section. Or not stop for another piss. These runs involve making hundreds of small decisions to keep moving forward. They can be unravelled by just one decision to quit or hold back. When you're on top of everything, you don't even think about it, but when quitting is on your mind, you can easily let all those future micro-decisions grind you down right now. It doesn't need to be that way.

So this is what the middle 10 looked like. There is a bit of red in there, but nothing to worry about. It's a great bunch of lads. There are plenty of miles to go, but we are taking each one as it comes.

I think I only spent about 2 minutes at each checkpoint, doing the usual drill of filling a water bottle, washing sandwiches and crisps down with Coke, and trying to decide what flavour of GU gel to take with me before getting another Coke to walk with.

Pro tip: If you chug a pint of Coke and then jog down a hill for half a mile, you build up the incredible potential to release a burp that would get most ocean liners steering out of your path. Use it wisely. I used it to disperse a bunch of older ladies who seemed intent on blocking all paths. One loud release almost had a few of them bouncing down the hill and onto the M25.

The next 10 were pretty quiet, with not many people passing or passing me. It was lovely, though I had to be more mindful of the markings. I didn't have the route dinging on my watch; the number on the shorts was innovative enough for me today. I may try that next time.

So, this section looks like it's gone a bit wrong, but we're still not panicking. We've still got a great bunch of lads. We are all in this together, and we're just going to try to win the next miles.

The last 10 miles allowed me to indulge in introspection. I was fine. I had no worry about missing the cutoff; I was way ahead. I actually felt good. I was slow and slow, but I can train that with some speed and consistency. I had energy, and nothing really hurt. Still, perhaps most importantly, I enjoyed being where I was. I was looking forward to finishing, but not so much that I was crossing off the miles like I was in prison. Everything felt nice.

This was a stark contrast to the South Downs five weeks ago and, in all honesty, a contrast to how much of my running has been over the last few years. I set out to run 10 miles, and four miles in, I'm counting down to when it's all going to end.

I'm carrying too much in my head, which I just need to let go of. For example, with my kids biking, I just need to give them a key and meet them at the end.

I felt like I'd fixed something that was broken here.

The last 10 miles, as you can see, look pretty bad; the season had gone all Nottingham Forest. The chairman was about to waddle onto the pitch and berate me for not changing my shoes at the last CP to some racing flats. But I didn't care now; I was still enjoying it, had plenty of time, and was optimistic that I could do this kind of thing. That I will do this kind of thing. I can take hours off this time. I can run like this for longer. The old James might not be dead after all.

Last year, I lost my sense of humour a bit when I realised the race was more like 51 miles. That bonus mile when pushing the cutoff is really unwelcome. But here, I didn't care. When I got to the field and saw the finish area, my first thought was, "Oooh, they have a bouncy castle!" But no, it's just about 14 different finishing gantries.

Yeah, I think I’m a bit pissed about the lack of bouncy castle

I finished at 11.33. I would have been happy with 12.59 at the start of the day, so for the first time in a long time, my race went better than planned. In fact, I could channel my inner Mikel Arteta and claim that if there were no hills, gates, or other runners, and my legs were 15 feet longer, then I would have won the race, smashed the course record, and won all previous editions, too. I'll expect my trophies in the post.

A genuine and heartfelt thank-you to Centurion and everyone involved on Saturday. That really did something for me. And you'll be seeing a lot more of me. Now I’m off for a recoverating jog to the key-cutting shop.

RunningandStuff