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A flight from Albuquerque to Denver. A long wait. Another flight to New Jersey, another to Lisbon. Six-hour taxi ride to Madrid, two-day drive in a hire car to Paris, an endless queue at the Gare du Nord. Emergency hotel. Taxi to Le Touquet, specially-chartered prop plane across the Channel to Shoreham and finally a private car to London, just in time for Sunday's marathon.

Starring in your own special version of is not the ideal preparation for running 26.2 miles. Not even had to deal with the aftermath of an erupting Icelandic volcano. But Mara Yamauchi was doing her best to look for silver linings in the ash cloud that almost ended her marathon hopes.

"There were times when I thought we wouldn't make it," she admitted, appearing simultaneously weary and delighted to be within touching distance of Tower Bridge. "And there were times when I thought I'd be the only one to make it, and I'd win by 10 minutes."

Six days on the road can do strange things to anyone's well-being, let alone an elite athlete for whom the right combination of taper-week training, rest and low-fat carbs is an absolute essential.

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The glory game? Not for most of us. A fortunate few might be celebrating championships and cup wins, but for everyone else the last few weeks of the football season bring nothing but worry and dread.

Titles are lost. Relegation looms. Play-off places wink suggestively and then rudely rebuff advances. Sport, the love of our lives, becomes not so much a fickle mistress as an adulterous partner with the morals of an inebriated long-distance sailor.

Trapped in this abusive relationship is the humble fan, powerless to influence the very thing that exerts so much control over our happiness.

Can anything be done to alleviate this awful tension? How best to cope with the grief of season-ending defeats, with the anguish that accompanies an inexorable slide from mid-table obscurity to near-certain relegation?

Beset by footballing fears, desperate for answers, I sought out , fellow of the .

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