We called them the alpha couple. They owned the ground floor flat; we rented the first floor. And every Saturday morning, as my wife and I left together for our bacon brunch, we would pass them coming in, together, radiating smugness from their 12-mile run.
Back then I would have found rather depressing the recent claims by scientists that — as well as making you fitter — running together as a couple gives you a better relationship. The alpha couple didn’t need another excuse to feel good about themselves.
Their lithe arrival on our doorstep each morning was enough — the dripping sweat accusatory, the warm glow of fitness reproachful. It was like having Mother Teresa set up a soup kitchen outside your house, while you tried to continue your previous life of eating suckling pigs stuffed with foie gras.
And so, one day, the inevitable happened: my wife sat me down and made an announcement. She was starting to run. She had even bought shoes.
I hoped it was a phase.
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When she hadn’t quit after a week, I had to join her — not for companionship, but because the thought of having a wife who could outrun me was too depressing. At first it felt ridiculous (actually, at first it felt painful — the ridiculousness came only when the stitches went). But after a while, striding through Regent’s Park, it was empowering. We were fit! We were active! We were alpha! More importantly, we were overtaking other couples out walking. They were beta.
And that is the problem. Running together is a passive-aggressive act. What should be something personal becomes something public, a boast about your coupled perfection. To pump the pavement with a line-abreast of marital Lycra; to parade your vitality in early-morning jogs, is to be an adult version of teenagers who snog in public.
We still run separately — occasionally we run together. But the fervour is gone. Alpha on your own is fine — but think very carefully before becoming an alpha couple.