‘I could bench-press 100kg. Now, I can’t walk’:

Before the pandemic, Lucy Keighley ran a gym, worked as a personal trainer and went on gruelling, exhilarating runs. But after three and a half years of illness, she isn’t sure she will ever recover

‘I was incredibly strong and fit,” says Lucy Keighley. And she looks it, in the photo she is showing me, taken a few years ago. She is with her best friend, Lorna; they have just completed a 15-mile race on the North York Moors. “It was a brutal race,” she says. “But it was great. I was happy.” Today, although it’s quite dark in the room (she doesn’t get on well with bright light), I can see a tear rolling down her cheek. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get back there.”

Lucy, 49, still runs – across the moors and along the coast – but only in her sleep. “I’m so light on my feet. I was never a light-footed runner in real life. But in my dreams I am so light, I can run so far, and it feels joyous.”