Well, I do like to keep things real. And in that spirit, I’ll tell you what happened this morning, because why gather humiliating things to my bosom when I can release them into the web to be revisited forever until the Apocalypse does something bad to computers? Exactly.

I went running with a new guy, someone I have never met, who is American, charming, well-groomed, does something with finance and tech, and who is a seasoned runner fresh from the Boston marathon. Over the running whatsapp group I have repeatedly told him that I am slow like your garden variety grandma, and that this is not a humble brag – I like a crawling jog where I can take photos of blossoms and fiddle with my podcasts and he said he didn’t care.

So we met at 6am this morning and had a lovely chat and he said he will follow my route around the Hyde Park corner bit all the way home. He didn’t plug into his phone because he said he likes to hear himself breathe, which was a tiny bit disarming because no one (especially not me) would like to hear me breathe, because it is a heaving, rasping, punctured lung kind of sound when I run, and also, if people aren’t listening to music or podcasts, then do they actually want to talk? I don’t.

So we started off and I was kind of leading the pace and I was being a bit showy offy/ambitious and began at Quite The Trot which I had to sustain the whole way around because otherwise my usual pace would be exposed and I would be shamed for being a fraud. I started my usual throat clearing which leads to frequent hoicking onto the pavement and then my nose started running and so I just had to blow out lots of snot and wipe it on my new grey leggings. This is what I usually do, but usually I am by myself, in the dark or with people who know I leak from orifices when under any pressure. So I am aware that my new guy wasn’t making any sounds or leaking, spitting, rubbing, wiping, hoicking or even breathing very ugly, at least, not that I could tell over my loudish very emotional episode of Where Do We Begin, an hour’s marriage guidance counselling podcast session which seems to me to be perfectly matched with a 5km run around the park.

At some point around the 20 minute mark I just gave into the excretions and thought ‘well, I just might never see him again’. But still he stayed next to me, kindly matching my pace, not looking over as I gargled and spat too slow, hitting my trainers with dribble. We got near the end (three whole minutes faster than I usually make it) and I put in a tiny bit of extra effort to finish because it had been hard and embarrassing and tough and I just wanted it to be over, and when we got to the gate, I stopped and

DID A BIT OF WEE

which flooded into my new grey leggings and spread. It wasn’t a whole lot of wee, just a little amount, almost a celebratory amount – my bladder was like HURRAH YOU’VE STOPPED I THINK I WILL JUST RELAX FOR A SECOND – but you know, leggings these days have fabric that wicks moisture away which I think just means ‘makes it look as though you have pissed a litre’ and so I had to walk home with the unavoidable incontinence patch taking over half my inner thighs.

I kept trying to pull the leggings way up into my crotch, hoping that the fabric would sort of fold into itself and that the wet bits would be hidden in the great folds of my ageing pudenda but it wasn’t working. I tried to hold my earphones over the offending wet patches but that did nothing to hide them either. Meanwhile we were discussing quite serious matters such as role division in marriage, the impact of children leaving the home, career choices in later life – all very engaging, and to his credit he did seem to be keeping his eyes to the forward, firmly away from my frontal shame. It was only when he waved me off at my gate that he turned and faced me, in the bright 6:50am daylight, moisture still apparent. Luckily, luckily, our goodbyes were hurried and brief, which might well have been more about his eagerness not to prolong my humiliation rather than any need to go somewhere fast. I will never know.

I came down the stairs, immediately showered (chafing issues) and told the kids, showed them my leggings for an honest appraisal of the likelihood that I had been busted and they just laughed and said it wasn’t their fault that they wet the bed – it was because of my bad bladder role modelling. They also more kindly said that with any luck, the new guy wouldn’t have seen because what kind of man looks at other women’s groin and I said

‘Thank you for saying that – it helps – but….peripheral vision, dudes. Peripheral vision.’

The only other thing that I take comfort from is that this guy’s wife has had four kids, so he might well be used to women’s bladders being prone to a little celebratory leakage. But still. Argh. All a bit much for a Tuesday morning, if you know what I mean?