Okay folks, I hear you. The hint has been made loud and clear. As the Walrus famously said: “The time has come …”

Your message was writ big and bold in the sands and shingle of Marazion this past Sunday (and earlier in the year at St Levan): there is no recognition for geriatrics who persist in pushing their frail frames in pursuit of athletic success once past the age of 80. Or even 75.

While others of lesser years seek out and celebrate their rankings within their peer groups, such simple gratification is denied those of more senior vintage.

We are simply lumped together in a single catch-all category that ignores the rankings that have long existed in Masters athletics, nationally and internationally.

Down here in Cornwall, we are simply the Oldies who flaunt their withered bones and bring shame to the many youngsters who trail in their wake.

There is no glory to be had in battling against an icy wind through sand, shingle and the surging tides of a sloping pebbled shore.

Fellow club-mates fill Facebook posts with requests for details of their placings within their various grades, keen to see their progress and success. They swap congratulations and encouragement. It’s heady stuff to see the enthusiasm and that is growing within the club.

But for this old dodderer it is as if I wasn’t there. No ranking for me – beaten by three runners in their early 70s, some ten years younger.

Nor does constant competitor Norris receive acknowledgement for ploughing on through that ankle-twisting terrain. His age grade, too, has been wiped and he also has to accede to those many years younger.

Bitter? No, there’s no place for that. Simply sad and deflated in the face of bureaucratic decisions which, as so often happens, ride roughshod over the human element.

Saving on trophies and medals, they say. But those – not even the bottles of wine – are not why we run. Scrap them, by all means.

Simply acknowledge we were there, ignoring the armchair and slippers in favour of pushing our bodies over several miles of unforgiving terrain for some inexplicable reason.

We are often embarrassingly tagged as “inspirations” and encouragement for younger and less active members of a community that is growing lazier and more obese by the hour.

It is a role we are happy to play if it is going to lead to a healthier community and ease the unwarranted pressures on the NHS.

But it won’t happen if our efforts are to be ignored and hidden.

Close to 500 dogged people completed Sunday’s run and more than half of them finished behind me. Statistically, that shouldn’t happen but by acknowledging that it did, perhaps a few more sloths will be encouraged to get active and healthy.

And that hard slog will have all been worthwhile.

But by refusing to give such results their due place, it does nothing but create depression and dejection. Which, until now, is not what running has provided.

No more MTR for me; lawn bowls, here I come.