All joggers should be made to wear a ‘bra’ for their face

In my book, there's only two excuses for running: firstly, if you're being pursued by something terrifying, like a bear or Noel Edmonds, secondly if you're about to miss a bus.

In all other circumstances, I'm dead against it: I can accomplish crumbling bones, a face like a DFS sofa and sagging boobs without putting on my PE kit and grimly thudding along the pavement, thank you very much.

Cosmetic surgeons are reporting an increase in the number of women seeking treatments for what they've dubbed 'runner's face' – the gaunt and wrinkled appearance they say is a sideeffect of too much jogging.

Losing fat from the face combined with the damage that running does to the elasticity of the skin can leave joggers with 'haggard, sunken faces'.

This is why joggers tend to mate with their own kind, I imagine.

The advice to those keen not to end up having their faces peeled off their scalps and reattached with bulldog clips and fishing line is to wear a 'chin sling'.

Like a bra for your face, the slings are placed under the jaw, suspended between the earlobes and claim to minimise drooping jowls and a wattly neck.

In other words, they are totally hilarious and it should instantly be made illegal for joggers not to wear them.

A few weeks ago, a haystack of a man slammed into me as he multi-tasked at both running and changing a song on his iPod.

Had he been wearing a chin sling, I could have reached up, grabbed it and pinged it back in retaliation.

I would also have been laughing too hard to realise that he'd practically smashed every bone in my foot.

Personally, I am all for stories that point out how jogging makes you look worse, and not better: it's all grist to the mill.

•This article was original published on November 28, 2011