Constance

The Saturday before the October marathon is calmer than visitors expect, because the runners are in their rooms eating pasta and checking the forecast. Constance keeps that evening early, arriving in the late afternoon or around seven so that a session is over well before a sensible bedtime. She speaks French, Dutch and English, and she can read the race-day road notices to a guest who has no idea which streets close at dawn. Tantra, paced on breathing rather than effort, is the format she proposes to runners on that night. At thirty she names her limits once, at the door, and keeps to them.

Constance decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.