When Allen Sillitoe wrote about the “loneliness of the long distance runner,” I don’t remember any references to agony or fatigue.

Those two words are in my playbook, as I prepare for next Thursday’s “GHI Workforce Team Challenge” in downtown Albany.

“A dream to some,” as Merlin said in the 1981 film Excalibur. “A nightmare to others!”

Like other local companies, The Daily Gazette has a team assembled and ready to go the distance. We’ve got 10 people signed up for the 3.5-mile adventure, and as captain, I’ve secured new shirts. They’re beauties — two-tone gray with a royal blue “Daily Gazette” in baseball-style script. And we’ve got a white newspaper “patch” on the left sleeve.

Looking good is one thing. Running well is another.

I’ve been trying to muster speed and endurance from 53-year-old legs and lungs as the clock ticks toward race time. Since early April, I’ve been on streets and sidewalks, on green grass and at green lights. Any speed from my high school days was drowned in four years of beer and books at St. Bonaventure University, and my personal best 52.9 in the 440 — as a member of the undefeated 1973 track team at Rochester’s Aquinas Institute — is velocity I shall never achieve again.

I’m not starting cold. I spent much of the winter in YMCA swimming pools. Most nights, I did laps. When no lanes were open, I found some unoccupied water and just ran in place for 30 minutes. Think it’s easy? Try it.

Outdoor workouts in shoes and sweatshirts have been a little tougher. I started running laps around the state office complex “oval” off Western Avenue. This past Monday and Tuesday, I ran the 3.5-mile course in downtown Albany, and plan to cover the same ground Thursday and Friday nights. Maybe Saturday, too, before the Tulip Festival crowds take over Washington Park.

I’ve noticed a few things in my travels.

In tours around state offices, the grass looks like it belongs at stately Wayne Manor. It’s golf course green! But how? This turf can’t get that much attention, not the patience and persistence I’ve invested in my dismal front square on Beacon Avenue. Even my dandelions are struggling.

At least, the state oval offers peace and safety. There are few cars on the pavement when I begin my 7 p.m. “runs,” just guys on bikes and an occasional dog on leash.

Madison Avenue in Albany, where the Team Challenge begins and ends, is a bit more crowded at 7 o’clock. I’ve got to stop at intersections, I’ve got to run by the smoke heads filling their lungs outside bars. I’ve got to watch for depressed pavement that could sprain an ankle. Once inside the park, I’m on the lookout for drivers paying more attention to dopey cellphones than to people in motion.

Wrapping calf muscles with athletic bandages has supported parts of this old engine that have often broke down. And while it seems it’s tough getting started — I feel like Pruneface during those first couple hundred yards — once I’m moving, I’m not doing that bad. And I’ve felt pretty good — strong even — over the last mile.

I’m going to solicit advice from fellow members of that Aquinas ‘73 track team, and maybe the Layden brothers — Tim and Joe — who were the stars of the old Gazette’s first “challenge” team in 1981.

And I’ll wait for the “parade of slaves” — a description provided by my Gazette colleague Morgan Lyle — to start.

That’s still colorful. Maybe the GHI people will start the race with a crack of a whip this year, instead of a horn.

But I doubt they will.