How many of us race in our dreams? Speaking personally, I have developed a new confidence and fluency in my running over recent years. When asleep, that is. The problem seems to be that I still can’t find my workbag and the departure gate is always about to shut. 

Or of course I’ve run to the wrong one. We’ve all been there.

But for a proper, medal-laden athlete such as Iwan Thomas to wake up to such a realisation of the ageing process is especially heart-rending.

As if in a dream, I am now re-living a clear, bright morning in Athens where I am breakfasting with some colleagues in a hotel with a view across to the Parthenon - when will that building ever be finished, by the way? - and we are joined by Iwan.

Dateline - August 5, 1997. The night before, in the stadium that would host the 2004 Olympics and Paralympics, he had, for a few glorious seconds, gone mano a mano with the American who had pulverised all opposition over 200 and 400 metres at the previous summer's Atlanta Olympics, Michael Johnson.

The challenge was too hot and the bold 23-year-old Brit it was that got burned, falling back to an eventual fifth place in 44.52sec - with Johnson winning in 44.12.

Ruefully, but still defiantly, he insisted that he had wanted to go for gold. He seemed to be looking for confirmation of the validity of that bold approach from some of the more senior correspondents, who, it has to be said, remained sheepish.

A year earlier Black had recovered from his latest morale-sapping injury to such an extent that he had regained the British record in winning the Olympic trials in 44.39 - with Du'Aine Ladejo second in 44.66 and Thomas third in 44.69 - and lowered it again in Lausanne to 44.37.

In the shape of his life ahead of the Atlanta Olympics, the 30-year-old former medical student had made a calculated decision not to risk blowing out by taking on Johnson, already the world 200 and 400m champion, but instead to covet the silver.

Black carried out his plan to perfection, finishing second in 44.41 - almost a full second behind Johnson. Thomas - who would earn 4x400m relay silver with Black a few days later - had a very good view of this prudent and productive performance as he finished fifth in 44.70.

But a year on, he went for broke…

Thomas would eventually end up getting gold from those 1997 Athens World Championships in the men’s 4x400m relay, where he, Black, Jamie Baulch and Mark Richardson finished second, 0.18sec behind the United States.

In 2008, the second-leg US runner Antonio Pettigrew testified in court that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs between 1997 and 2001. It led to the US performance being annulled and the British quartet having their silvers replaced by gold in 2010.

Had he managed to reproduce the British record of 44.36 he had run earlier that summer in the individual final - a record that still stands - Thomas would have got silver in Athens. But that kind of calculation, tempting as it may be, is futile.

The following year of 1998 was Iwan’s annus mirabilis as the boldness he had demonstrated in Athens earned him tangible rewards that no one can take away from him. (Hearing this Iwan?! Sleep tight!)

On August 21 he won the European title in Budapest in a championship record of 44.52, with his main British rival Mark Richardson - Black having been controversially excluded by the selectors after placing fourth at the trials – finishing third in 45.14.

On September 12 Thomas won the eighth World Cup held by the International Association of Athletics Federations, clocking 45.13 to beat Jerome Young of the US to gold.

He then flew straight on to Kuala Lumpur, running four rounds to win the Commonwealth title for Wales in a Games record of 44.52 from Richardson, who clocked 44.60.

All in less than a month. A mensis mirabilis, in fact.

It was a glorious finale to the season. But it was also, as it turned out, the glorious finale to Thomas's athletics career as an agonising succession of injuries prevented him reaching such levels of performance again.

And what of Grindley?

At the Barcelona 1992 Olympics this confident and powerful 19-year-old from Wigan burst into prominence, lowering the British record to 44.47sec as he took the last of four qualifying places in his semi-final - one place ahead of… Roger Black, who ran 44.72.

Grindley went on to finish sixth, in 44.75, also earning bronze in the 4x400m, and left Spain looking forward to a fabulous future career - that injuries prevented from ever happening.

There was a year of grace. In 1993 he produced an awesome victory at the Lausanne meeting, missing improving on his British record through his early race celebration. What did it matter? He would do it next time.

I was among several British reporters who spoke to him after that race. His possibilities seemed so exciting.

Two days later as he prepared to run at the Bislett Games in Oslo, he told a group of us: "I know I can go faster. I think I can run 44.2 by the end of the season."

And lo - it did not come to pass, although he did run 44.50 in Zürich that year.

The injuries closed in on him, as they had to his predecessors as British record holder - Black, and Derek Redmond, who had hopped agonisingly to the line and into Olympic history during the first of the Barcelona semi-finals, supported over the final 100m by his dad. And as they would to his successor Thomas.

In fact, looking back at that era, it was as if becoming British men’s 400m record-holder necessitated the endurance of career-ending or potentially career-ending injury.

Grindley had two comebacks in the late 1990s, but continuing hamstring problems meant he could never regain the heights. He turned to new ones by becoming an airline pilot.

What could have, what might have happened if this group of runners had been able to run unimpeded by injury to give full expression to their talents?

Ah. Dream on…