Every Spring, around the time the clocks change, I sign up to run the Dublin Marathon. Every Spring for the last three years, I’ve filled in the application form, worked out a training schedule, purchased massively expensive new kit and headed out to pound the streets of my adopted city. And not once over the last three years has my schedule or my kit made it past the June bank holiday weekend.

Dublin is a great city for running. The famed broad streets, parks and seafront make ideal training routes. One of my favourite running routes takes me along the Grand Canal to Kilmainham, over the Luas line and through Phoenix Park. On an early winter morning in Phoenix Park, the Dublin runner shares one thousand acres of wilderness with only a few startled deer and the President, and during the summer, a late evening trot along the seafront is a great way to get some much needed fresh air.

When you’re running, it’s pretty much impossible to do anything other than think. You can’t sustain a phone conversation, nor can you text, tweet, blog or update your facebook profile. You put one foot in front of the other and think about whatever comes into your head. Sometimes, it’s half-forgotten song lyrics and I’ve lost count of the times a run has been ruined because I can’t remember the words to the song which is going through my head.

Other thoughts have been more profound, concerning bigger thoughts about life, careers and places I’d like to live. I recall one long run through Dun Laoghaire when I came up with an entirely new taxation system for Ireland, and another when I planned my Oscar acceptance speech. As someone with a terrible sense of direction, running when thinking often involves me becoming terribly lost in unfamiliar areas of the city. It’s very easy to get lost when your mind wanders as you run and many times I’ve finished mentally working out a solution to a client’s question only to think “hold on, I have absolutely no idea where I am or how to get home.” When you’re lost, Dublin is enormous.

I have completed two previous marathons – Edinburgh and London, both in 2006 and really enjoyed them. The secret to training for a marathon is to run. A lot. Three or four times a week for months. You eat, you run, you wash your kit, you run. You experiment with new energy gels. You buy €15 pairs of doubled-layer socks. You plan new runs, you record details of previous runs. You run. And when you’re in bed or in the office, the ache from your legs is a constant reminder of your last run. There’s really no great secret to it. Anyone can do a marathon if they give themselves plenty of time to train for it. Your toenails might fall off, but you’ll do it if you run.

I have always called myself a runner, not a jogger. I’m not very fast and I don’t look that great when I run, but I’m a runner. When I’m in my office working on some research, I’m a researcher. When I write this blog article, I’m a writer. I do the job so I’m entitled to call myself by my proper title.

The collapse of the global financial system and a more questioning society has resulted in a decline in the awe in which we hold people with certain titles. The pronouncements of politicians, religious leaders and economists are now being held to greater scrutiny than ever before. The titles don’t come with automatic respect any more as people feel confident to challenge them, question them and broadcast their mistakes.

There has been a lot of elitism in the past about job titles which have largely been destroyed with the rise of a new, more meritocratic economy online. The traditional title of “writer” has been undermined as amateur bloggers have developed successful business models through which they can make good incomes from their skills. Anyone with an internet connection and a website can honestly call themselves a writer. They might not be very good, but there are a lot of not very good traditional writers. I’m not very fast, but I’m still a runner.

I like the idea that if you do it, you are it. If you run – even if you potter around the backstreets of Dublin – you’re a runner. If you write a blog about your new kitten, you’re a writer. I like that once protected titles are being opened to scrutiny and a new era of writers, bloggers and tweeters are challenging old vested interests. Websites like politics.ie or thestory.ie now have the capacity to bring down ministers. Blogs, email and twitter can carry the news around the world faster than ever before. They can shape the policy arena more powerfully than the most expensive lobbyists. If you want to be a writer, then write. If you want to have a share in making the news, then do it. And if you want to challenge my business and become a researcher, get researching. There’s space for everyone.

And when you need a change of scenery, get running.