This week I am genuinely excited to be starting the 16 week programme that will enable me to run 26.2 miles on the 18^th of October.  I have got new shoes, ordered a GPS watch, bought “The Ultimate Marathon Guide” and have been counting down the hours until I can go on my next run.

I am super happy to be doing this.  I have plans to run along The Thames, the Majorca coast line, Brittany’s beautiful beaches, the streets of Krakow, through Robin Hood County Forest, Fleet, Hitchin, The Chilterns, Warrington, Lisbon… so many adventures waiting to happen and I just want to get on with it already!

**Feel free to remind me of this when we have to run 20 miles on week 10 in scorching summer heat and there is a gradual incline**

However at the moment I’m like an eager exuberant puppy when it hears the word “walkies” whispered conspiratorially by its master, as in, I have endless enthusiasm for running and all things running related.  It’s a complete U-turn on where I was last year and even I think it’s surreal.  For people who haven’t seen me in a few months the transformation must be quite jarring.

I am not an athletic person.  At school teachers assigned me to the “allergic to running” group during cross country season.  And until August last year I had not run for more than a few tortured seconds at any given time and exclusively for emergency purposes only.  But somehow I have ended up here, planning on running a marathon, 14 months after tying up my laces for the first time.

So why a marathon? Surely there are other races more suited to my beginner status?  Well, maybe, but I have already run 5 K, 10 K and 21 K so a marathon is the next most logical step.  Maybe I still don’t quite trust this change of heart and I hope this will cement running in my life forever.  Maybe I still have something to prove.  Maybe booking a race is the only way I know to stay motivated.  Maybe because I had written myself off entirely and the idea of running a marathon has suddenly gone from being absolutely ludicrous to something within the realms of my physical capabilities.  Maybe because I believe I can and maybe, just maybe, my story encourages others in the same position as I was to try running too.

These are many good reasons to run a marathon.

Mostly though, I suspect, it’s because I want to and it would be cool.

I feel I ought to say something profound and offer some insight into how and why I suddenly decided after a lifetime of inactivity that running would be my new hobby.

The “how” was – badly – running was not at all easy to begin with and it did not feel natural to me.  My previously acceptable reasons to run only stretched as far as to;

1) Evade death,

2) Bathroom emergencies and

3) Get first in line to a free buffet.

I used to spend my early runs gasping hopelessly for breath with lead legs and wishing the sessions were over.  Even when I graduated to longer runs (once I had completed a 5 K and wanted a new challenge) I would spend the first  half mentally chiding and belittling myself wondering what the hell I was trying to achieve.  I would always get a stitch about 15-20 minutes into a run and my legs would ache all the next day.  Once I swear I even had an allergic reaction to running.  The only excuse I have for sticking with it (at first) was that I had started the NHS couch to 5 K podcasts (a 9-week programme designed to get almost anybody running for 30 continuous minutes) and I was determined to finish it.  It turns out I can be quite stubborn.  I should point out here that I did not finish the first podcast – I had to stop partway through and go home and nap.  However somewhere along the line, the road, the ParkRun, Didcot Ladygrove Healthy Living Loop or Hackney Marshes I actually started to enjoy the way running made me feel.  I gave my body a purpose and it actually met the challenge.  I stopped getting stitches and muscle aches and could run further and faster with much less effort.  It wasn’t always plain sailing, I got my first injury from overtraining and I was absolutely devastated when I couldn’t run for 2 weeks in February – right before my first 10 K race.  So it is an enormous sense of accomplishment to say I have run my first half marathon when 10 months ago I couldn’t run for even a full minute.  Running has a truly measurable, addictive progress, where the only competition is yourself and the community is so mixed and welcoming (GO TO A PARKRUN to see what I mean).  Anyone could be a runner (barring obvious medical complications)!

The “why” is harder to define, perhaps it was just a combination of the right time, right place, good support and encouragement along the way (you know who you are) and a Race booked as a goal – and those things certainly helped but I think it really just boils down to the fact that I had decided I would do it and so I did.  I know it seems like I have joined some kind of running cult, as I have all the zeal and enthusiasm of a recent convert, but genuinely if you are curious and want a new challenge then why not try it too?  You might just surprise yourself!

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/c25k/Pages/couch-to-5k.aspx

http://www.parkrun.org.uk/