Father I have sinned ...

Day:         108

Distance: 6.29km/3.91 miles

Time:       33:20 secs

Calories:  517

It's been four days since my last run. I am now officially in the 'tapering' period of my marathon training, so I am supposed to be easing off but that's ridiculous. 

Turning 30 hasn't helped matters, not because I've spent the last few days weeping for my lost youth (although I have been doing plenty of that), but because celebrations have rather got in the way of marathon training. On Saturday me and my mate Landy waved goodbye to our 20s with our last ever birthday pub crawl - the suitably messy Zombie pub crawl through London. The crawl started at midday and took us through South London and into the West End via 14 taverns and ale houses. As ever, our mates made a phenomenal effort on the dressing up front so I wanted to share this photo with you.

Night of the Living Dead London style.

After a 12 hour session (and all the extra time taken to scrub off facepaint and peel off latex skin) there was no chance that I'd be running on the Sunday. The fact that I was flying to Austria in the afternoon also meant that there'd be no run on either Monday or Tuesday, so actually this run on Wednesday morning (4 days after the last run) was really the best I could do. Honest guv.

When I did finally set out for a run the mind was willing but my withered 30 year old body was less than able. I intended to go out for 45 minutes, but felt so shattered after 25 minutes that I decided to cut the run short and head for home. I arrived home covered in sweat and out of breath. A 32 minute run really shouldn't be causing me this many problems this far into my marathon training. Worrying.

London (Marathon) Calling

What better way to celebrate turning 30 next year than putting myself through 26 miles 385 yards of physical pain and emotional torment? Well, I could have a party or organise the pub crawl to end all pub crawls, but that's going to have to wait until after 17th April 2011.


I'd always been sceptical about running a marathon. Obviously, it's an unbelievable achievement but much like scoring the winning goal in a Cup final, walking on the Moon or finding a cure for cancer it was an achievement that I could never realistically see adorning my CV. Over the last couple of years I've got into running and found, to my amazement, that I'm actually pretty good at it. I've now run numerous 10k races and I ran the Brentwood Half Marathon earlier this year so I now feel that I'm ready to tackle the aforementioned 26 miles 385 yards (or, for any European readers out there 42.195 kilometres).


Thanks should go to my employer, GfK NOP, for giving me a place in next year's London Marathon. I'll be running on behalf of Diabetes UK, who I hope to raise loads of money for. I'll be setting up a justgiving site in the New Year.


Much like marathons, I'd always been sceptical about writing a blog. I'm a self-confessed Luddite and have often wondered what people's motivations were in setting up blogs. My motivation is that I really want to document the progress that I make whilst training for the marathon and having a blog seemed like the best way to do it. This blog is intended to be an online diary that records my progress through my training plan right up to the big day. I'll also take the time to discuss such crucial elements of my training plan as the play list I'm developing to help keep me running on the day.


I'm not so vain as to suppose that many people, if any, will read this blog but in a way that's not the point. Much as I'd love people to read this and post their opinions I'll be happy to simply have a record of what I'm going to be doing over the next few months.