It ain't grim up north!

I woke up this morning feeling fresh (as fresh as one feels after a bottle of vino the night before!) and ready to kick start my training. It was a beautiful coastal run in sunny Whitburn (although muddy, windy and wet!) and with a beach finish, Rocky Style! One down, god knows how many more to go!

Hard work ahead

Believe it or not I sit here waiting for the electric man to come and tell me my meter has not been working properly for a number of months and try to charge me more then a trip to the moon in back payments. And I just started thinking maybe I should do a page in our blog, then this lacklustre feeling comes over me and I realise it's the same when i think about running at the mo. I have been putting in a lot of effort, going further and running more then I would usually do, trying out new speed techniques (which were working but have seemed to have stopped), but I still feel lack lustre. Everything hurts, legs, feet, back and I am knackered, I think the thought of proper marathon training scares me and makes feel more uninspired. The thought of the charity getting the money and all the good work they do inspires me but the amount of money we need to raise terrorises me.

Maybe the self imposed chocolate ban that will lift this Sunday might get me out of the lol, spending time with the family will also help. It's all probably down to the fact that our summer appears to be over in March. Anyway someone sponsoring us will help.

Shoot the runner

... But I've done it, I've already taken on the beast and emerged victorious?! What's more I said to my own father that if the idea ever surfaced again, he had full permission to shoot me! I hated the cold winter nights of training in solitude, the aching limbs, the self discipline it required to run further than my previous furthest ever distance every single week!... So why?, why go through all that again, and 8 years older too!

Four reasons actually. Two of them will be running it with me, third is that I now consider running as something close to a hobby (I say close to as I'm not sure how many hobbies make you groan at the thought of it) and once it became so, it was always something that was in the back of my mind to have another crack at. Last and by no means least is the charity we are raising money for, WellChild. The biggest changes in my life have probably come in the years between this marathon and the last and perhaps the biggest of all is that I now have a child of my own, so running it for WellChild is a real privilege and their amazing work holds real resonance with me.

So there it is, with a whole year to prepare and fundraise, April 21 2013 is in the diary, let's just hope my dad forgot the deal I made with him.