Much Ado About Running

As I type this, it is exactly two months until Marathon Day.

Getting slightly nerve-wracking now. All these months and months and miles and miles of training that I've done add up to a heart attack-inducing 413 miles clocked since August. However, one can train and train and train and train and train and run incredible distances in record-breaking times, but the only performance that really matters is that on the day itself, Sunday 17^th April. Hardly seems fair, does it?

As regards the marathon itself, I have not really got a specific finishing time that I'm aiming for. My mission is simply to complete the 26.2 miles. I believe this in itself is an incredible achievement, considering that I am (or rather, was) a complete beginner at running and that this is my first marathon. 

I don't have a target time, and I'm not aiming to beat Paula Radcliffe or any of the Kenyan or Ethiopian runners who look extremely malnourished but somehow seem to win it every single year. I might perhaps have bitten off more than I can chew but I'm absolutely going to give it my best shot. 

If anything, I'm doing it not only for charity but also for myself. Looking back on my life, I've done quite well academically but on the physical side of things, sports, and so on, I've always been rather lacklustre, or to put it more bluntly, completely and utterly awful. I can't play football, tennis, cricket, rugby (union or league), snooker or even darts to save my life. I was fairly good at rounders at school, but that was only because I was a left-handed batter and I would therefore always hit the ball in the opposite direction to all the other batters. For some reason, the opposing teams never seemed to cotton on to this, so I would usually score lots of easy rounders.

Anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, I was bad at sports when I was a young boy, and this makes me all the more determined to complete the London Marathon. It’s arguably one of the toughest and most gruelling sporting activities, so to me, it’s all about showing everybody exactly what I can do. It is about pushing the boundaries of physical endurance and ultimately proving my worth to the human race.

Or something like that.