motivation

I'm now a week away from starting the marathon training plan proper - and planning to enjoy the last week of relative freedom. I'm surprised how psyched out I am by the impending training schedule. I'd managed a 4 day per week training schedule for a half marathon earlier this year, but for some reason the prospect of 4-5 days a week, with much more mileage, is daunting. Perhaps it's because I remember how much time the half marathon training took up, and I know the full marathon will take up more. Perhaps it's because I'm going to be training through the warmest months of the year. Or perhaps I'm just a big wuss. In any case, the race itself is far less terrifying than the 15 weeks preceding it.

Still the schedule is printed and ready to go on the fridge door. I've broken it down into sections with interim goals so that it is more like 4 short training schedules than one long single schedule. Hopefully this strategy will work.

In the meantime, this week will be a social whirl so I can fit in as many nights out and meet-ups as possible before I start to withdraw from polite society in order to do '5 miles, steady'

first day

This is my first day of blogging but it's not a day for jogging. A typical British summer day, with grey skies and the odd clap of thunder, I'm nursing a gardening-induced hamstring strain so am giving the legs a rest for a couple of days while the weather dries out. I'm going to use the time to get used to writing this blog and establish how this whole thing works. I've got just under two weeks until the marathon training starts properly so until then, any readers out there will have to make do with minutiae of London life and general running anecdotes.