So I did it.
I finally entered The London Marathon.
Gulp.
I’ve run for about eight years now. I took up running when I moved to Southampton for work after university, to meet people and make friends in a new city.
Since then, I’ve moved to Cheltenham, where I now live and work from home. I rowed at school and university – but looking back now, I was never that good at it.
I was too short.
Too weak.
Too inflexible.
Pretty rubbish, in hindsight. But I worked hard and did as well as I could. I’m a much better runner, it turns out.
Running follows cycles. Cross country, relays, track and repeat.
Every year, April comes around and my Strava and Instagram feeds are full of marathon training. And every year I get, what I call, ‘the Marathon itch’. And every year, someone – a friend, a coach, a more experienced runner – says,
“Don’t enter a marathon until your older. It ruins your life and kills your speed.
But it is the best thing you’ll ever do!”
So this is what I expected when I sat down with my coach, Jo, probably in Woodkraft, one of our favourite post-parkrun-breakfast cafes, and told her about the 2024 marathon ‘itch’ I wanted to scratch in 2025. Except, this time, she didn’t say ‘no’. She said, I’m paraphrasing of course… but she said something along the lines of, ‘Well yes, I was wondering about that too. We’ve gradually increased your long runs and mileage so you’re in good place. For the marathon, you’d need to up it a little more again, but we’ve got a good base…’
Well, that was unexpected and not the ‘talk down’ I’d expected.
So here I am, just starting my First. Ever. Marathon. Block.
It’s not special, I know. Thousands, probably millions of people have trained and run a marathon. But I haven’t. So this is totally new for me. So I thought, why not create a bit of a diary to capture my experience, learnings and if you want, you can follow along with me. If not, well, that’s fine too.
