She do run run run

You know, this running a marathon thing isn't easy.

More on that tomorrow.

But for today...

Thank you, James, for seeing me off at the start and popping up at intervals throughout the course. Thank you, Rebecca, for telling me I was looking good at twelve miles, and Julie and Gwyn for giving up a whole day this close to your wedding to cheer me on. Thank you Carissa for being there with sisterly support, and Mornie and Grandpa for looking after the children. And Jus and Michelle for singing 'She do run run run she do run run,' and Evie for the fabulous sign, and all of you for hanging around afterwards even though it took me forever to finish. And Jane for cheering, not only on Tower Bridge but at Embankment too. And Mum, for kitting the children out with 'My mum ran London 2011' t shirts in advance - if that's not faith I don't know what is.

I finished. Let it be known and sung from the rooftops - I finished.

Post mortems and analysis can wait. I finished.

The rest can wait.

The final night

So this is it. The next time I go to bed I'll have finished the London Marathon. Or not finished it, or been fished out of the gutter and limped to the end...This time tomorrow, I'll know what happened in the end.

I'll be sure to let you know.

And thank you. All of you, for everything.

The final week

This time next week, it'll all be over. In fact, this time next week I'll be at chorus, where my fellow singers will be raising a bit more money with a charity raffle and book sale in aid of the Wegener's Trust. When the marathon gets too much, I am going to think about how utterly shameful it would be to walk into rehearsal on Tuesday next week, knowing that people have sponsored me and donated raffle prizes and brought along books to sell and will be buying raffle tickets, and say, 'Thank you for all this, but I didn't actually finish the race.'

Likewise, how could I look at my mother, who's so often held the fort at home while I've run, or at The Bride, who's coming from Taunton a fortnight before her wedding to shout at me from the sidelines, or James and the children, who've waved me off on my long Sunday runs for what seems like an eternity now? Or my friend R, who, with a million other calls on her time, is coming to cheer me on, or my parents-in-law, who are coming to care for the children so that James can see me off? Or any of the people, friends and strangers, who've sponsored me, asked questions, left comments on the blog, or simply said, 'Well done?' I won't deserve all that if I don't finish.

I have to finish. I have worked so hard for so many months now. I've run in the dark when it's been impossible to run in the day. I've run in rain and cold, after nights of less than five hours' sleep, at weekends when I'd have given anything in my power to stay at home with James and the children. I've done the long runs, I've read books, I've taken advice. But the fact is that I haven't done enough. I'm terrified it's going to be hot on Sunday. I'm scared I won't make it past twenty one miles, the furthest I've ever run in one go. I'm worried that I just don't have it in me to do this thing. In a funny kind of way, the taper isn't doing me any favours. I never feel like going for a run - it's always a real battle with myself to get out there and get going - but the first three miles are always the hardest. Now, with the runs being shorter, I do the difficult bit without really settling into the run. But it's so good to be back in tens of minutes rather than in hours, to set off knowing that I'll be home soon. The training programme has two more runs - a five mile one and a three mile one. It doesn't seem like enough.

On the plus side, we're on holiday in Cornwall, which is making it extraordinarily easy to follow all the advice about eating plenty of carbohydrates in the days before the race. Clotted cream scones, fish and chips, ice cream, treats from the bakery in the village, the odd glass of red wine. And rest. Even though the nights are quite broken, the days are relaxed. DVDs, walks to the village, sandcastles on the beach, stories on the sofa, lots of laughing. Lots of happy images to think about when the going gets tough.

At the end of the day, those images are why I'm doing this. Funding research, raising awareness, all the drama of setting up a charity and training for a marathon - it all comes down to watching three little children dancing on the sand, chasing the waves with their daddy, who's holding the baby in his arms.

Oh How Are The Mighty Fallen

Well, it's not surprising. And I knew it was happening because my clothes stopped fitting me. You've lost weight is fine. But you're looking gaunt isn't. I didn't really get what people were talking about until I pulled my sports bra on over my head today and took at least a minute to realise that I'd put it on back to front.

Sleep and medals

Here's the question - what's better for marathon preparation? A good long run or a good night's sleep? On Friday night, something amazing happened to me. Something I'd almost given up on. You see other people on the streets - not models or film stars, just ordinary people commuting or buying bread or queuing in the post office - and you know that they are regularly experiencing something I've only dreamed about since June 2005. Or at least, that I would have dreamed about if I ever got the chance. One of those wonderful Things That Happen to Other People finally and gorgeously happened to me. On Friday night, I went to bed and went to sleep and (this is the incredible bit) stayed asleep until I woke up. No crying baby. No toddler wanting company at two in the morning. No children ready for breakfast at sunrise. No school run or lift to the station or crack-of-dawn deliveries. Just a comfortable bed in a quiet location with no children or commitments within a radius of some hundred miles. Nice place, Eindhoven.

I've promised myself that, if I survive April 17th, I'll never run again. But with an entire night of uninterrupted sleep behind me, I began to wonder whether I'd be able to look beyond survival in another marathon. If you could make a commitment to meet a friend and run together, knowing that your children would, as a rule, be at school - or join a running club - or be able to commit to a particular time and prepare for that time instead of having to grab opportunities as they arose - maybe, just maybe, the process would be more (whispers) fun. If going for a run didn't mean missing time playing with the children, or watching a film with James, or writing a chapter or meeting a friend or even keeping up with the bills and household administration - if one could do those things AND go for a run, maybe it would be less lonely. Less of an effort to actually get out there.

I've stopped beating myself up about my time. Between six and six and a half hours is how it is. Maybe one day, in the distant future, when the children are all at school and James' Wegeners (please God) is in the past, I'll be able to try again. But for now, I've done the long runs. I've put in the time and the distance. I've raised money.

When Amersham A Cappella, the wonderful ladies' barbershop chorus in which I sing baritone, was competing at the UK Convention of the Ladies' Association of Barbershop Singers (no, I didn't make that up, it really exists), a coach came to work with us. And she told us to sing our competition package as though we had already won the gold.

We got on stage, and we sang our competition package as though we had already won the gold. And, my friends, we won that gold. Hence we were in Eindhoven at the weekend as the guests of the Dutch Association of Barbershop Singers. Hence I got my full night's sleep, the effects of which have not fully worn off yet. Hence all the optimism flourishing in this post.

So, here and now, I make my declaration. I will finish this marathon and live to tell the tale.

Counting down

Not this Sunday, not the Sunday after that, but the Sunday after that. Twenty sleeps (or, if last night is anything to go by, twenty lack-of-sleeps). On 17th April, I have to run more miles than I have nights left to sleep in preparation.

And I have discovered that, in 2003, Mike Watson took six days to finish the London marathon. He had been in a coma for six months and had six brain operations following a boxing match with Chris Eubank so for him to do it at all was spectacular. My performance, along with every other person who's ever run the marathon, will fall somewhere in between Paula Radcliffe and Mike Watson. They're both heroes. Therefore the rest of us must be too. Even if it is going to take me six and a half hours to finish.

I've also discovered that the Guy's and St Thomas' Charity (under whose umbrella the Wegener's Trust is run) is laying on a congratulatory party for its runners at a pub near the finish. Hurrah! I never imagined, in a million years, that I would walk into a party with a sporting medal round my neck, to be feted as an achiever.

The trouble is that the race starts at ten. I'm a six-plus hours runner. And the party finishes at 4.30.

The Last Long Run

Until I started training for this marathon, I thought a taper was a thin candle used by Victorian parlourmaids in pintucked cotton nightgowns taking themselves up the garret stairs to bed. I quite liked that. However, since I discovered that a taper is a planned reduction in the length and intensity of training runs in the weeks before a marathon, it has become one of my favourite words in the English language. Only 'rest' and 'day' (in that order) come ahead.

'Long' and 'run' (in that order) are really quite far behind. 'Long run' is down there with 'While You Were Out' or 'ADT alarm systems' or 'I'm sure I mentioned it to you.' From Long Run's position in the league tables, it can just about see 'Nits are about again' in the distance ahead. Long Run hopes that, if it works really hard, it might just catch up with the need to replace the hoover or the fact that the school's given dads a chance to go in with one week's notice, during the time that James is in Saudi Arabia. Long Run aspires to the position of Internet Connection Cannot Be Established or Password Not Recognised. It's got a long way to go.

But now, thanks to Taper, Sunday's Long Run was my last before the marathon. Not my last run, I hasten to add. But I don't have to run 21 miles again until Sunday 17th April. The fact that, on Sunday 17th April, I'll have to go another 5.2, really isn't important right now. Neither is the fact that those twenty one miles took me five hours and two minutes. I'm tapering now. I knew there'd be good moments if I stuck with it for long enough.

Reality bites

Today I really really tried to do everything right. I had breakfast. I'd arranged to meet a friend so I couldn't get out of it. James was lined up to meet me with his bicycle and some water. I was all set to try the proprietary sports drink I've avoided like the plague thus far, to see if it helped with the light-headedness thing. And I kept going - I did 21 miles, and didn't start to walk until 18 miles.

But here's the thing - in terms of time, all this made little or no difference. The 18 miles I mostly walked a fortnight ago took me 4 hours and 8 minutes. The 18 miles I ran today took me 4 hours and 4 minutes. No matter what I do, I seem to be looking at a finish time approaching 6 hours. Six hours! I know I didn't go into this as an aspiring athlete, but I did think that by putting in the hours and doing the runs, I might be able to aim for five hours. Or something. A time that doesn't sound as though I walked the whole way. All this time, I've been saying, I just want to finish, I just want to finish. And that's still true, of course. But with just five weeks to go, I've realised that this is it. I'm not going to get any faster.

So my next challenge - and one I hadn't expected to face - is not to mind and to focus on what's important. I'm not a runner - it's never been a hobby - this was all very new to me and I've had to work on my own. What's important is the Wegener's Trust, raising funds and awareness. What's important is James and the children. What's important is all the support I've had so far (and please don't stop!) None of these things will change if I run in five, six, seven hours. I've just got to not mind.

A letter to the jelly babies

Dear Jelly Babies,

I would like to thank you, sincerely, for the support and help you have given me so far in my marathon training. Your dedication to the cause has been impressive, and you have put up with treatment which, in any other context, would be referred to the International Court of Jelly Baby Rights. Hidden in dark corners of the cupboard, thrust into pockets, brutally dismembered in the cause - you have the right to be angry (although, in my defence, the dark cupboards were about protecting you from the children).

But yesterday, after about two hours of slow lolloping and a blood sugar plummet, I realised that I don't actually like you very much. We only got together because someone else said we should - it was never a true relationship. You're great - full of glucose and quick-release sugars. You're even fortified with Vitamin C! You look sweet, in all your little candy colours, and you fit so nicely into a pocket. You don't even ask to be unwrapped. You're perfect - except you're just not what I need. It's not you, it's me.

There's no one else, I promise. But I have to be honest with you - I am seeing other sweets. The Galaxy Counters were a disaster - tasted good but left both a tremendous thirst and potentially embarrassing stains in their wake. And the hard shell on a Minstrel just gets in the way of the chocolate. Maybe I should try a Wine Gum? But what would a Wine Gum have that you don't have? These are difficult and confusing times and I'm truly sorry that I've involved you - I can only say that my motives have been good. I did not set out to hurt you (except, obviously, by biting off your limbs at points of particular need).

It's not enough for everyone else to say we're right together - you with your fantastic energy stores, me with my demanding training schedule. No one else is going to run this marathon for me, and I have to find my own way of doing things. Maybe we will find each other again. But for now, it's a trip to the Pic 'n' Mix for me.

Good luck, Jelly Babies. And thank you.

Antonia xxx

The kindness of strangers

I've learned a great deal this weekend. One was to be open when people ask questions. We had a lovely lunch in the local Italian restaurant on Saturday and, as we were leaving, a grandfatherly gentleman praised the drawing that O (5) had been working on. He asked me what we were celebrating. And instead of saying, oh, just life, I took a deep breath and said, 'I got a last minute place on the Silverstone half-marathon tomorrow.'

'What on earth are you doing that for?' he asked. And instead of telling the truth, which is that I haven't got the foggiest idea, especially as my training runs are getting slower and slower and I am getting less and less convinced that I can actually do this, I said, 'I'm hoping to complete the London Marathon in April.'

He asked whether it was just for me or whether I was raising money for something. And I explained, and not only did he give me a fiver then and there, he told his friend all about it and he gave me a fiver too. So thank you, random elegant grandfatherly gentlemen, for your interest at least as much as for the money. And the same goes for my new blog follower - five now no less! - who alone justifies the existence of the Internet in terms of the boost her interest has given me.

I've also learned that I cannot run eleven minute miles for very long. Silverstone was my first ever real race. I thought I'd be able to keep up with the slowest pacing group, but no. At only six miles the beast of light-headedness descended and no amount of jelly babies could shift it. At nine miles, James waved at me and I went over to tell him I wasn't having a good time. 'I know,' he said, and pushed me back in to the race.

And, at ten miles, I learned I need to eat lunch. I'd thought the race started at ten; when I checked the details last night I found it started at twelve, and I never really absorbed that change. I ate breakfast, we set off at half past nine, got stuck in the approach traffic and then got so involved in working out where to go and what to do that somehow it was twelve and I was lined up to start and I hadn't even thought about food.

I limped home in 2 hours and 52 minutes. Not my finest hour. I was beaten by two men carrying a surfboard between them, a gladiator and Sonic the hedgehog. And an octogenarian. I did come in ahead of a giraffe and Katie Price though (hope she made it, we'd been running alongside on and off for almost the entire race but she left the track with a bad knee at 12 miles). And I did limp home, I've got a medal hanging on the bathroom mirror to prove it.

Hard Going

I am so slow. So very very slow. Last week I was disappointed because I had to start walking at fifteen miles; this week I started walking at nine miles. It took me four hours and nine minutes to cover eighteen miles.

The thing is, though, that I did cover eighteen miles. And I so nearly didn't. E (1) made sure I didn't get to bed until midnight; A (2) had me up from twenty past five. I was already tired after a five-day holiday at Center Parcs - whoever said that Center Parcs was a relaxing break needs to be locked in a dark cupboard with nothing but bread and water for a very long time.

So, after covering the marathon distance over three runs during the week, today was eighteen miles. James had promised to come and meet me with water and encouragement and I was looking out for him. Not to have the water and encouragement but to give up. It was cold, it was raining, it was too far. I'd covered the distance during the week. I'm running a half marathon practise race next weekend and the magazine says that you mustn't do your longest run in the week before. I was hungry. My mittens were soaked through, as were my trainers, which desperately need to be replaced. I could feel the trench foot setting in. I had no energy and had to walk, and I promised myself that the minute James drew up in the Renault Espace, I would leap into the passenger seat and thereby prove myself sensible and realistic and as far removed from martyrdom as it's possible to be.

The number of cars that are not Renault Espaces is staggering. And the number of Renault Espaces that are not driven by James in shining armour is more staggering still.

I limped to thirteen miles, convinced that James and the children were all eating fish and chips and enjoying the fourth Shrek film, which we got out of the library yesterday. I kept a monologue going along the lines of here I am wearing myself into a wet frazzle, about to die, and you can't even be bothered to bring me the sip of water that would save my life... A friend from O and T's school drew up to ask if I was all right ... see even people who barely KNOW me care enough to ask how I am while you just stay all comfortable and warm...and suddenly, at fourteen miles, there he was.

I leaned into the open passenger window and burst into tears. My hands were too cold to unscrew the lid on the water bottle. 'Come on, get in,' he said, 'it's raining really hard and you've done lots.'

If he'd been there at nine miles, I've have climbed straight in. But I had four miles to go. Just four. I was soaked through - I wasn't going to get any wetter. We rendezvous-ed two miles on, I had more water and he drove home to run a hot bath for me while I dragged myself the last miles home.

And I did it. Eighteen miles. I got back and cried, and A and T got into the bath with me, and we watched Shrek and then had a teddy bears' picnic (encompassing fairly major surgery for two of the bears who've been on the waiting list for months).

Eighteen miles is a long way. Twenty six point two is even longer. And somewhere between nine and fourteen miles is the line between imminent divorce and exactly the right kind of support.

Fail again, fail better

I ran again on Sunday. 17.1 miles. Except that when I got to almost sixteen miles, I simply could not run any more. I suddenly felt that I was floating away from the road, and that if I kept running, I would end up horizontal. I walk the first ten minutes of a long run, and at this point I was running more slowly than I'd walked at the start. So I gave up running, had two jelly babies and walked the last mile and a bit. Every time I tried to run, I got that light-headed, fainting feeling and had to walk again.

So it may have been 17.1 miles, but it was three hours and forty minutes.

And the pavement keeps running out. On Sunday, I ended up running along something which had been signposted as a bridle path, but which actually ran round the edge of an incredibly muddy field. I gave up when I realised I was carrying my own bodyweight in mud on my trainers. Then I found a footpath. Which was all very well until the path started being marked with signs saying, 'Beware - dangerous wild animals.' I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz saying, 'Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!' over and over again. Then I realised I was being watched intently by a flock of ostriches.

They're bigger than you think they are, ostriches.

Sir Colin Davies collapsed on Wednesday night, just as he was walking through the orchestra pit at the Royal Opera House to begin a performance of The Magic Flute. I know, I was there. I was in the front row. If I'd reached out my hand, I could have stroked the curly bit of a cello. One moment, I was drawing breath in anticipation of the overture, the next, I was exchanging terrified glances with a cellist. We take music for granted. It comes to us so easily - the purchase of a CD, the touch of a screen, even the sliding of a lift door, brings us music, music, music. Sir Colin was fine; he recovered quickly. But when he fell, the skill, training, effort, dedication, the years and years that go into creating a musician, condensed into one brief heartbeat that said, do not take this sublime human expression for granted.

It's easy to think that running is just running. That seventeen miles is nearly eighteen, nearly twenty, and that twenty's not so far from twenty six, and that a marathon's only 0.2 miles more than that. But every little gain in the product of work, of training, of determination. And each step is hard won.

I didn't manage 15 miles last week. I didn't manage 17 on Sunday. If I can just keep on not managing a little more each week, I might just make it.

And sometimes you just have to laugh...

I'm trying to make some fairy cakes for when T (4) gets home from nursery. She's tired, we need half term, she doesn't want to go to ballet this afternoon. And A (2) is helping me. He's emptied my secret store of jelly babies into the mixing bowl, eaten the black ones and is now trying to add an entire jar of instant coffee on the grounds that it 'smells nice.'

He's just found the Calpol.

Jelly babies, coffee and Calpol. Sounds like a power potion to me. Maybe I should just let him get on with it.

Just keep swimming

On Saturday, I had to do my next long run. I was aiming for fifteen miles this time. One good thing that's coming out of this training is a vast improvement in my mental arithmetic. My running watch does distance in miles, the treadmill only in kilometres. The running watch gives pace in miles per minute, the treadmill does kilometres per hour. And I'm not that good at maths, so working out how long it's going to take me to get where I'm going is good for several minutes of distraction on a run. I worked out that, having managed 13.1 miles in two and a half hours, I should be able to do fifteen miles in three hours.

I didn't feel like it. I didn't want to go. But I set off. And, to cut a very long story short, not only did I take almost three and a half hours, I only managed 14.8 miles. I had to walk some of the way (granted, my walking pace is actually faster than my slow running pace sometimes, but still, I had managed to keep a running motion going for the whole half marathon distance and was really disappointed). And when I got near home and was only 0.2 miles short, I simply could not keep going and fell short of the distance. This in spite of four jelly babies, including a black one.

And this is the trouble with doing something ambitious. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. The hard thing is not to let the failures overshadow the successes. Attempting this marathon was never going to be easy.

So what went wrong? I have been very tired. James has not been well and A (2) and E (1) have been taking it in turns to keep me up in the night - just as one settles, the other starts. The pavement ran out at 6.5 miles; I kept going anyway and found myself running the middle two miles on a thin, sloped, muddy verge next to a very busy road, culminating in a bridge over the A41 leading down towards the M25. And my trainers aren't waterproof.

But that's not it. I just never got to a place in that long run where I was running. It was effort, effort, effort all the way. When we're learning a new song in chorus, there's a time when you hold the music and look at it. Then you put the music down and concentrate really hard on remembering it, glancing at it now and then to make sure you're getting it right. Then you put the music away and give every ounce of energy to singing your line right, relying only on the learning you've done. And then, one day, when you've accepted that you just have to give it that level of energy all the time, it all falls into place. The song becomes yours, and even if you don't sing it for months, even years, the harmonies just come back whenever you need them.

In running terms, I'm still gripping that music. And sometimes it goes right, and sometimes it doesn't.

If this was horseriding, I'd have to get back on the horse. Instead, as the running isn't going brilliantly, I'll fall back on the mantra of the dizzy blue fish in Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming.

Except I'll be running, obviously.

Bad week, good things

After the achievement of my first half marathon, I was both nervous and quite excited about the next long run. Did the fact that I was still alive after thirteen miles mean that I might manage fourteen? But I needn't have worried. The Bride came on a flying dress selection visit, Mum had a singing event and James was flying off to Mauritius (deep envy mixed with deep concern - he wasn't well - on the one hand he shouldn't have been travelling, on the other, four nights in a nice hotel in 27 degrees has to be good for one's health surely?). I had a lovely day with the children but it didn't involve much running. So I got on the treadmill later, when Mum came home, and I got off again after four kilometres. Four, when I'd been planning on attempting twenty-something!

I ran today, and as I was about to turn towards home at nearly six miles, so that I'd be in good time for mum to leave for her Pilates class, a friend from chorus waved and cheered me on from her car. I realised that I still had a little bit of time, did another two miles and still got home in time for Mum.

Apparently there'll be quite a few people cheering on the day. Perhaps if I pretend every single one of them is Annette cheering from her car on the A404, I might just make it.

Running in the dark

After two bad days on the treadmill, I knew that I had to get out yesterday. James has fallen victim to a virus which makes it harder to get out - or easier to find a reason not to, I'm not sure which. It was one of those days when you don't draw breath until the children are in bed. I got changed and went to the treadmill just before eight o'clock, took one look at it and knew that if I started I would stop within about five minutes.

But I knew I had to run, because if I stop, I won't start again.

I grabbed my high visibility jacket (so fetching, dah-ling) and dashed off into the night. It was cold. It was dark. It was windy. But it wasn't boring. In fact, once I'd got out of the village, where the street lighting comes to an end, it was quite an adventure. I couldn't see the path in front of my feet. Branches leapt out and hit me. Cars passed with their headlights on full beam, leaving dancing trails of afterimages. Every now and then, a whole line of cars would pass me, lighting up the path for long enough for me to run the next few yards reasonably confidently.

When I got back to our road, I found James setting out to look for me. He beckoned me into the car - but it's 0.2 of a mile from the end of our road to our house, and I needed that 0.2 to bring me to eight miles. 'Madness,' he said sadly, shaking his head.

Of course it was madness. I could have turned my ankle in a pothole, lost the footpath and strayed onto the road in the dark, caught hypothermia, you name it. But I did run eight miles.

That was then...

There are many, many different marathon training programmes you can follow but they all agree on one thing. You have to have a rest day after a long run. I did a long run on Sunday so yesterday I was absolutely, totally and completely obliged not to run. I am really, really good at not running. I tackled not running like a true professional. I took my not running extremely seriously. I spent the whole day not running.

And then I woke up.

Every training programme agrees on the rest day, but not one single one of them says that the rest day should carry on for more than twenty four hours. I know, I've checked.

And so today was back to the treadmill. And it was so hard. Thirteen miles on Sunday was so much easier than four miles was today. I was so tired. It's been such a busy day. On what planet does a woman with four children aged five and under decide it would be a good idea to train for a marathon?

Silly questions

Yesterday I went to an information day run by the Virgin London Marathon team for the benefit of Golden Bond runners (these are runners who have been given a charity place, rather than runners who've qualified by doing excellent times or who have got in through the ballot). And today I ran 13.1 miles, which is half the total marathon distance. I think these two facts are related.

Firstly, I got chatting to other people, including Mike, who as well as listening sympathetically to my worries about actually completing this marathon, took one of my limited edition Fairy Tales for Marathon Runners cards and sponsored me. Thank you. Secondly, I got answers to questions that had been bothering me. Silly things, like where to start from, would I be able to take a bag and if I did, would I have to carry it round the course, how would I be able to meet up with James afterwards? And - most importantly and hardest to ask - when will the route be closed? What's my marathon completion window?

Seven hours.

And the advice of the ultra-marathoner who advocates total avoidance of carbohydrates was deemed inappropriate for first-timers, and the importance of doing an increasingly long run every week was highlighted, and jelly babies were praised. I felt more like part of something and less like an impostor about to be unmasked. David Bedford (the race director) said that 97% of the people who make it to the start line, finish.

And so today I ran 13.1 miles. It took me just over two and a half hours and I still feel dizzy every time I stand up too fast. But somewhere, deep in my nervous, inexperienced and still-not-quite-believing-it psyche, a little spark of maybe-perhaps sprang into life. Maybe-perhaps I will cross that finishing line.

Mind tricks

I'm beginning to think that running a long way is just a question of tricking yourself into thinking you're doing anything other than running a long way. Because as soon as you think, gosh, I've chalked up three kilometres (that'll be a fourteenth of the total distance), you immediately think helphelphelp I have to do thirty nine more, which is a physical impossibility, as I am about to die having just done three, and I'll just check again and oh my goodness that's not even 3.01 km and everything's aching and would you look at that the distance monitor has actually stopped which is a good thing as I couldn't have done any more. And then you stop. Whereas if you can avoid thinking, gosh, I've chalked up three kilometres, the whole vicious cycle forgets to start and sometimes you can get to six or even ten kilometres without realising you're aching.

The most I've done so far was sixteen, and that was by mistake because I can't read maps. I didn't realise that Waterloo Bridge didn't meet the Thames Path head on and so ended up doing a loop round Parliament Square and Whitehall. You can't pull tricks like that on a treadmill.

I had a lovely post from a former student who'd found me by accident. Apart from being delighted to hear from her, the post was good for at least five kilometres - I was thinking about the class she'd been a part of and the production she saved when she stepped in last-minute in place of a young man whose dancing skills were surpassed only by his own opinion of his dancing skills. I remember how affronted he was when I said it was unprofessional to walk out on a show just days before performance week. He seemed to think I ought to have counted my lucky stars that I'd had him in it up to that point. Jane was a real dancer, committed as well as skilled. She was in several productions I directed and missed only one rehearsal - and that was to take part in an archeological dig. Digging and dancing - what a combination! I wonder which way her life took her. (See? Five kilometres, easily).

My sponsorship page is up - www.virginmoneygiving/wegenersmarathon - thank you so much if you have already sponsored me. Please do - it's incredibly encouraging, as are posts on the blog! I've had some cards printed too, each with a different Fairy Tale for Marathon Runners on the back (five to collect). This whole crazy idea is about raising awareness as well as raising money, so simply by reading, you're helping the Wegener's Trust. Thank you.

Lovely Arches

I've done two significant things since the last post. Firstly, I attended a training afternoon with some of the other people who are running for Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital Charity (under whose umbrella the Wegener's Trust operates). Instead of having a strong suspicion that I'm the least experienced and slowest runner they have, I am now absolutely certain I'm the least experienced and slowest runner they have. On the plus side, I found out that I have lovely foot arches. That'll be a comfort as the others all go sailing past me, as they did on the training run in Southwark Park.

I also bought some books. It's what I do in the face of great challenge. When James and I decided to start a family, I read every book on conception I could find, and startled James practically to divorce by announcing one evening that we'd never got pregnant unless he gave up red wine for the duration. Then, whilst hunting down the gazillion obscure food supplements recommended in these various books, I discovered a single tablet that did it all. 'Specifically designed to promote male fertility,' it said on the label. Vitamin E? Check. Selenium? Check. Vitamin C? Check. And there, on the label, as a featured ingredient, was 'Extract of Red Wine.'

I had to grace to put the bottle back and go home and open an altogether different and tastier bottle with James, much to his relief.

Unfortunately, relaxing with a good red wine won't get me trained. Neither will reading books, even if they do promise (variously) to fulfil all my dreams, put me into communication with the universal human spirit, give me eternal youth on a plate and give Tony Blair a conscience (ok I made that last one up - even American motivational blether has its limits).

The only one I feel might work for me is 'Run a Marathon in Sixteen Weeks!!!' I think that's a realistic target. I'm just not sure Boris Johnson will be prepared to keep the roads closed for that long.

The Route Clutterer

I apologise to all those real runners out there who are training for this Marathon, talking about sub-four and sub-three and if-you-manage-x-you-can-start-with-the-elites-next-year and knowing what you’re supposed to do with those little sachets of stuff they give out with the water later in the route. But running is boring. I get bored. And I’m not very good at it (I suspect those two may be related). I know that if I am to complete this Marathon I have to do a lot of it, and I really am trying. But I’m not a real runner. I’m a well-intentioned wife, mother and unpublished novelist trying to do something for a charity that means – well, everything, really. James was diagnosed early and lives a full life. David was not diagnosed and died. We need nice people in this world. We can’t have them keeling over and leaving widows and widowers and fatherless sons and daughters simply because no one’s heard of Wegener’s granulomatosis. And we can’t keep blasting suffers with ghastly chemotherapy simply because we don’t know what else to do. Awareness must be raised and research must be done. It’s such a rich area for research – at the last Wegener’s trust meeting, the PhD student the Trust is funding presented some of her research, and it was so exciting to see the progress being made and the ideas that are bubbling to the surface as a result. One of those bubbles, properly nurtured, may become a more targeted treatment. An accurate tool for diagnosis. A cure.

And so I get back on the machine while O and T are at school and nursery and A and E are napping. I get on it when my mum comes over to supervise the children’s tea, and if neither of those scenarios have been possible, I get on it when the children are in bed and the dinner is cooking. I would rather be doing almost anything else. And I’m increasingly worried that what I’m doing isn’t enough – that I won’t get round the course – that I am just not runner enough to make it.

My Proper Runner friend won’t do the London Marathon, because she loves running and there are too many amateurs cluttering the route. I cling to that. I’m no good as a runner, but I reckon I’ll be a pretty effective route-clutterer.

Happy New Year 2011

2011. So here begins the year. The year in which my dear friend Julie is getting married (it’s ok, we’ve found the dress and it is truly a thing of great beauty, especially with Julie inside it). The year in which I turn 40. The year in which I can no longer say that I’m running the London Marathon next year. Because I’m not running the London Marathon next year any more. I’m running the London Marathon this year.

Not so very long from now, in fact.

I’ve been running fairly consistently for a while now, but my runs have been short and slow. I recently put my timing into the Runner’s World time prediction page and it came back with six hours and something. I’ve got to get faster, because if I am running for six hours and something and am still alive, I will end up lobotomizing myself with a teaspoon. My friend Emma’s mother ran the Marathon a few years ago and carolled cheerfully, ‘Oh, you’ll do it in half the time I did!’ In nervous trepidation, I ventured to enquire as to her time, feeling even as I did so that the answer ‘Twelve hours’ was extremely unlikely. Four and half hours, she said. Four and a half hours. If I ran a marathon in four and a half hours I would be singing it from the rooftops and dancing in the streets with an illuminated placard.

It’s not going to happen. I have got to be realistic even while I am reaching for the stars. If I can finish this thing and raise some money for the Wegener’s Trust, that will be lovely. Fantastic. Wonderful. Four, five, six hours? It’ll take all the time I can give to training and more to make sure I don’t keel over en route. Maybe one day I will be the hare and finish in four and a half hours. But this year, I’m the tortoise.