7pm, Monday 11th of January 2016. It is dark with a slight winter chill in the air. I question to myself whether I need to do this? Shall I do it another day? Is there anything else I can do instead?
With New Year’s resolve, I press on. How many layers of clothing do I need? I want to keep warm, but not be weighed down. Do I wear dark clothes so I can’t be seen, or bright ones so that I can?
In April 2016 I will be running the London Marathon on behalf of Havens Hospice. 26.2 miles of London streets for charitable causes and personal achievement. Many I have spoken to say that the day itself is the fun and rewarding part; it’s the months of training during dark, cold, frosty, windy winter months that is the mental and physical challenge.
I can only hope my body holds up to the challenge. I am a 36 year old Solicitor / Mediator, with a wife and a young daughter. 2 years ago, when my wife was 5 month’s pregnant, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my back. My previous active life of regular football and squash came to a halt as I had to have several months off with no exercise, and a year without any kind of competitive sport. I put on a lot of weight and lost any base fitness I had.
With that in mind, and following Tzu’s maxim that ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step‘ I tie up my Asics and head out onto the bleak Southend Seafront for the start of my journey…
