START

At half past six this dark November morning I had run just over 4 miles. Until October this year I personally would have stopped reading a similar blog by now. These words would be a complete mystery to me. However when meeting a bunch of new people, after a few glasses of wine, I agreed to run the London Marathon. I was charmed by the energy of a new friend who was looking for a runner for her charity. A marathon, it turns out, is ‘only’ twenty six and a point 3 of a mile. I’m an idiot!

Having barely exercised in my life I am not a conventional runner. I favour a pint over a push-up. As a recovering smoker of fifteen years I am also a quitter. Quitting smoking was disappointing as I was good at it. When I smoked running was worse in my book. I wanted a ban of running in public places. For many years passive running affected my enjoyment of a cigarette. Now as an increasingly reluctant athlete there is something lovely about the sneer of a walker. My favourite is the 5am crowd. I relate most of all to this demographic of can- wielding-piss-takers who exclaim into the night articulate utterances like “Bloody jog!” Which is fair enough. Part of me wants to tell them I’m running on poppadoms and pickles, two curries, a side, naan and rice though to save some face, but I’m too busy thickening up my spittle. I wasn’t built for running. At school my medical report read ‘bad feet’ which puzzled everyone as to what it meant, but I now know it means soft blister ridden shoe hands. I am, in more ways than one, a BEAST and this blog is a place where you can map my grumpy, naïve and frank journey to raising lots of lovely money to help those people who face bigger challenges every day.