Accordingly to my amazingly wonderful NikePlus sports watch I ran 102 miles in August whereas the average for women my age was 24 miles.  Fortunately my watch fails to point out that most women my age would have walked the 102 mile faster than I ran it, however I still feel pretty pleased with myself.  I only have 9 weeks now until the Big Day and I can honestly say if I had know how hard the training was going to be all those months ago I wouldn’t have signed up to it.  The training is gruelling but also so time consuming.  I am spending about 7 hours a week running which is a lot to fit in around work, home, dogs, children and Husband.

The worst part of the whole week is the LONG RUN.  Yesterday I ran for 3 hours 15 minutes and only ran 15 miles. So it is going to take me well over 6 hours to run the New York Marathon.  ‘Will the roads have re-opened by then?  Will I be dodging yellow cabs for the last 5 miles?’  I have an absurdly long time to ponder these things whilst running as it is a very solitary pursuit for me, anyway.  I cannot possibly ask anyone from the running club to endure running like a snail for 3 hours so I just have to do it on my own.  I often have the most amazing thoughts, theories and ideas whilst huffing around the Surrey countryside.  Yesterday I was trying to calculate whether a 1% increase in gradient resulted in 1% drop in my speed.  I was never very good at Maths so I gave up trying to work this out after 1 hour 45 minutes.  However there is one bit of joy in the long runs.  I have trained Husband to drive along my route at hourly intervals with water for me.  I never love Husband more than when I see his shiny black car appear.  Firstly, I know I have done another hour and secondly there will be a brief interlude for water and company before I set off again.  Yesterday after 12 miles I was so pleased to see him that I almost dived through the passenger window to give him a hug, but thought better of it just in case I got stuck.  By that point I was in agony, with blistered feet  and sweat dripping off my sunglasses. ‘I can’t do this, I CAN’T DO THIS’ I cried, gulping my water. ‘Bean, you never give up’ he simply said, and drove off at top speed.  At that moment I had never hated Husband more. If I had had the energy I would have run after him and kicked his rear bumper.  Moments later I composed myself and thought ‘Yes, the Bugger’s right’ and on I went.

When I finally staggered home there was a rare domestic scene in the kitchen.  Husband was cooking the dinner and Hairy Male Teenager was laying the table.  Perhaps the long runs are worth it after all…

I am running the New York Marathon 2013 for Macmillan Cancer Support. If you are enjoying reading my blogs please donate at: http://www.justgiving.com/jayneandtrevorwebbd