All the toys came out of the pram.

I had a serious tantrum last night and behaved rather like a petulant child for a full, long drawn out 30 seconds...

Grumps was running over to discuss the quiz and so I headed out for a quick trot post-work before she arrived. My shin has been aching a bit since our big run on Saturday but I had thought nothing of it - there is usually some part of us that aches at the moment; part of the fun of the whole thing I am told...

So I set out on Tuesday's run (1m jog, 3 x 1.5 mile steady (14 mins) and 400m slow (3 mins), then 1m jog) looking, I think, rather professional. Fozzy has lent me her running lycras so now I have proper gear rather than huge Jack Wills tracksuit bottoms (the first pair ever to do any real exercise other than walking along the King's Road) which Grumps said make me look like a shire horse, charming...

Approximately 100 metres up the road my shin was really starting to hurt so I did a few stretches and carried on, but less than 1/4 mile into the run I had to stop and could not run on. That is not strictly speaking true, I could have physically made myself run on but was worried about a real injury.

This was the point I started having a strop. It is very frustrating when you have gone to the effort of getting changed, stretching and setting out to find that you can't actually do the darn run (I was also secretly looking forward to the run). So I had a serious tantrum to myself and started stamping my feet on my way home. Unfortunately this made my shin hurt more which made me even more cross. At this stage I had the mentality of a two year old and was seriously considering lying on the pavement and beating my arms and legs on the ground. Luckily sense came through and I resisted this temptation and headed home instead.

I am off to the osteo on Friday and no running until then, please can everyone cross their fingers that it is nothing more than a temporary ache...

Sunny Shropshire and beating Neil - what more could I want?

Parted again from my partner (we just can’t go on like this!) I managed to rope the long suffering Neil in to joining me. Seeing as he never runs further than the length of a rugby pitch I was very impressed at his eagerness to join me (what is it about boys being unable to accept that a girl - especially a girlfriend - can do any sort of physical activity that they couldn’t?).

We cunningly stayed with Charlie and Rob on the flatter side of Shropshire and set off in gorgeous sunshine. When we got to the 1st marker of our journey I had to break it to Neil that we hadn’t done the 8 miles he was convinced of but a rather more meager 4.5… We continued on along the most beautiful route until it was clear that we had overshot our next turn off and had to call for directions…

Back on route and after 13 miles Neil left with Rob and Charlie who had come to rescue me with water (having forgotten my bottle I was haunted by the canal I was running along…persuading myself that 1 sip wouldn’t hurt… and anyway, how bad can viles disease be?) Luckily I shunned temptation and waited for the volvic!

The last leg, having stopped for 15 mins at mile 13, was not ideal but I was greeted by a princess in a shining Volvo (Charlie) who stopped me a mile before what I thought was the end to tell me that if I continued I would have done 20 miles. In the car I hopped! Great news. I had done 19 miles in 3 hours with a 15 min break in the middle and I didn’t feel like dying! (Well, that’s before I sat in the car for 40 mins…I felt a little crippled at the end of that!)

And the good news is...

...that there is a marathon in October which anyone can enter and all you have to do is pay £30; no sponsorship involved or anything.

I was told this by a friend (to name no names Clare Foster) who merrily informed me that this event was easy to enter. She actually told me this in all seriousness thinking that I would want to do another. I was quite speechless. At this point Harry was bent double with laughter at the thought of me voluntarily doing another marathon.

I'm not going to fib, there are days when I actually enjoy running - bizarre concept really, but there will NEVER be a day when I enjoy running so much that I want to go through all this palaver again!!

I can safely say that I would rather attempt to pull my own arms off than do another whole marathon just for fun...

A short 18 mile trot to liven up the weekend...

I did chuckle to myself as I set off on my 18 mile run at 7.30am on Saturday morning, having not smoked for weeks and not drunk for 6 days. I would have bet money this time last year that I would never willingly run at 7.30 on a Saturday morning, let alone 18 miles...

Grumps and I both ran 18 miles and actually it really was fine - both had little murmurs in various joints, shins and my hips were very seized towards the end of the run, but nothing that we are not getting used to now. In fact, by the end of the run I realised that I was going to finish in just over 3 hours and 1 minute so I decided this would not do and upped the pace into virtually a headlong sprint. I managed not to break into the minute and made it in 3 hours 18 seconds - much better!

I think both of us are amazed at the fact we can actually run that far without needing a stretcher! The main effect I have found is with my appetite: throughout the weekend I ate like a horse to make up for the big run and at Sunday lunch I ate my main and then finished up three other people's plates as well...

Is this true???

I am not sure what to believe about the marathon these days, please can someone let me know what is true??? Unfortunately I am extremely trusting (or gullible if you prefer) and will believe everything that people are telling me.

The latest little delightful snippet is that apparently we are going to shrink by the end of the marathon.

Yes, that is correct, we are going to get smaller. Apparently the impact on our bones of pounding round 26.2 miles of roads is actually going to make us lose height.

True or false?

I am prepared to be a guinea pig for this so please can someone meet me at both the start and the finish with a tape measure to test this crazy theory...

No more big booze ups...

We have given up drinking until after the marathon... I know that many people say you don't need to give up drinking at all but we want to give ourselves the best chance we have of completing the darn thing.

There may possibly be the odd glass of apples or wine that we drink on special occasions but our days of jaeger bombs (which Grumps drinks ALL the time) are over for 6 weeks.

Oh and I am bored of the Marathon Urban Legend...

If I hear one more story about somebody's "friend's gym instructor's cousin's sister" who did no training, got smashed the night before the marathon and then ran it in 3 1/2 hours I will scream - that has to be an urban legend. And if not, then why are these people not properly training because surely with that much natural talent they could beat EVERYONE!!!

Maybe Grumps and I are being quite strict with ourselves and putting in more than we need to, but why not? Let's face it, we are only going to do this once!!!!

Why doesn't it get easier??

People keep telling us that we won’t want to stop running after the Marathon… who are they kidding?! Clearly we’re not communicating our dislike for this sport clearly enough. I nearly died after running 4 miles in to work last week- I felt worse than I did during 16…it really makes no sense!

We were split up again this week and I was faced with another Scottish climb- I thought the sand dunes in Montrose were bad but the hills and gale force winds around Edinburgh proved a serious challenge! We were supposed to do a ½ marathon- Abbs tore around London in just under 2 hours with our tireless and slightly loco trainer Roro whilst I aimed for a much smaller treck around Edinburgh. I thought 5 miles at a good pace up hills would be OK (I had promised Neil I would take it easy as it was his birthday and he didn’t want me falling asleep at the rugby). I mapped out a route and it came to 7 miles- a good enough distance. Needless to say my sense of direction stayed at home as always and I somehow managed to lose Arthur’s Seat (the Mountain in the middle of Edinburgh that I was running round) and when re-mapped on my return realised that my initial idea of doing 5 miles had in fact turned in to 9… Oh well, much better for me and I managed to stay awake for the rugby! No idea how long it took (Abbs is much better at monitoring the technical stuff!) but at points the wind was so strong that I’m sure I was running on the spot!

Anyway, this week looks tough- 10 miles on Thursday- This schedule must have been written by a student! Also my boss has just said that he won’t sponsor us unless we do it in sub 4 hours- does he not think 26 miles is going to knacker our bodies enough?? Luckily we have incredible support from lots of other wonderful people who understand that not only have we set ourselves a ridiculous enough challenge but the money is not for us but rather a very worthy cause!