Writing a blog everyday I run about the run is bound to get boring, or it would if it wasn’t for my social awkwardness.

today it all seemed to be running smoothly (hahaha) when my hideous competitive streak set in, which was then joined by my default feelings of utter inadequacy.

It was all set off by one woman, running towards me in Greenwich park having clearly been running for some distance but with good posture, little sweat, an armband thing for her ipod and proper clothes. It forced me to look down at myself, some tracksuit bottoms handed down from my girlfriends cousin (it’s a point in a mans life when the hand-me-downs are from younger members of the inlaws family), a tshirt that is older than [INSERT SOMEONE FAMOUS AND YOUNG HERE THAT WOULD BE FUNNY, I COULDN'T THINK OF ANYTHING... GIVE ME A BREAK I'VE JUST COME BACK FROM A THREE MILE RUN*] and my trusty hat.

I want the proper running tights and yellow thing tops and things on my wrist for my iphone to sit in. I swear that when I run past these people (and Greenwich Park has a lot of cunting runners) they pointedly avoid eye contact, with my beard and scruffy clothes, am I a tramp running from the police? Am I taking the piss out of them? Am I running? If I am then they certainly don’t want to be associated with me.

I kept on going, feeling shit but plodding along. Then, round the back of the park we met again, like bond and his nemesis, only this was when I was going up (and she down) the hill that kills me – she still looked fresh faced, I now looked like a tramp running from a sex attack and the police.

There was another runner in front, I was determined to overtake, using all my Formula One knowledge of overtaking moves, aerodynamics and wind resistance, I copied Renault and cheated, cutting out a corner and winning.

Hooray

Pathetic

I’m running the marathon for mind – it’s going to hurt (but be funny) please donate some of that money stuff here virginmoneygiving.com/terrysaunders

*I was going to put Jack Whitehall down as an old as my tshirt reference, but checking wikipedia I see he was born in 1988, I was eight then, the idea of me wearing a tshirt that I had when I was eight is laughable, but not in a funny way

One is scary to win the other is scary to lose.

I’ve not really been running for a little while and my latest health kick (star jumps, situps and pressups every day and a distinct lack of drinking) soon slipped into a coma (starbursts, sitdowns, pressing curry and drinking) but now it’s back.

Not only do I have to raise a load of money for Mind, but I also have to beat my current super record of 2.54 miles ran in one go in 24min 15.289sec back in April.

those of you with a bit of background knowledge of marathons will know that 2.54 miles is nearly 0% of a marathon, and that left me knackered.

Luckily, now with new iphone I have an app called RunKeeper that tracks where I run, how far, how fast and gives me lots of graphs and numbers (that you may have worked out I like.

So today I set off, with a new ipod playlist and satellites tracking my every move.

I even done some weaving to try and see if it would pick it up on the map, it didn’t really, I’ll need to weave some more.

Then maybe I can spell something out.

Anyway, here is where I ran. Notice the big gap when I got up a hill and thought I was going to die, but carried on walking, then realised I wasn’t going to die so started running again.

Best song on the playlist for running to was Headlong by Queen, but I think I started running a bit camp and kept shouting “Haha” as I tried to remember where in the song that bit is (3:56, fact fans).

Anyhow, if you want to give Mind some money to watch me try and kill myself come marathon day then please go here… http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/terrysaunders …and give big.

For some reason I woke at 7am today.

Well, I wake at that time most days when my better half is getting up for work, but it’s normally succeeded by being fast asleep again by half past.

But today, oddly I was awake, properly awake like not going back to sleep awake.

I pondered getting up, but found myself out of bed before I’d even reached a satisfying conclusion and started to potter.

I like to potter.

I was about to put a coffee on when that nagging voice in my head decided it too was awake. It was telling me how I always moan about how i wish when I went running I could go in the morning, as normally I go at lunchtime and get annoyed at how in the middle of my work [reading google reader] I have to go out for a whole hour in the glorious fresh air and make myself fitter and keeping me away from more work [anything on dave in the daytime].

so, begrudgingly I realised that it was early, I was awake and up, it would be foolish to waste this opportunity of going for a run at that time when people in films go for a run. Who knows when I’d next be awake this early?

So, off I went.

There are highs and lows of running at this time.

Highs:

• The light is a bit weird, or it is to me. Looks like it’s been through a filter
• People are getting on buses to go to work and I can keep saying “losers” under my breath

Lows

• Teenage girls walking to school looking (or rather not looking) at me
• Being a bit tired and nearly getting run over by an almost parked car

The parked car thing was in the road, the traffic snaking at a near standstill, I tried to cross in between cars, but saw a moped shooting up the side, so I waited, the moped let me through, I did a nice little “thank you that was nice of you, I expected you to be a cunt” kind of nod and walked.

But the car that I was near hadn’t moved, I think in my tired state I must have thought it would have, and I walked right into it.

Even now, with diagrams and different angle replay I can’t quite work out how I managed it. My water bottle whacked the car and I panicked. But the driver didn’t seem to notice.

That, I think, was when I started to run today

I think only a fool could not come to the conclusion that I should try and run the marathon next year (even if number two is because it’s an easy commute – and is for the same reason I’ll never climb everest. Or go anywhere.)

Well, we had someone staying over who was a friend of a friend of ours that was doing the marathon, and we went to see her off and, like when at most big events, I didn’t like not being the total centre of attention I started to think I might like to do it next year.

Claire, in some stunning reverse psychology, said I’d never do it and so here we are, a blog read by literally people in which I say I will.

Come monday I was watching this morning and found myself welling up at the women who ran the marathon and were being interviewed on the sofa. They’d all had cancer or lost someone with cancer and it was all very emotional, but all I could think was that if I ran the marathon maybe I could get on This Morning.

This proves that a) I should get out more and b) doing the marathon is exactly that.

I’ve been very careful in all the time I’ve gone running to never measure time or distance that I ran as I knew I would be disappointed. It was time for some disappointment. I basically run around greenwich park until I get knackered (which is about halfway round the park until a fucking massive hill stops me), I presumed I was managing about 5 miles a go. My mapping the route on google maps I found it was a depressing 1.2miles. That’s a lot less than what a marathon is.

So today I found myself pushing hard and using the inbuilt ipod stopwatch for the first time (before this I used to use the vague timing system of albums “I got round the park in two thirds of London’s Calling, but I did skip the first track”).

The hill that normally finishes me off wasn’t going to beat me today and I carried on, past the tennis courts and a rose garden I’d never even seen before. And I made my first ever full lap of the park in 24min 15.29sec, or most of Alright by Cast (the prospect of making the album stop did make me run quicker, it’s not as good as I remembered).

Getting back home I plotted the run on google (which took considerably longer than 24min 15.29sec) and it told me I’d done a whopping 2.54 miles.

Good, but I can’t help but feel slightly annoyed I didn’t get the 4 minute mile (though maybe I did, but ran the other mile and a half a lot slower)

Here it is in glorious google…

View marathon training in a larger map

So, like too many things I do, instead of doing the groundwork in secret I am going to start from the off by announcing that I can do this, which means I will probably humiliatingly fail and this time next year someone will point to this blog (which will still probably be the most recent post on here) and will go, “Oh that, yeh, well, um.”

That is, of course, if I get into the marathon. Fingers crossed I don’t, after all what is less humiliating? Getting into the marathon and not doing it, or failing to get in and saying “Well they wouldn’t let me do it”. Both involve the same amount of training, one loses a lot less face.