Friday, June 22, 2018

#FirstMarathon Teaser

So yesterday was the 21st of June which as you all know is the longest day of the year. What you may not know is that it was also exactly four months to October 21st. What a nonsense bit of trivia, you must be thinking. But wait! 21st October is no ordinary day, it is the day of the Amsterdam Marathon. And this year, for the first time, lining up alongside hundreds of far fitter, well-prepared and generally more sensible people will be yours truly* 

Which is why I thought I would mark the longest day of the year by telling you about what is likely to be longest day of my life. 

I'd like to open by saying that training for this heroic / foolhardy mission began the day I was born, but of course this idea is so laughable that I cannot even comple… 
Basically I have 16 weeks. 
And Monday of the coming week will be Day 1 of the First-Time Finisher Plan that I have downloaded, printed, read first page of, started sweating, and then then set aside. 

But in between I have also done some solid online research, investigated a range of quality running shoes to replace my current pair, and acquired a shiny new activity tracker (more on this later). It of course remains to be seen what will be finished with this Finisher plan- the race or me? 

People say ‘if at first you don’t succeed, maybe sky-diving isn’t for you’ and they could quite easily replace sky-diving with ‘marathon running’ and it would still ring true. 

For now, however, my plan is to document the training process by doing one post a week for the 16 weeks, and then depending on the outcome I will either compile them into a Collected Series of ‘How to Boss your First Marathon’ or ‘How to Love Yourself Despite Abject Failure.’ I hope you will join me for the ride. 

*Note: ticket has not yet been purchased. But now that both readers of this blog know this is happening, surely I cannot back out. It’s a prestige issue.

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