March 6th

THERE is a measly six weeks left to the London Flora Marathon. That is 42 days, or rather, five long runs, and a lot of mid-week ones avoided with poor excuses.
To say I’m scared is an understatement. At the moment, I’d take a tea party with Sweeney Todd, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers while juggling fire and eating swords to avoid the run.
I don’t think it helps that when we started I never really thought of the race itself.
At that point my programme was running 15 minutes with the odd swim and making sure I treated myself to extremely expensive trainers.
Then it became about running 18 miles. And now 18 miles, oh and while you’re at it wait a day and then do another 18 miles. On the day, I’ll have to run another eight and a half miles on top of my regular 18.
The fear of that task is driving me mad. In the middle of the night I wake up in cold sweats. Flashes of Scooby Doo and Jade Goody sprinting into the distance laughing at me, my loved ones shaking their heads in disappointment at the sidelines and Marie Curie officials taking aim with blow-up daffodils haunt my sleep.
The only thing, however, lifting my mood is seeing Ben going through it too. Slowly he and I, and I’m guessing 29,998 others, are being driven mad with fear and physical exhaustion.
And that, although I guess it makes me rather sadistic, also makes me feel better. So this weekend, my marathon pledge is to sponsor young Ben McPartland for making me feel a little less odd.
Most importantly, I hope everyone else will do too (not least of all, because we have a joint Just Giving web page).