So how did this all start I here you ask?  Well once I had started getting out on regular morning runs the addiction kicked in. Morning runs turned into evening runs, lunch time runs, any gap during lessons runs to more than once in a day runs!

Previously I had done no official events I had only run to improve fitness or during the latest attempt to lose a bit of weight.  Until April 2006, I  signed up to run the Flora London Marathon.  I fancied a go, I had the mentality of 'How hard can it be' and 'its only four 10k runs'.  Now with my die hard mentality I did a bit of training never going beyond 10k as I thought this was enough as long as I did it regularly.  Coming up to the event the last two months of training, if you could call it that, was dissasterous as with limited training or lack of training you become vulrunable to injury.  I'd damaged my foot, this was a real problem as couldn't run on it, not that I was training that much anyway ha ha!  Before long the Marathon was upon us and off we went on the train to the big smoke 'London'.

So I set off on this cold misty London Sunday morning, among thousands of others I stood with absolutely no idea what I had let myself in for!  Those great words kept rattling around my head 'how hard can it be' well I'm about to find out.  So off I trot passing all the great distractions around me, its great so many things going on, bands playing outside of pubs, clowns on unicycles juggling and bongo drums banging away.  Wow! just passed the half way point can't believe it that wasnt so bad!  How wrong could I have been, by the time I staggered over the finish line I was in bits physically, mentally I was strong as was in the mind set to just keep going but my feet were blistered and bruised and curled in as you do when things hurt relentlessly causing massive stress on ankles, knees, hips and back.  In turn each of these parts of me were aching enormously but off I hobbled to the meeting point of my loved ones as agreed beforehand.

Back at the flat sometime later, beer in hand and dinner on the way I put myself through the second excruitiating part of the day, the deadly shower!  If anyone has been through this deathly torturous ordeal they will know my pains.  This was the worst part, as a novice to this running malarkey I hadn't subscribed to the techniques other runners used (stupid Ed)  to avoid these painful times, I hadn't used any lubricant in vulnerable areas therefore I was sore, not just normal 'oooh my skin stings sore' I mean 'its burning through me like someones pouring acid on me sore'.   Lets just say this left me with a very uncomfortable evening of trying to smile and say how much I enjoyed the experience and how everyone else should have a go next year, ha ha ha!

The train home was an interesting experience, if you can imagine me sitting or should I say lying in the middle aisle with my legs stretched out as my knees wouldnt bend and if they did I would get cramp and scream out with a screaching yelp, and my poor girlfriend who at this point was 5 months pregnant was not entertained in the slightest by my needs being greater than hers looks and expressions.

Back to York and back to work straight away, on the tennis court with absolutely no intention of moving at all for the ball.  Lesson learnt..............


Absolutely not, If I had just trained a little harder 'how hard can it be' oh yeah most important of all the use off vaseline (other products are available, just make sure you use one unlike me!)  Funnily enough I didn't do another run of any kind for approximately 7 years. Thats how much those acid burning sores haunted me!