InspiredToRun.co.uk

Twenty-six miles, a hundred corners, a thousand hills. People on the pavements and runners on the streets. Marshals at every signpost and markers at every mile, medical stations and water stations and a sealed-off enclosure where, if I make it to the finish, I’ll be able to take a seat. These are the sights that I see in my head. This is how I imagine it’s going to be. The day might be a bad one. There’ll be rain against my face and wind against my skin, dark clouds overhead and wet kerbs under my feet. I’ll hate the sweat and the soreness and the anticlimax of the whole thing, the rubbing and the stickiness and the tiredness about my feet. Or maybe not. Maybe there’ll be sun in the air and coolness on the breeze, colours in the distance and spray coming in from the sea. Maybe I’ll make it round in three and a half hours and cross the finish line screaming with delight, looking towards familiar faces in the crowd with a grin on my face and my arms held high towards the sky. I don’t know one way or the other and ought not to worry: the time for worrying is past, and anyway, these things are beyond my control.

There’s little left for me to do. I’ve done my on-the-day preparations, mindful that a marathon really starts before the race begins. I’ve laced up my shoes and stretched out my leg muscles, zipped up my waterproof and stored my front-door key. I’ve taken a last slug from the mug of sweet tea that I always drink before I run, pulled on the black beanie hat that I’m going to wear until I get to the start line, and set the counter to zero on the boy-toy sat nav training tool thing I use to measure the miles. I’ve even got out of bed before 7am to organise my gear and eat a half-decent breakfast before I go. Wary though I am of admitting it to myself, frightened of acknowledging even the thought, I think that maybe my preparations are complete, maybe I’m just about ready to go.

I know that there’ll be people to support me on the route: friends I’ve primed to pass me sports drinks on the way, running club mates shouting me on at relay changeover points as they ready themselves for their own stretch, my parents at 16 miles cheering me as I pass. I’ll be able to look up in their direction, offer up a wave, maybe even a smile. And hopefully I’ll be able to acknowledge, at least in my mind, the other people on the route as well: residents clapping loudly at their front gates as runners go by, children holding out water cups they’ve filled from taps near by, partners watching anxiously for loved ones they’re worried they’ve missed amid the crowds of race numbers and running vests and fancy dress tops. I’ll nod where I can, show where I’m able to that I’m thankful for the handclaps and the hollers and the shouts.I know, too, that there are times when I’m going to suffer, times when my muscles will ache and my nipples will bleed, my bones will hurt and my skin will chafe. There’ll be times when I’ll want to stop for a while, want to collapse on to the kerb and give up, when I’ll wonder whether the six months of training I’ve put in running in all kinds of weathers along all kinds of routes has been worth it.

There’ll be times when I’ll worry that I’m going to let down relatives and friends and workmates who’ve filled in forms and handed out sponsorship money, when I’ll wonder what possessed me to start running in the first place, to pick up a pair of trainers and pull on a pair of shorts, to look up the details of a local club and get on the phone to make a quick call. But then I’ll remember. Remember why I’m doing this, remember why I decided six months ago to get involved. Remember how sick I really was: the tiredness in my bones, the burning in my nerves, the haziness in my head that I just couldn’t shift. Remember the days spent folded into an immovable heap, staring into space as my home disintegrated around me and a TV flickered on the opposite wall; the days spent on a worn sofa, unable to summon up the will to get washed or dressed, unable to do anything but drift in and out of exhausted sleep for chunks of hours at a time.

I’ll remember the days spent shut away in a darkened room, sealed away from the loved ones I’d lost the ability to sustain a conversation with and the friends I’d lost the ability to look in the eye, and the hours spent sitting in a doctor’s surgery, inanimate and immobile, waiting for a GP to give me the medication I needed to help me function in some kind of half-useful way with some kind of half-working brain. I’ll remember those things all too clearly, remember how illness had battered at my spirit and beaten at my soul, remember how bad things really had become. And when I cross the finish line today, three hours and twenty-six minutes after I’ve begun, I’ll think about those times and how far away they seem. I’ll think about my ankles stiffening and my feet burning and about months spent running roads and bends and hills. I’ll think about the pride that's in my gut and the happiness that's in my heart, about family and friends and people that I know. I’ll think about cheers along the home stretch, medals after the finish and the race volunteer who apologises as she crouches at my feet and tries to unlace the timing chip from one of my shoes.

And as I sit in the runners’ enclosure, watching the afternoon sun climb across the sky for just a little while longer than I should, I’ll take a look around me, take in everything I see, and think about how wonderfully, wonderfully well I truly feel.