A step-by-step guide to running a marathon

Back to blogging. This is the point where this blog starts to live up to its title.

run42k. It's a nickname I chose for my online identity a few years ago, and clearly refers to running a full marathon. I think the name chosen is appropriate, since I would calculate that at any randomly chosen point in my life, from 1994 up till the present, there's a good probability that at that moment I would happen to be undergoing training to run a marathon. By now it's more than 17 years that I have been running regularly, and if my legs can take the strain, and my health continues to serve me well, I hope to carry on running for at least another 17 years. Possibly much more than that.

I wonder, by the way, if it's just a coincidence that these 17 years were exactly the same period that I have been married to my dear wife Sue. Surely, then, it must be her influence that inspires me to run... :-)

Whatever the inspiration (and I hope to go into this subject sometime in the future), I feel that all these years of running, including 9 marathons, hundreds of other races, and countless training runs, have given me an enormous wealth of experience, some of which I wish to share with you, dear reader, with the hope of inspiring you, in my turn, to take up this wonderful activity.

In my previous blog I mentioned a project that was mulling around in my mind. This is it. I propose to recount the full process, starting from scratch, then to a novice runner, a regular jogger, progressing up to a half marathon, and if you really get into it, on to a full marathon. Drawing from my experience mentioned above, I intend to cover the various aspects of the process, and (roughly) on a weekly basis provide a step-by-step guide to running a marathon.

I look forward to the first step within the next few days, hopefully this weekend. So, till then, cheerio and good night!