Where DOES the time go? Only three months ago the marathon seemed a tiny speck in the distance, we had all the time in the world and life could just jog along as normal.

 Now it’s a week on Sunday. Gulp. Sweat. Shake. Shiver. Panic! We’ve logged the miles, dealt with lost toenails and gone through the expense of changing top of the range trainers at least once in that time. Not that I’m knocking them – several years ago I couldn’t run for twenty minutes without my knees complaining and laying me up for two weeks. A trip to our wondeful sports therapist in Cambridge (Graham Blakely) soon sorted that out – “Get some decent trainers, and learn to walk again – you’re walking liking a two year old”. It was an epiphany. I could never have imagined running for an hour, let alone the 3h 10 minutes in the howling wind we did last weekend to cover 22 miles, our peak “long run”. Now, two hours seems short to us.

When he was an ankle biter my husband Rich’s father told him that the marathon was a waste of time, it took too long and there wasn’t any point in doing it, so it has never really been on his radar. Rich also never did a lot of running because of his back, but again, the trainers did wonders.

So, the run itself. Both of us seem to have a permanent kaleidoscope of butterflies in our tummies at the moment. Is it normal to have a constant fluttering even this far out from the marathon? I don’t know if it’s down to a completely new challenge with no idea what to expect from the distance and my body or if I’m just paranoid I’m not going to raise enough money (of course I will, people are generous, aren’t they? In case you’re feeling generous yourselves by the way…..www.bmycharity.com/teamtaylor)

I lay awake for ages the night before last, in that funny place in between awake and asleep, jolting every few minutes with a variety of little panics…loo stops, wrong kit, forgotten trainers, falling over (always a good one – am just getting rid of the scabs from the entire left side of my body when I went for an impressive slide-along-the-gravel-path-on-my-tummy commando drop the other week) blah blah blah.

I don’t think I was this nervous for my wedding six months ago (I had it all planned to a tee), or even sitting on the start for my first international rowing race! But then I had practiced and practiced the distance, the start sequence, the first 500m, the first 1000m, the last 750m, mid race pace, over race pace, burns, pushes, winds…..I feel woefully unprepared in comparison but it’s a completely different discipline and a different way of using the muscles! I suppose we’ll see how it goes on the day.

Based on half marathon times we’ve done, we should be able to finish in under 3h 15m, but of course, many factors could conspire against us. Rich’s tummy troubles, a poor night’s sleep, falling over, being held up at the start……