It's a marathon and a sprint

I’ve been quite happy to volunteer for various tours of duty as a ‘hack’.

Within weeks of taking the job I was humiliating myself using my poor bowls technique in front of 200 discerning fans at Potters ahead of the World Inddor Championships.

In some ways I should be glad my ride in a touring car at Snetterton didn't happen during the summer – only because, if it had gone the same way as the bowls, I’d probably have lost the use of my arms.

My latest endeavour, which has already earned a bit of gentle mockery from my (presumably lfitter) sportsdesk colleagues is my nod and a wink to being asked if I would run the Norwich Half Marathon in November.

I covered the race for the EDP and Evening News at the Royal Norfolk Showground last year in pretty horrible conditions; for some reason that hasn’t put me off.

But don’t be fooled – I may enjoy a kick around, a swing of a club or the more physically demanding use of a snooker cue (I'm rubbish at them all, by the way), but I’ve never done running. Not even the gentle, keep fit kind. Five laps of Trunch playing fields as pre-season training is as far as it even went.

So, while the prospect of running 12-point-something miles seemed fairly manageable in my head beforehand, when I could only six five-minute stints first time round because I was knackered, things were not looking good.

And this was late September.

Since then, I screwed up my ankle (due to the 'large' amount of running I was doing) and only started again at the weekend – so training is officially going well. At this rate, I should make it to the first corner of the course in one piece.

I’m sure there aren’t many people out there less prepared than me, which might be some comfort if I cross the finish line in December.

Thankfully there's still plenty of time to get some miles in, and write about them on here.

posted on 13 October 2008 23:04 byMichael Bailey - Sportsdesk

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