This time in a fortnight ...

It will all be over. Foil-wrapped, granola bar in hand, I will be trudging back to Maida Vale, wishing I would find a Scandinavian masseuse (or two - why not be greedy, after all?), warm oils and all, waiting to give me a rub-down at the flat.

Two weeks. Scary.

Today I completed the Wilmslow half marathon - and literally got the t-shirt. I think I am still slightly dizzy, delirious, dehydrated as I tap these words. And I crossed the finishing line a good three hours ago.

Still, the last two weeks – since I complained of feeling like an Octogenarian having just had a double hip replacement – have been an education. I’m beginning to, I guess, get in the zone; ‘exit velocity’, as my mum would say. Running with pain is now some sardonic pleasure. Like my bare, naked body doing roly-polys on heated glass shards. Endlessly.

Last Sunday, with three weeks until the balloons, buffoonery and blisters of the London Marathon, I knew it was now or never: I had to do one long run. One run where I exited the comfort zone and tore into the danger zone (come on, we’re only talking going over 11 miles here Ollie!). So, once more unto the breach, dear friends, your short-shorted, Camel-Paked hero ventured.

I managed 17 miles, of which the last six were utter agony. But I liked it. And fed off the pain. It became a kind of sick competition – how far could I push myself?

A long soak later (no masseuses on hand, unfortunately) my left leg / knee began to remind me that it was hurting – a searing, burning sensation ripped up the back of my leg.

Three days later, it was still hard to walk. So I did it: I shelled out on a knee support.

Even a week ago I would find the thought of a knee support laughable. They are, I believed, for: 1) the weak of mind; 2) the sufferers of Munchausen Syndrome; 3) the old; 4) the infirm; and / or 5) posers.

Now, despite looking like the geriatric I didn’t before wish to look like, I wear mine with pride. To me, now, a knee support says about the wearer: ‘I am a hero. It is only through doing heroic stuff that I need to wear this’.

Like drivers who have the same brand and colour of car who honk their horns to each other, before releasing a saccharine grin, I have now entered the elite group of knee-support-wearers (KSW for short). The knowing nod from one KSW to another is a warming, bonding experience. I recommend it.

Anyway, before I lose you all, onto the race today. My preparation had not been ideal. I had arrived at the family home in the north-west on Friday, and my dear mother had stuffed me, without a moment’s pause, with rich, slow-to-decompose food. Last night I gorged on roast beef, rhubarb and apple crumble with double cream, and finished off my evening meal with four of the most chocolatey chocolates on earth.

Tremendously bloated, I staggered to the start line this morning, after performing my now pre-run rituals: Vicks vapour rub below nose and on chest; Vaseline on balls and nipples; Deep Heat on my left leg (then pull up knee support); and Talcum power on soles on feet. (To any marathon runner these are good tips. Though they will make you / your room / house / car honk for days. Beware.)

Now, Wimslow’s 13-mile course is one of the quickest in the land, so everyone kept saying. ‘Pace yourself and you will be fine.’ I nuzzled into the group who were aiming for a time of around 1 hour 40 minutes. Perfect. Anything inside two hours would be ideal.

Luckily the torrential rain from the previous day /night had made way for the kind of morning that must have inspired Antonio Vivaldi to pen his ‘Spring’. The sky was blue-berry blue, and birds tweeted happily from yonder the hedgerows.

BANG! We are off. Trotting at first, like cattle to the slaughter, able only to inch forward, such is the problem when 4,000 people are all trying to run in streets as narrow as the ones found in Wilmslow.

Then we were soon (a mile in) able to find our true marathon pace. I held back; hesitated, lest I out-burn myself. Well done – softly, softly …

The previous Thursday I had made a wager with a rather cocksure amigo of mine in London. Last year the aforementioned amigo legged it in the New York marathon – his first – and recorded a time of something obscene like 3 hours 18 minutes. He is running the London Marathon too this year, and was using the Wilmslow half as a starter to the main course in a fortnight. ‘Ha. It’s easy – it’s only 13 miles, after all,’ he snorted. ‘You’ll eat my dust.’

Still feeling the warmth of that day’s Deep Heat application and the tightness of my knee support, I, somewhat foolishly, chose to compete with him.

‘OK – fine. Let’s have a bet on who wins in Wilmslow out of you or I,’ he continued. ‘Whatever’s in my wallet, we’ll bet.’ I gulped, knowing that my banker-buddy would produce more than the receipts from the One Pound Shop found in my wallet. I batted his £100 down to £10, and we shook.

I hadn’t seen this amigo at the start – I thought he would be up at the front, determinedly tailing one of the elite Kenyans. I tried not to think of him as I started to build my pace from the six mile mark.

By now the collective wheezing was being cranked up a notch; one or two runners had either performed a volte-face and were, head held low, ambling back to the start, or they were beginning to sweat so much their shorts had become two-tone. Very eighties.

I was feeling OK, so I began to pick and dodge my way through the wrinklies, premature finishers, sweaties and wheezers. I’d focused my attention on an orange vest some 50 metres ahead, who was making swift progress through the field too.

By the time I caught up with the orange vest we had negotiated the third drinks stop, just after 10 miles.

No one really warns you about the drinks stops. You imagine them to be a doddle. They are not. Firstly they are on the left-hand side, there are plastic cups strewn on the road to skip over, and – as you don’t want to break stride – you gulp hurriedly, meaning you can’t take the water into your mouth naturally. There are many amusing, gulping, coughing, spluttering sounds to be heard / seen at a water point in a marathon.

If I were to watch a race it would be just there. With a camera.

Anyway, I suddenly heard: ‘Oi, Ollie!’ It was my banking friend. Aha! I thought. There you are. He looked pooped. ‘I’m juiced,’ he admitted. ‘Went off too quickly,’ he smiled as he put his arm around my shoulder. Aglow with confidence and renewed strength, knowing that he wanted me to run with him, only to pip me at the post, I said: ‘Really? Juiced? We’ll I’m not,’ before roaring away to re-find my new orange-vested friend.

Knowing that I could not possibly slow down, unless I wanted my banker-pal to overtake me, I tailed orange, who had not even broken a sweat, to the finish line. We talked; well he talked and I gasped words occasionally. He was more used to extreme marathons: you know, like Snowdonia, and Everest. EVEREST?!

He gave me some very helpful hints for the marathon proper, and I was very pleased (and slightly surprised) to complete the race in 1 hour 35 minutes. I was most delighted that I had run so well as to be £10 richer, though I haven’t asked for it yet: there is still the main course to come.

And I’m hungry for more.

T minus one month

With little over a month until April 13 to go I am well behind on my training, and my blogging. Firstly apologies for the lack of entries. I'll try and bring you up to speed ...

After running pretty well in January (eased by the fulfillment of my New Year's resolution to abstain from alcohol for a month) and February (alcohol-charged!), I have fallen behind after a week of nightly over-indulgence in St Moritz at the end of last month.

My slow loops of Regents Park (circa six miles, when you add the distance to and from home) have tightened my quadriceps, though they are far from the finished granite-like article needed to complete a race five times longer than I have been running.

Before flying to Switzerland I had managed only one run longer than six miles. It was, er, a whole nine miles. (Incidentally, mapped out thanks to a very helpful website: www.mapmyrun.com - like Google Earth for joggers.)

Then St Moritz and all of it's Epicurean delights grabbed a hold of my cojones. Pardon my Spanish, but a rich, week-long diet of eggs Benedict, steak tartar and veal, swilled down with finest velvetly rouge left an expensive, and bitter taste in my mouth. That, and my cuddly paunch was back.

I tried to compensate by skiing daily (I convinced myself that the high-altitude would work wonders for my training), but only succeeded in catching a cold after bending-ze-knees with only a t-shirt on. Clever, I know. As a result I was off games (ie running) for most of last week, upon my return to London.

As soon as I felt nearly better, I daubed my chest and nose with Vic, wrapped up warm and ventured out, slowly, and trotted round my trusted Regents Park loop. And my goodness it was slow. Seldom one to be out-competed voluntarily, I found men and women thrice my age overtaking me. And I, with a paucity of fuel in the proverbial tank, simply allowed them to jog on and, cartoon-like, vanish into the horizon line. Oh dear.

Three forced runs later (of - you guessed it - six miles) I decided that I ought to try a 12 miler. So after procrastinating most of Sunday and a huge Sunday Roast I set off. And it felt good, easy. I wasn't breaking records, but 12 miles in 90 mins was encouraging.

Until this morning, that is. I woke and felt a gamut of pain in my left hamstring that I have never experienced before. A (when the leg is in use) sharp and (when not in use) a dull, grumpy, hard-to-shift pain. Fifteen hours later it is still aching. Today I have been hobbling like a octogenarian who has had a double hip replacement, when both operations went wrong. I had planned to run tomorrow, but I will have to see. At the moment it feels as though I will never be able to walk gracefully again.

Fund-rasing-wise things are going a little better. After a five-a-side football tournament and a pub quiz at the Prince of Wales in Putney, I managed to bag £900. And with the help of kind friends I am now up to around £1,300. Only another £1,700 to go. Ah.

The problem is this: the more people sponsor me, the more I realise that I don't want to let anyone down (and I know it shouldn't be about that, but I seem a long way away from that comforting metal foil and hot soup they give out at the conclusion of the marathon).

The booze has been shelved again. And this as work finally dip their fingers into their pockets to fund an all-expenses night out in Amsterdam next week. Typical. Still this is what it was all about - a point of focus. Now all I need to do is slim down enough to fit into my XL training top the RNLI have sent me.