So - How did this all start

The question is - why would a fat, unfit middle aged man all of a sudden decide to run a marathon in 8 months time - and the answer is in the question!

It all started with standing on the scales one day and seeing that I was a disturbing 94.0 kilo (I am 1.79 mtrs tall so that works out as borderline obese). I had always been reasonably fit but the last few years had conspired to see me becoming increasingly sedentary and lazy - something had to be done!

The reason for training!!

I had run a marathon before (London 2001) but had done no training and always felt that I did not do myself justice (5hr 40) so had talked for ages about doing another one and when a mate in CPh said he was thinking about signing up I thought I might as well take the plunge too.... first thing to do was to lose some weight!

Cash in hand I headed out to buy a bike and a pair of running shoes and with a certain amount of enthusiasm I got started, the weight quickly dropped from 94 to 89 kilo and things were going well then - a plateu! To get over this I engaged my geek side and set up a spreadsheet setting targets for each week, this seemed to work really well as a motivational tool for me and I managed to keep below the line all the way...

The next step was to try to work out a training schedule....