Only a year to go.  A whole year, give or take a few days, until it's time to test where I am on the ladder..  About this time next year I am planning on tackling my next marathon.  Not 100% sure where or exactly when yet, much depends on which race I think will suit me most, but it's going to happen.

It seems an age away.  If you think about it in training terms, it's probably something like 600+  training sessions.  Lots of early mornings, dark nights, potential for injury, illness, madness, whatever.  Probably a fair few more tears, hopefully a few laughs too.  But lots of hurdles to overcome, and potential craters to fall in.  Although, if I think about this time last year, when I was about to run my 2nd marathon (and the less said about that one the better), it doesn't seem that long at all - probably because of the numbers of craters I have fallen in and stalled my progress.  Not enough time. Crikey, how on earth am I going to get where I want to be without a rocket up my ass!  

All my training is geared towards running well next September in the marathon.  There are intermediate aims, I need to get speedier for one and lose the hunchback of notre dame running action (particularly whilst running up hills - 80 year old race walker springs to mind). But more seriously it is a long while since I ran a decent time and didn't look a complete turkey on the track (although perhaps only God or a large bag could ever stop that).  The marathon is what matters most though.  The marathon, the marathon.  Get the violins out, Andrea's talking about the marathon again.