129 days

129 days, 14 hours, 17 minutes and counting, according to the Edinburgh Marathon website. That's how long I have until I cross the start line for 4 hours of physical and mental torment. It doesn't seem all that far away, and with all the snow and ice on the ground, I'm beginning to feel a little nervous about how to get my training started. My two options at the moment (besides trying to run outside and falling over) are buying a treadmill (something that Kelsey and I are looking into) and swimming (technically it counts as cross-training, right?). After completing my 1000 miles in a year last year, I took a bit of a break from running, with the aim being to be in good shape for the marathon. I'm not sure where taking a bit of a break becomes being lazy, but after my first swimming session yesterday, my body has been trying to define that line today.

Enough about the running, though there'll be more about it as the weeks and months go by. I've been planning on running a marathon for years now, and never quite got round to it. Then my cousin Patrick died last year at the shockingly young age of 30. We were all completely shocked, and now almost a year later it's still incredibly raw to talk, and even think about. I think that there was no warning at all (I had even forgotten about his epilepsy) was the most upsetting thing. I hate the fact that we were due to play in a softball tournament in Manchester the weekend after, and I had meant to call him to see if we could hang out and see his new house whilst we were in town. I put off the call, figuring I'd call him close to the time, and now can't get rid of the wish to have called him, even if I wouldn't have known it would have been our last conversation. Even writing about it now is hard. On the few occasions that I've been out running, I've thought a lot about Patrick, and in esssence I think that's why I want to run this marathon. Yes it'll be fantastic trying to raise as much money for Epilepsy Research UK (more of which in another post), but running gives me time and space to think, and there is certainly going to be a lot of running in my future, if my marathon schedule is anything to go by. It's going to be my way to commemorate this true gentleman and gentle man.