You tread on my dreams
I don't know how long it will take, and there's a part of me that still thinks I won't finish.
When I was 24, I was thrown onto the pavement when my bicycle hit at a curb the bottom of the hill. Staring at my weeping grazes in the back of an ambulance, high on whatever they'd strapped to my face, I saw how concrete and friction beat skin and flesh, understood how the right amount of force could break a bone.
I reflected on the moment when, wheeling down the hill, I picked speed over caution. I learned a lesson and I don't think I ever felt invincible again.
Cracked ribs was just the start. Since leaving my early twenties behind I have been forced to pay more heed to things like nutrition, sleep. The moderation of vices.
Until that crash, like every young person, I'd felt I could do what I wanted and didn't believe the people who said that would end, one day.
Aged 18, I exercised this freedom by entering the Brighton marathon.
I've always seen running as a pretty basic form of exercise. You put on the right shoes and you keep putting one foot in front of the other until you complete your desired distance.
This principle guided my training - leave house, run, stay out longer than I did the time before. Eventually, I would be able to cover all 26.2 miles.
It's not a bad idea, but one which treats the body as a spelling you learn by rote, rather than a sensitive system which won't bow to your will - no matter your determination - if placed under excessive stress.
I learnt this the hard way and surrendered my Brighton marathon place to a bout of plantar fasciitis.
I was scared that this would happen again when I started training for the London race in December. Unlike my bike injuries, though, a sore foot couldn't scare me off the vice which had stopped me from following a training plan in the first place.
You might think that a perfectionist would go wild for a blueprint for success, a sure path to getting it spot on.
But this one has run away from marathon plans - twice - for two reasons:
What happens when ‘life’ stops me from doing it all, exactly as prescribed? Or - worse - what happens if I follow it to the letter and I STILL can't do it?
In rejecting a training plan, I gambled with my physical wellbeing in the service of my most loathsome neuroses.
My therapist told me once: "Do what you've always done, get what you've always got."
I did: a 'vibes' approach to preparing for a marathon again. I got: more foot pain.
It happened again and, this time, I couldn't put it down to inexperience.
I read an enjoyable feature in the Observer recently by a woman in my position. She wrote: "Talking about marathons is like telling people about your dreams: dull for your audience unless they are in them."
She's right. But, as she found was true of a series of men she went on dates with -it's hard to stop going over the details.
It’s a fascinating process. I am seeing first hand how although a body can break, it can also become more durable if you challenge it incrementally.
This has been especially enlightening as I recently emerged from a period of poor mental health. Amid the kind of gloom that is resistant to reason, I believed I was incapable of change and I would always be at the mercy of things that were out of my control.
During the Bad Times, people say things like ‘go and have a little walk' or 'make sure you're eating your vegetables'. This can feel alienating, as the suggestion that a portion of broccoli could go some way to clear oppressive darkness is absurd. How can you connect with others, who live in this different reality, with these impossible rules?
When my foot started playing up in February, I went to see a physio who said that the symptoms were not ideal, but that running the London marathon was still a possibility.
She gave me exercises to repeat daily. This, too, felt absurd. But the next time I went, I could bend my ankle 1cm further than the time before. The time after that, the bend stayed the same, but I was suddenly touching my toes with my knee at a right angle with hardly any effort at all.
Touching toes and running for five hours at a time are different challenges. You have to trust the process.
As it stands, I've not run further than 15 miles, which is just over half of the distance I’ll run on Sunday. Common sense tells me that this is more than a big task. So I am obliged to put my faith in the accounts of others who have run before me and made it to the finish.
One of my motives for running this marathon is I want to better understand some of the stories I write. As a sport journalist I often listen to elite athletes talk about the pressure of a big game or the mental battle that comes with striving to be your best.
It is too late for me to play in a World Cup final for England or compete for an Olympic podium. But there's always time to set your mind to something really difficult, then rely on yourself - and only yourself - to perform in a way that does justice to your preparation.
This week I haven’t been able to tell whether the feeling in my stomach is fear or excitement. I recognise the sensation from vague memories of important uni football fixtures, and the performance of am-dram productions, months in the making.
At the same time, you feel ready and you want it to be now, but you also don't want to part with the sense of anticipation. You're suspended in arousal, a wave which freezes on the cusp of breaking. And of late, your preferred way to spend that sort of energy is to run, but you're saving it all for the big day. Tough.
Not having followed a plan, I don't really know how long it will take me, and there's a small part of me that still thinks I won't finish. I imagine I might be sick and cry a bit. There will be pain and pride. And things will be different.
I am proud to be running for Cardiac Risk in the Young, a charity which provide screenings to people under the age of 35 who might not know they have a potentially life-threatening heart condition. They also support families and loved ones after a young sudden cardiac death. If you are able to, please contribute to my fundraising page. Thank you <3