It All Begins With A Dream....

2 weeks ago, an hour or two after the last person crossed the finish line of the 2024 Loch Ness Marathon, I signed up for the 2025 race. I aim to run it in 3 hours, or quicker in order to qualify for a Good For Age place in the London Marathon. It all begins with a dream.

Why?

A couple of reasons really. Firstly, I need a new goal, a new challenge, a new adventure. I thrive on a big goal, especially one that requires me to get out of my comfort zone. This is it. My target for my age category (50-54) is sub 3:10 and I need to get closer to 3hrs to be in with a chance of a place due to the number of people who will likely apply and the limited number of places available. My marathon PB, it turns out, is 3:15 from the 2006 Edinburgh Marathon. I believed it to be 3:26 at Loch Ness Marathon in 2014 until I did some research for this post. I've no recollection of running that race in Edinburgh. How can you forget about a marathon you ran? I've no idea but there we are!

The other reason is that London was my first marathon in 1998, the race that inspired me to change career and help others achieve amazing things for themselves like I had done. I've run London 7 times, got in through every possible way (main ballot, second ballot, club place, charity place) except good for age and would love to go back having earned my place.

"I dare you to train for a marathon and not have it change your life"

Susan Sidoriak

More Than A Marathon

This is much more than running 26.2 miles in a faster time than I've ever run before. It's about the positive impact it will have on every aspect of my life.

I ran a marathon in springtime almost every year from 1998 to 2012 and training would always start on the first Monday in January. This meant that I was able to enjoy Christmas and New Year in the knowledge that as soon as the first Monday came around, training would start, everything changed and nothing else mattered. Quite often, I would stop drinking during that time and have a beer to celebrate after the marathon.

I had forgotten how big a part of my life that was until I began training for the Edinburgh marathon last year. The discipline of following a training plan, the better I perform at work, the more productive I am, the better the relationships I have, the less stressed I feel and the happier I become. I'm looking forward to getting all that back again.

When you have clarity in your goal and know how much it means to you, nothing else matters.

A Journey, Not A Destination

I recently wrote in a post about our goal is not to achieve our goals , it's to become the kind of person who achieves the kind of goals we want. Now that the goal is set, it's time to park it to one side and focus on the changes I need to make to get there. That doesn't mean harder running sessions to improve my speed. There will be time for that but now is not that time.

It will be about creating a better structure for my days, what time I go to bed, what time I get up, what time I go for my runs, what I eat and drink, when I'm active, when I will rest. I see it like putting together a jigsaw and trying to get all the pieces in place.

It's a journey, not a destination and that means trying things out, failing, learning and tweaking until I find what works for me. This will be done over a long period of time. There is no such thing as the perfect training plan.

Effectively, running the marathon in 3hrs will really be a byproduct of the journey. The other important factor for me is that hitting my target at the 2025 Loch Ness Marathon is not the finish line.

It's just the beginning.

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