The lovely London Marathon page on Facebook today popped up to say there are 9 days to go!!!

The most fantastic way to start this update is to be able to say I have reached my Fundraising target and at the time of posting it stands at - £ 2127.65 I am truly humbled and blessed by the generosity that people have shown in supporting WaterAid in helping me reach this target.

Having been a month since my last post, I figured it’s about time for a quick update.

I took part in the Cancer Research ‘Winter Run’ on the 31st January.  It’s a popular 10k race starting in Trafalgar Square, and finishing along Whitehall. It was the first race of it’s size that I’ve taken part in, with around 15,000 people taking part. I really enjoyed it, especially as I finished in 53:32 which is about 4 minutes off my previous 10k PB!

Eek!! So it seems I’ve hit the big 100 day countdown, and now it’s time to get serious!

I started my formal training plan at the beginning of the year, but now its crunch time! So far, it seems to be going really well - running 3 - 4 times a week, with a longer run most Sundays!

I’ve forcefully become acclimatised to arctic temperatures to run in - all included in the fun of being a crazy marathon runner!

I realised it would probably be helpful to share some of the background to why I am running the Marathon, who I will be running for and why.

Why am I doing this ?

I had the opportunity to go to Rwanda in 2005 and I have very clear memories from that trip of seeing people walking huge distances, carrying heavy water containers - on a daily basis.  Everyone appeared to have to go through this - from the youngest to the oldest.

I know there is a long way to go before April, but I figured I would start looking at choices for Training plans….and I’m glad I looked now.

There are so many choices!  In fact, it’s quite bewildering how many variations there are.  Some focus on time-based runs, some on mileage, while others different again.

So far for other training , I have been using the plan feature of the Asics website and I quite like this as it syncs with my Google Calendars.

This week the ballot results for entry into the Virgin London Marathon 2016 are being sent out.

I have seen a lot of posts on Facebook from friends receiving the pack through the post, containing the magazine indicating whether the ballot entry was successful or not.

Well, yesterday, Royal Mail visited my letterbox and popped my pack through.   It too was a Sorry! version of the magazine - no ballot result for me.

This is the first of my blog posts about my journey to run the London Marathon 2106