It begins (properly…)

And so, on my quest to running greatest (please read: getting around the Barcelona marathon track without resorting to my knees), I found Run Dem Crew West last night.  Having followed them for a while on twitter, I was (overly) excited to find they were branching out in the West, and along with Big Red, ventured over to Paddington to give it a go.  We rocked up at Paddington Rec Ground, introduced ourselves to Ellie, and awaited the arrival of the fellow first-timers and some of the Run Dem Crew members from the East.  And obviously Running Yoda himself, Charlie Dark. 

In short, the evening was immense.  From sitting in the changing room beforehand and meeting everyone – actually meeting them and finding out about their motivations and goals, not just trying to remember names before everyone flew off in a flurry of trainers – to running through West London together with everyone looking out for one another; it was a run like no other.  I was pushed harder than I would have pushed myself on a normal Monday run, and it felt ok – I didn’t keel over and I (almost) managed to keep up when we split off into one “shorter gentler” and one “longer harder” group (guess which one we decided to go for…).  And now, it’s the kind of run I’ll be looking forward to every week, and prioritising over other commitments every week. 

Marathon training has suddenly got “real”; the enormity of what is ahead is finally sinking in.  Not in a freak-out-and-panic-I-don't-think-I-can-do-this-way but it is definitely time to step things up and stop thinking that all of this training can just fit in somehow around everything else.  Training is the everything else until I cross the finish line on 25th March, which is why running with everyone last night was so great – sometimes you just need someone you haven’t met before who knows what they’re talking about (and Charlie and the RDC guys around last night know running) to put things into perspective.  So, following the Yoda tips from last night, here’s my blog; I’ve logged the Hal Higdon training plan; and I’m planning track training with Vic from next week.  It’s going to hard, but as RDC says, go hard or go home.  And I’m not going home until I have that marathon medal firmly around my neck.