The madness begins on Sunday

When I start training for the marathon. Having bought the Province newspaper today and got the 18 week training plan, I am now quite scared. Not least because I am going to have to get myself a stopwatch, and work out some run routes around here that are certain numbers of kilometres. Luckily we live practically opposite a school with a running track, which is open to the public after school hours. Cue me running in the rain and dark :o) at least no-one will see me.

The only major points I have issue with (apart from whether I'll actually be able to complete the thing at all) are that a) during my time back home in England in Feb, I will have to take time out of my days and keep training, so apologies in advance for the people who are going to have to put me up, and b) the hill training only kicks in on the day after I fly into England! Now there is a damn big hill by my parents' house, but in Manchester there is a distinct lack of them. So I may be hard pressed to do all my hill training in the allotted time. However, balancing these bad points is the fact that I get two rest days per week, Monday and Thursday, and luckily I fly in and out of England on Thursdays. So they're not really rest days I guess. Damn.

Wednesdays and Sundays are going to be hellish, as they are the hard days. However one of the sports and fitness companies here, the Running Room, has a running club on those two days (was this organised with them? If not it's a marvellous coincidence) so hopefully I can go and run with other regretful people who signed themselves up in a moment of madness.

The Christmas break is winding itself down to being actually fairly boring now. My errant cousin is allegedly somewhere in the city, but being a) disorganised, b) a bloke, and c) somewhere where there is apparently no house phone, he has not made his presence felt. Despite my texting him at a cost of something ridiculous from my English mobile. Let us hope that he awakes from the jetlag coma to text me back at some point. Other people are gearing up for New Year and are also therefore incommunicado, or are just occupied with other things. Hence I have had little opportunity to talk to anyone. Healthy breakfast this morning (grapefruit, orange, hot water with lemon) was tainted by the fact that I bought Cheetos when going to get the newspaper - damn my lack of willpower!

A PS: I may not have spoken to many people over Christmas, but I miss you all. Just because I'm not e-mailing you, it doesn't mean I'm not thinking of you. I just might not be up to it yet. Today I shed the last tears of the year (hopefully), when I had a moment of feeling sorry for myself and generally alone. But screw it, at least I have a home, friends and family. So really I have no right to feel sorry for myself. Someone kick me out of this mood.......