In which we learn the importance of maintaining an accurate calendar

14 weeks to.... Ah.  Shit. (20 January 2013)
I grit my teeth, up the Ibroprofen intake and lace up my running shoes as usual, ignoring the constant searing pain in my knee.  I take it easy at football on Tuesday night and spend most of my time surreptitiously fouling the opposition to avoid having to run much about the pitch... as always.  The pain eases off throughout the week though and in spite of the severe weather warnings we make it back up north for a party and my first taste of running on snow.

Well bugger me, snow is fun.

It takes absolutely years off my age and I prance and leap over snow drifts like a small child, loving the sensation of my shoes crushing the powder underfoot and delighting in every untouched path of white.  Taking one step further along the path to becoming my father I slip on a pair of wire shoe grips under my trainers and they do the job magnificently, allowing me to pelt down the Derbyshire countryside at full speed. 

I go up to Fox House and out along the moors, then come all the way back and do a few laps of the frozen lakelets in Endcliffe Park.  The great and the good of Sheffield are out in force and even at 8am the park is packed: The appeal of the north is driven home as I am overtaken by a running group of about 30 people, all happily engaging in loud and cheery simultaneous conversations.  The park cafe is doing more trade than Harrods and with the snowball fights, sledging and snowmen it’s like an advert for a gentler pace of life.

The whole experience is exhilarating and I’m reluctant to come back to the house at the end of my training plan’s allocated distance, a mere 14km.  I’ve been quite good at sticking to the distances so far and I’m reluctant to go off piste just because I’m pretending I’m Roger Moore in Live or Let Die.  Which I’m definitely not, obviously.  That would be absolutely pathetic at my age.  Worse than wearing mini tyre chains on your shoes.

At the party that night I trade marathon stories with my girlfriend’s sister, though I’m careful not to give away too much in the way of specifics as she’s a seasoned runner and can do a half marathon in the time it takes me to do eight miles.  She talks about completing week 13 of her training plan.  I talk about completing week 14 of mine.  She talks about completing week 13 of hers.  I talk about completing week 14 of mine.

Can you see where this is heading?

We double check our diaries and count forward the weeks but I can already tell from the familiar sense of hot shame creeping down my neck that I’ve fucked up.  I can’t believe that I’ve committed such a schoolboy error as to counting the weeks up wrong and it’s a relief when I learn that in fact I haven’t.  No, instead I’ve got the marathon date wrong.

As well as being a week behind on my training there’s the small matter of my availability that date and with Sod’s law playing a very strong hand, it’s no surprise to discover that I’ve already committed to being in another place.  Two other places, as it happens, given that the marathon now clashes with an already double-booked plan to be in Budapest with friends as well as my cousin’s baby’s Christening in Durham.  Bugger.  The only saving grace is that for me the marathon was always about the day-to-day running rather than ticking the event off, so would I really be that fussed if I didn’t take part....?

There’s nothing I can really do at this stage but rue the lost week of training and postpone the decision for another day; thus liberated I jump on the nearest Jagerbomb train and enjoy myself socially for possibly the last time in three months.  The party’s a corker and it’s with only minor regrets the next morning that I drag myself out of bed to hit the snow once more, one week behind but moving fast.