How I found myself signing up

About two weeks ago, an email came round at work.

"We have 10 places to run the London Marathon 2012! You'll be running for Shelter. Reply to this email to request a place!"

I gave it about 3.2 seconds' thought. Not exclusive thought either - I was also thinking a number of other things, like "my leg is itchy" and "I fancy a Snickers". And I hit reply.

"Yes please, I'd like a place."

That's all I said. And in those fateful six words, I sealed my fate.

You can imagine my surprise when a few days later I got an email back.

"Congratulations! Your place in the London Marathon 2012 is confirmed."

I sat staring blankly at the screen for a moment.

This was my thought process: 

Is this Spam? Have I actually signed up for something? Oh shit. What the fuck am I going to do now?

Obviously, I'll have to back out.

I mean, I'm not what you'd call the athletic type. I'm not fat, exactly, just a bit .... rounded. Sort of soft and squidgy. Rubenesque. I was one of those kids at school that loitered at the edge of the hockey pitch during PE and couldn't wait for it to be over.

I do go to the gym a bit. I can run, a bit. I did a 5k a couple of years ago. And I once jogged for an hour!

... that's not going to be quite enough, is it. A marathon takes more like five hours.

I can't possibly do it. No way.

I mean, ok, it is technically possible that I could do it. People do run marathons. All the time! There are probably people running a marathon right now. And some of those people probably thought they'd never be able to do it.

It'd just be a horrible experience. Not the marathon itself - that would probably be quite cool. You get to run the route of the Olympic marathon, after all. Finishing in the stadium. I've watched London before and it looks quite cool. There's loads of supporters in London. All my friends could come and watch.

But the training would be horrible. Having to be so ... healthy. All that exercise!

I'd probably lose a bit of weight, though. You can probably eat anything you want in the world when you're training for a marathon. Like bacon sandwiches, and McDonald's, and those green pistachio macarons from Paul. Mmmmm. And the calories would just melt away, what with all the running.

And if I'm going to do it, now's the time. I'm 28, I'm in ok shape.

And it'll show my Dad a thing or two. He used to run marathons all the time. I remember all the medals that used to be on display in our downstairs loo (until the day Mum put them in the attic). He was pretty darn proud of himself. He'd probably be quite proud of me too if I do it.

And it's still six months away. That's ages! I've got ages. Aaaaaaaaages.

Ok, let's do it.

And I wrote back: "Great! Thanks very much." And I filled in the registration form online and got my confirmation.

Done. I'm running the marathon. SHIT.