You may have heard, Katie Ferguson ran the Virgin Money London Marathon 2015 on Sunday. But she didn’t just run it; she smashed it. 3.33.24. For those of you who don’t know, that is a very, very good time.

I went to watch the runners whiz past at Canary Wharf  and found myself carried away on a wave of unexpected emotion. As I’ve mentioned before, I am not a fan of running. I’m quite bad at it and I don’t really understand the appeal of running for its own sake – except the fact that it is fantastically good exercise – but something about watching the London Marathon this year really inspired me. When I spotted Katie amongst the throngs I (a) screamed so loudly that I scared an old lady, and (b) honestly almost shed a tear of pride. What an outrageous and ballsy thing it is to set yourself the mental and physical challenge of running 26 miles. What sort of extraordinary person wakes up on a Monday morning, goes into work and at the watercooler utters the words “I achieved a GFA time at the London Marathon” in response to the question “How was your weekend”?

When we set up this blog in January we set ourselves some goals for the year. One of mine was to run my very first half marathon, with the main driver being that if I had a race to run, I might actually go for a jog from time to time, which would do me some good. Well, having been genuinely inspired by Katie’s efforts, I have gone ahead and signed up for the Cardiff Half Marathon, which is being held on October 4^th this year. OMG.

Not only do I have Katie to support / guide / threaten me into training properly (for which I am very grateful. If a bit scared.), I also have another brilliant friend who is supporting this endeavour.

Blanche, a friend of mine from university, whom I sadly haven’t been in touch with as much as I would have liked to post-graduation, messaged me rather out of the blue recently to say that she was loving the blog (thank you!) and was I serious about my intention to run a half marathon? And if so, would I be interested in a running buddy, albeit a mostly virtual one? Well, yes! Yes I would! Having someone who I need to check in with each week will definitely serve to keep me on track, and given my hideously competitive nature, there is no way I am going to let her beat me when it comes to the race…

Reminds me of the time I accidentally handed her off in the throat during a rugby training session in second year. But I’m fairly sure she’s forgiven me for that.

So here it is, my commitment to you guys, to Katie and to Blanche that I will train, I will blog about said training, and I will run a half marathon this year. Even if it kills me.