Arriving in Greenwich Park at 8:30am in sideways rain is not the way I normally like to start my Sundays, but I did pray (despite my atheism) for rain on race day and down it came, soaking the many thousands of runners standing anxiously in the portaloo queues waiting for the all-important pre-race relief.

Once over the start line (between a womble, some fairies, a polystyrene wall and a dinasour), the first six miles passed in a flash, steaming past a variety of wonderful seldom-seen south-east London treats: a Woolwich pub turned into a pirate ship; a priest throwing holy water on passing runners; a mini brass-band squeezed into a front yard; a myriad of brave late-April street side barbecues; and morris-dancing ladies. Seeing friends at 6 and 11 miles was fantastic. And suddenly I was at Tower Bridge, and the crowds were immense and roary.

Me, sweaty and beaming, at mile 22, courtesy of Andy Patterson

Things got a lot tougher between about 14 and 20 miles – having run around the Isle of Dogs during training I was ready for it to be tricky, but the humidity and the sense of shared dread among the runners, combined with the dwindling crowds, made it really hard going. At about 17 miles I bumped into a friend J, and then the t’other J met me at 21 for a sip of tea which I think powered me on past mile 22 and a gaggle of amazing, cacophonous Uni friends onwards to the finish, where the hundreds of people shouting my name – My Name – and grinning madly when I made eye contact – spurred me on towards the finish.

Crossing the finish line was followed by wave after wave of relief, rather than immediate euphoria, which has slowly, quietly grown over the last day or so as the enormity of this achievement, the focus of last four months, has sunk in. I started training in November, and since then I’ve since skidded around Hyde Park in sub-zero temperatures with the amazing Howard, grappled with achilles tendonitis, suffered a pretty aggravating metacarpal fracture, dodged the coast road traffic at rush hour in Cape Town, and been locked in two of London’s parks after running around them too late. Despite all this, I managed to finish my first marathon in five hours and one minute. And my legs are feeling every second of it.

The main and best thing though is that with your help I smashed my Shelter fundraising target of £1600 to raise well over £2000 – and there’s still time to sponsor me if you haven’t already. Thanks so much for your support.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be down the pub…

• Number of tears shed: a fair few
• Litres of water drunk: 4
• Number of jelly babies eaten: many
• Days to go until the next one: we’ll see

With only two more short training runs to go, this week is all about the pasta and giving my legs a relative rest before the big day. The nerves are starting to kick in, as I thought they would. Nothing I do now can improve my readiness for the gruelling task ahead, but it’s tempting to think that just adding a mile on here or there will help. It won’t, so from here in it’s all about summoning the mental strength to get through.

My legs will get a huge boost from knowing I’ve raised over £1200 towards my £1600 fundraising target for Shelter, with over £500 coming from deep-pocketed friends who piled round last Friday to be fed a world of carbohydrates (think Come Dine With Me, but with more pasta). If you’d like to help me get a little further towards my target, please donate over at my justgiving page.

I’ve started running with RunMeter, a neat little app which tracks route progress and plots it on a map. The neatest features about it is its ability to tweet location / pace updates and read out replies. If you’re a tweeter you can follow me at @simonruns to check how I’m progressing around the course, and you can send me messages of encouragement to be fed into my ear.

Will you be watching the race? Let me know if you are, and where, and I’ll try and look out for you. I reckon I’ll be finishing between 4h30m and 5h. And then having a very long sit down.

• Days to go: 6
• Calories per day: at least 3000
• Money left to raise: £392
• Volume of ash in lungs: increasing
• Likelihood of winning marathon due to elite athletes being stranded by ash: also increasing

So how’s the running going? Truth is after a difficult few weeks post-injury in February, things have been going well. I was lucky enough to spend a week in South Africa this month and whilst there managed to complete a few pretty long runs on hills in the heat, which was tough but great training. I’ve also been gorge walking a couple of times which I think has strengthened my achilles.

Last night I completed my longest run to date at 17.1 miles. I took it pretty steady and did a couple of laps around Hyde Park (though I did accidentally get locked in Kensington Gardens and nearly speared my thigh climbing out*), before heading up and looping around Regent’s Park, to make it home in about 2h45m.

I’ve started employing a couple of little mental tricks to keep me going on longer runs. One of these is to tell myself that I’ve only run four miles so far (regardless of the truth) and that I only really have to think about the next four. Weirdly that thought alone seems to give my legs more renewed energy than any number of jelly babies.

I just need to do one more 18/19 miler and then it’s three weeks of sweet, sweet tapering and pasta-eating. As exhilarating and exciting as completing such long distances is, I’m very much looking forward to getting my legs and my life back.

• Days to go: 27
• Miles in the last week: 29
• Thighs: disproportionately bulbous
• Sponsorship: Up to £305 – but a long way to go! Please please sponsor me!

* Getting stuck in parks has been a general theme of my training. Last week I ran around the Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town and accidentally got stuck in a not-yet-finished bit of landscape park in front of it…

“It’s because you have a weak bum”, piped Kelly, cheerily, “especially on your right side”. This is the major cause of my achilles woes, which is having to work harder to deal with my foot landing the wrong way.

So, to my daily routine of pasta-a-go-go and finger clenches for my sore paw, I must now add clam stretches, one-legged squats, transversus amdominus engagement (a bit like pelvis floor tensing, which I can sneakily do in meetings).

If I reach the £300 mark this week in donations I will share pictures of humiliating butt stretches. Clothed, obviously. I must retain some dignity.

• Days to go: 57
• Money raised so far: £190. Thanks all! Keep it coming! There’s a long way to go. Sponsor my puny ass!
• Miles this week: 13
• Word of the week: clench

No running this week as I waited to see how bad the grumpy achilles & fractured hand are bearing up. The good news is that the achilles has got a lot better with some rest. The less good news is the hand is still pretty sore.

I’m all strapped up like Dennis The Menace in my fancy splint which was custom-made for me by a lovely hand therapist at UCLH. I even had a choice of blue, red or neon-pink velcro.

I’m going to attempt my first run with it tomorrow, I’m super-conscious that my balance won’t be what it was, and the jarring probably won’t do it much good.

Running impairment aside, these are some more fundamental things I’ve also found difficult this week:

1. Turning socks inside out
2. Putting socks on once you have made them the right way round
3. Doing up button-fly jeans (especially with my little mid-twenties paunch…)
4. Taking the lid off marmalade
5. Cracking open an egg in one piece
6. Eating porridge without spilling all over myself
7. Cutting up food (thanks to all who have helped in this matter this week!)

I’m still very much on for the marathon, and whilst it’s very unlikely I’ll be setting any speed records, it’ll be a huge achievement to get round.

As it’s been quite a mentally and physically tough week – more so than any other week so far, I’ve decided to try and boost my morale a bit by setting up my fundraising page.

Please, please sponsor me – I’m raising money for Shelter, whose good work for the homeless has always filled me with admiration. Hearing the stories of people they help only serves to put my minor injury into perspective and strengthen my resolve to complete the marathon and hit my fundraising target.

It’s worth mentioning first off that Howard and I managed a decent 12-miler around Regent’s Park, Primrose Hill, down along the canal through Camden and King’s Cross to Angel, before heading down through the City to cross over the river and head back up over Waterloo bridge to finish. We didn’t set any speed records but it felt good to run a long way in the low sun, seeing so much of the city in one go.

A few days and shorter runs later though my achilles started to play up again. As it got no better this week I finally went to see a physio on Friday who taped up my leg, suggested switching to cycling for a week, perhaps some new trainers (which don’t correct my over-pronation quite so much) and some exercises for my glutes (I have a weak butt, allegedly). All of which not ideal but in no way showstopping.

Weaving through Covent Garden on my return to work from the physio however, I slipped and fell down a metal staircase, landing on my left hand and bum. After an excruciating 90-min work meeting I took myself to A&E where they informed me I have a fractured metacarpal.

I have a splint which I’m wearing for the next few weeks and i’m just hoping it heals quickly, though there is still a fair bit of swelling as the above shows. With tying shoelaces and putting t-shirts on a bit of a challenge, I’ve realised this is going to limit my training options still further.

• Days to go: 71
• Typing with: one hand
• Feeling: undeterred
• Eating: food which can be eaten with a spork

Obviously as the internet (and procrastionation) knows no bounds, someone has already created a playlist of You’ve Been Framed style treadmill capers. Watch and wince.

Things I learned this week:

1. Eating cherries can reduce muscle pain
2. 94% of runners are College/University educated, and 20% say their favourite restaurant chain is McDonalds. This and other statistics from the 2007 Running USA Conference in San Diego can be found over at Dean Karnazes’ blog
3. Whilst running long distances, the body cannot, in fact, reabsorb waste water from the bladder, as my dubious running book told me. However, Frogs can reabsorb glucose from their bladders.

Next week: it’s all about the sponsorship…

• Days to go: 84
• Miles this week: a lowly 13, as I missed my long run last weekend…
• Eating: an astonishing amount of pasta, and jelly babies (cherries aren’t in season)
• Listening to: Four Tet – There Is Love In You

Since then I’ve squeezed in two further runs, two body pump classes and some cycling, but today the achilles is complaining again, so I think I will tone it down for a few days.

So I need to start fundraising. My justgiving page is set up, but before I unleash it on the world I’m trying to think of other ways to fundraise. To complement my love of dishing up dodgy dinners to friends I’m probably going to host a Come Dine With Me style fundraiser, and I have another few ideas up my sleeve too, but I’m drawing the line at sitting in a bath of beans (I’ll just eat them all) or dying my hair red.

• Days to go: 92
• Miles this week: 15.5
• Eating: eggs benedict (not necessarily the healthiest but DAMN good)
• Alcohol: 18 units. Yikes! Not drinking is hard.

I’ve also cut down the boozing which, when there’s an appreciable amount of wine and gin in the house, means I’m going to have to find new uses for all this undrunk alcohol. Bicep curls with Bombay Sapphire maybe?

• Days to go: 99
• Miles this week: 17.8
• Eating: Thai Chicken Curry
• Alcohol: Yes please! Oh. Um. 12 units.

This week
I’ve been hampered a little by a tender achilles tendon in my right leg. Contracting this injury in 2007 put me out of the Great North Run, so this time I’m determined not to aggravate it. With this in mind, other than following the RICE (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate) philosophy, I’ve changed my workouts, switching to low-impact Body Pump classes and rowing instead of running.

Body Pump is essentially weight lifting to music, aiming to improve core strength. If you’ve ever seen one of these classes you may be mistaken in thinking they are an easy option. With the right weights though, these are pretty bloody tough work. The sheer ridiculousness of doing bicep curls to the sound of Bon Jovi with twenty other people (and the peer pressure) never fails to amuse and motivate.

I also discovered this week that I’ve gained 12lbs in weight since September, not all of which can be muscle, so I’ll be looking at my diet to cut out a bit of the fat.

• Days to go: 106
• Eating: porridge
• Listening to: the slightly marvellous Running Trax compilation by Ministry of Sound
• Sleeping: lots

Today’s run was the longest so far – a 9-miler around Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill. All felt good, but the strength of the sunshine and the 22°C heat left me sprinting for the shade and wondering how those folk running ultramarathons in the desert cope. It’s surprising the difference even a couple of degrees makes.

Right. I deserve cider.

Inspired by David’s marathon blog (and success!), I thought I’d post up a few thoughts here in the run up to the race. This will be my second half marathon – I completed my first in Windsor last September in lush, green, sunny and sweaty circumstances. It was a moving experience – reaching the finish line to the sound of Fleetwood Mac was euphoric – so much so that the following 10 minutes is some sort of endorphin-fuelled blur before being fed some Guinness.

Training began in earnest a couple of weeks ago, and immediately I started I succumbed to pesky chest-infection from hell. Things have picked up again though now I’m better and last week I managed a 4k, 6k and 10k set of runs as well as a rather misty Body Pump class.

So it’s onwards and upwards for the next 6 weeks or so – with sporadic progress updates here. In the meantime, Mr Jones and his knees are taking part in the Helsinki half marathon this weekend – and he needs your sponsorship goodness!

• Don’t plug your iPod shuffle in!
• Bury it in a bag of rice for a week or so
• Plug it in to your computer
• Voila!

God bless electronics, and Mr Heathcote who, if i remember correctly, suggested this marvellous method. More tips and tricks over here.

Conversely, apart from a quiet mention of the new logo in the news section the main London 2012 site fails to have any serious, strong branding anywhere in sight.

Slightly related:

• Guardian (2004): Olympic games may not benefit London
• Guardian (2007): Olympics are costly, but regeneration is priceless
• Diamond Geezer: “Don’t worry, we’ve checked that the final logo passes all known quality thresholds”
• B3ta: It’s amazing what you can do with no proper image creation software

Is officially how long it takes a Simon to run 10 kilometres in Hyde Park on a Sunday morning. It was tremendously hard going – I found it difficult to deal with the adrenaline ups and downs caused by the volume of people inflicting lime green and bright orange abuse on my eyes. My pace was, as a result, somewhat erratic.

My spindly legs are only just returning to normal now, after a day or so of walking around the office in a penguin-like fashion, but it was completely worth it: you’ve helped me raise a whopping £405 for Fairbridge through my justgiving page, and there’s still time to sponsor me if you haven’t already. Thanks so much for all your support. You can also sponsor the mighty Will – who ran a clear six minutes faster than me – here.

If you’re bored and eagle-eyed you can try to spot me finishing in the throng of people here, or check out my split times. Technology is fantastic! I think I’ve definitely caught the running bug, so I’m going to be busy plotting my next few runs…

Three months ago I decided to put myself through 10,000m of bewilderment by signing up to Nike Run London in Hyde Park. Funny how time flies: the run is next Sunday. My weekly training regime has mostly consisted of:

• 2 runs per week around the leafy parks of Ealing, becoming progressively more lengthy
• 2 hour-long sessions of impossibly difficult weight-lifting to the sounds of the B-52′s with a group of predominantly female colleagues (and they all lift heavier weights than me)
• the odd game of squash (during which I squeal like a girl)

If that wasn’t enough of a body shock, I also scraped together enough pennies to buy a package of four training sessions with personal trainer Venus, who is possibly simultaneously the most inspiring and most evil woman I’ve ever encountered. During my first session with her I felt nauseous within about 20 minutes of relentless skipping, squat jumps, box jumping and bunny hopping and punching and shaking and sweating to death. During the first hour-long ordeal I experienced a range of emotions more extreme than anything before. It got worse before it got better, too.

After all this hard graft I’m confident that 10km is within reach and I’ll manage to hopefully complete the distance in an hour or less. It’s been great to be getting fit with a goal in sight, and now I need a little help from you guys. I’m hoping to raise �250 for Fairbridge, a great charity which supports young adults to whom life has so far dealt a raw deal. If you’d like to sponsor me, you can do it all online via my justgiving page. I’ll be eternally grateful.

Of course, pictures of next Sunday’s race will be up on Flickr shortly afterwards.

It’s a worry. Especially as I have agreed (in a characteristically feeble attempt to augment my Mr Muscle physique) to attend yet another Body Pump. It’s the only exercise class in West London where you can simultaneously heave hefty weights and relive the pain that was Drop Dead Gorgeous by Republica…