I am not a member of the 100 Marathon Club. Nor did last year’s attempts to reach the start line of the Brathay 10 in 10 go particularly well. After 3 solid months of training, a whole load of [perfectly valid] earache from my Wife and a couple of trial marathons, I fell off a treadmill and fractured my tibia. Despite my best efforts, by February it was obvious that I wasn’t going to make it, so I slinked away with my tail between my legs and quietly disappeared from the wonderful 10in10 community.

My work life is all about continuous improvement and this is about simple step changes and accepting that a process will never be perfect. So just giving it go, expecting problems and fixing them in an agile fashion.

This year I have trained 6 days a week, but the quality and diversity of the has been very different. I train weights and core 2 days a week, do a bootcamp another day and then have 3 days focussed running [one of which is a speed session]. As the 10in10 gets closer I intend to up my mileage but will not be running more than 4 sessions a week at peak. I believe that this process presents the best chance of getting to the start line in May.

Lastly, I would like to say a couple of things about the Brathay Trust. We didn’t have a lot of money when we were growing up and with a dysfunctional Dad, life was often a battle. Aptitude in life is nothing without the confidence to apply it. Brathay is a vehicle for socio-economic mobility and any mechanism that supports this is truly a wonderful thing. It is a privilege to be running for them and I hope that this year I can do them justice.