It’s been a while since I talked about my running here. The main reason for that is I barely did any running last year thanks to a hard-to-pin down calf injury. Towards the end of last year, I found a chiropractor and started getting weekly physiotherapy. It’s helped a lot and although the injury is still there, I’ve been ramping up my running. I ran a fairly slow half-marathon at the Vancouver First Half-Marathon in February. It took me 2 hours blah to finish which is x minutes or so slower than my best time but my calf held up which was the important thing.

So, now I’m facing a much bigger challenge. Tomorrow, I’m running the Vancouver Marathon. This will be my fourth time. Previous attempts have got gradually quicker (5:29:11, 4:37:54, 4:18:28) but I’m nowhere near the shape I was in 2014. My goal is to finish without the catastrophic drop in pace I normally experience in a marathon. Bonus points for finishing under 5 hours. Extra bonus points for sticking to my nutrition plan – I normally abandon it about 20km in and then pay the price at the end.

I’m actually really looking forward to the race, which is a testament to how good the brain is at forgetting pain. I’m sure when I hit the 32km mark all those memories will come flooding back.

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[One Sleep to Go… by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 30th April 2016]