Andy's marathon: The beginning

I'll be running the 2012 Virgin London Marathon on behalf of Mind, the leading mental health charity in England and Wales. You can sponsor me by visiting http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AndyCraig and follow my progress on Twitter and Facebook. Read about all of the excellent work Mind do by visiting Mind.org.uk.

It was all going so well... After kicking off with a wheezy, lead-booted New Year's Day jog, the post-Christmas training regime in preparation for this year's London Marathon was beginning to go swimmingly (or runningly, to be precise). I was knocking out 10Ks for fun, my 5-a-day actually referred to fruit (not pints or that thing that makes you go blind) and I'd reached a point where any sip of alcohol was accompanied by a crashing feeling of betrayal. The stuff of nightmares? Maybe so, but I was already reaping the benefits. Better sleep, better health, and I I could already notice a tangible improvement to my fitness, ploughing a furrow down the left flank of my Sunday League team, chasing my first touch to my heart's content. I went to the gym too. Twice! I may even have looked like I knew what I was doing second time around, at least until I started doing keepy-ups with the Swiss ball.

And then it happened. Two weeks ago, a night that was to be made up of a run to Richmond, steamed vegetables and a smug sense of self-congratulation metastasized into an evening involving a sofa, a Big Mac and gunning down virtual aliens controlled by fellow no-hopers worldwide. The blame for this sudden shift can solely be placed at the feet of South West Train for selfishly deciding to park a train across the metaphorical driveway of my journey home, resulting in my usual 30 minute door-to-door commute taking nearer two hours, and was no way the fault of my complete abandonment of self-discipline. Yet that was it; five weeks of good work undone by the lure of burgery goodness. The guilt I'd started to feel every time I lost sight of the approaching marathon-sized goal evaporated as I snaked my way back to square one. A combination of inclement weather and some recent unusual round-the-clock work shifts meant that I remained there for far longer than the me of three weeks ago would have allowed.

There is, however, no escaping my impending date with 26.2 miles on Sunday 22nd April, and the panic that set in over the weekend has seen me regain some focus. I was back out for the first time in two weeks on Sunday morning, and forced myself to be excited when purchasing some new running gloves and wrist wallet, removing the excuse of "there's no one in the flat to let me in and I don't want to hold my keys for 10 miles." Despite having a busy February, the intention is to get out 3-5 times a week, perhaps even for some pre-work dawn running (I can already hear the creaking sound of a multitude of eyes rolling when I write this - hence the perhaps).

And this, in part, is where the blog comes in. The main intention of starting this is to create an ideal playlist for the marathon, containing around 4 hours worth of sufficiently excellent bouncy running music to see me through to the finish line. I'll be taking (serious) suggestions by anyone and everyone who would like to contribute through the comments beneath my the blog or on Twitter (@Andy_craig), with the aim of reviewing how suitable a song is for running, and if it's good enough, it'll make the final list for the day. Any contributions from those of you who work in the music industry (you know who you are, fellow runner!) will also be gratefully received. There'll be a lot more on this in future blogs, including what's currently on the running playlist, what's been taken off and mistakes that have been made. I'll even try and be funny, too.

For now though, this first blog is the beginning, seizing back the self-discipline and reclaiming the guilt of not lacing up my running shoes when I know I should. It's all there in the words above for you all to hound me with if I don't abide - 3-5 outings a week? Early morning runs? Eating more fish than Free Willy? It won't be fun, but then it's not really meant to be, is it?