Runner's blog Stardate 12 September 2009.

So tomorrow I start training in earnest. In a moment of madness last week and in a last ditch attempt to give myself some kind of focus for the future, I signed up for the Brighton marathon.

Of course I have little experience of marathon running. I managed a half-marathon early this year (Milton Keynes half - in March) and despite the hail stones and buttock clenching cramps, I managed to finish in just under 2 1/2 hours.

It was a huge achievement and after learning to walk again (it only took 3 days) I immediately decided to sign up for the London Marathon. Alas, I was too late and since then have had all kinds of issues with running. Firstly, the Crouch End Lido opened for the summer - replacing running with swimming is easy at this time of year and allows all kinds of doubts to niggle at me. Am I too old for this lark? Will my joints give up the ghost? Is this knee injury the beginning of something dreadful and, more to the point, what is the point of all of this?

And what's worse is that over the course of the summer I had started smoking again. At first a puff here and there and quite quickly I was back into full-scale nicotine dependence. One of the main reasons that I had started running is that it is hard-core exercise. There is no room for maneuver, one of the by-products of signing up for the half mary was that I was scared into totally giving up cigarettes. And it seems to have worked again. That and the dreadful guilt of my daughter begging me to stop smoking and worrying about my premature, lung cancer induced, death.

So, here I am 10 days into this quit. After a week of patches I am now three days nicotine free and about to begin training for one of the biggest challenges of my life. And I'm not even sure that I'm up to it either physically or mentally.

Over the next 6 months I am going to write this blog and record my training highs and lows. Hopefully by 18 April 2010 I will be the fittest I've ever been. A lean, mean, running machine.

In reality I will probably be dragging my sorry arse round the last 6 miles and vowing never to even think of doing this again.

But at least I will be 6 months nicotine free and able to look my daughter in the face again.