Karen writes: So as not to make a cupcake out of a marathon

I am now officially committed to a training programme.    Thanks Grant.   It’s here in front of me, in pretty shades of yellow carefully labelled with days of the week, and numbers of weeks and what is expected each day. It has 16 days off, yes I counted those first, it has 5 runs of over 25km, and actually, it looks very reasonable, for a reasonable athlete.  Am I one, I'm not sure on that.   I have already had the discussion about shifting the long run to another day…and because of this the day off had to shift to still have enough benefit…then the nasty thing with the running up and down the same hill 8 x shifted to accommodate the changed day off…and I cant commit to gym attendance...and this week I cant do the long run on Sunday so I mess everything up again to fit it in earlier, all was very patiently dealt with and it was made clear it had to fit around my life.   To top it all off though, I caught myself building in some excuses early “I will have to be flexible for…childcare … meetings…if I’m feeling too lazy…if someone has birthday cake at work…etc”.  

But I look more closely at what has suddenly become an important little collection of lines and words and think that while it is actually only 8 weeks of work, it should hopefully make this upcoming marathon go well if I stick to it, plus it is setting the groundwork for the big ‘IM’ which according to a recent email was only 250 days away...EEK.  I figure before I try to bargain any more changes I should perhaps think about it more like a recipe, like a cake, and I sadly reflect on my own most recent 'fiddling with the recipe' cooking experience – the late night cupcake disaster (anyone else ever had to make several batches of cupcakes because the first lot were too embarrassing to send to school for the 5 year olds fundraiser even with a heap of icing?).  By now, I should understand that if I muck around with the recipe (oh, wholemeal flour here will be fine, not enough butter, that’s alright, I’m sure this will do) I get…hmmm…what I deserve.  This time, actually this time I really want icing and a cherry on my marathon so perhaps I WILL follow the recipe.     Starting tomorrow with the first of the Tuesday 'medium' 60-80 minute runs.