Every journey begins with a first step!

Marathon S. My name has been masked to hide my identity and stop people laughing at me as I waddle down the sea front in Jersey with my bum cheeks clapping together like a massive round of applause.

Harp music plays and I go into a dream sequence as I think about how it all began, quaffing red wine with messers Marathon T and Marathon J we discussed bull running in Pamplona, the tomato festival, diving the blue hole! (I still think that's a little dodgy Marathon J) and any number of adventures that men of a certain age can have.

Anyway, the Jersey Half marathon struck a chord with me and I decided that in my 40th year of life I was going to make use of my mid-life crisis and hit the mean streets of St Helier to get thin and fit.

You have to realise at the close of the year I was drinking about 60 units of alcohol on a weekend, weighed 16st 1 and had a take-away for tea most nights, with the most energetic thing I did running to the fridge for a choccie bar.

As Big Ben chimed for the New Year I felt awful and decided to stop drinking booze, sack off milk, bread and fizzy drinks and get fit.

I bought a half marathon book and started the New Year with the rest of the Marathon legends with 19 weeks to go from porky zero to athletic hero!!

Weeks 1 to 6 were bad, I was suffering from palpation's, the adult equivalent of nappy rash and the kind of shin splints that would kill a horse.

Undaunted I spent £250 on getting fitted for the correct insoles and trainers and a further £200 trying to have some acupuncture.

I could run for 14 minutes before my heart did an impression of a humming birds wing and went to about 190 beats a minute. (That is not very pleasant)

I gradually upped the miles in line with the painkillers I was taking and managed to run my first ever 6.5K about 4 weeks into the training, though the after effects left me dizzy, in pain and with stomach cramps.

I've gradually been improving the rowing, cross training, stretching and jogging to the level that I can now run for 1hr 24 mins, though I've developed runners knee which makes the shin pain seem positively pleasurable, though I'm down to 13st 11 so the weight loss is helping.

Any road up, that's got you from where I was, to where I am so look out for my training blog over the next 10 weeks as I get ready for the start line.

Living the dream - Marathon S