This ain't something else.

Tomorrow I’m going to run 26.2 miles.

Apparently you can follow my progress live on the iPhone app. My bib number is 43306 and you can get the app on iTunes by searching for Paris Marathon, but the app is a little crashy. You can also follow twitter.com/cliff where Team Cliff will be updating @cliff during the race.

It will also be shown live on British Eurosport on Sunday from 7:45 to 10:15

Shit y’all.

I went to my therapist this morning.

Reader, if you’re tapering for a marathon and in counselling for depression (which, let’s face it, most of you are) you’ll know that the two don’t mix.

Before every weekly session they ask you a bunch of questions to check that your behaviour hasn’t become erratic. It’s a duty of care thing to stop people in peril and I can understand why they have to do it.

(My thoughts in italics)

- Hi Cliff. Morning. Take a seat.

- Thank you. Is this fresh water? Did that sound weird? I meant is this glass of water in front of me from a previous patient? But now it’s going to look like I have an obsession about clean water.

- How are you?

- Yeah, I’m well, thanks. Do I ask how you are, or were you asking in a professional capacity?. Jeez, this is awkward. Fresh water, though. You ok?

- Yes, thank you.

- Good.

- I just have to ask you the regular questions of your behaviour and mood over this past week.

- Sure.

- Can you answer Not At All, Some Days, Most Days or All The Time.

- Yes I can.

- Have you had trouble sleeping?

- Not at all.

- Have you been very tired?

- Most days.

- Have you been fidgity?

- Most days.

- Have you been physically or emotionally exhausted?

- Most days.

- Have you been overeating?

- All the time.

- How much have you been anxious about the immediate future?

- All the time.

- Have you been avoiding social situations?

- All the time.

I then had to explain TO THE THERAPIST how I was not mad and that these symptoms are completely normal, explaining tapering, carb loading and glycocen storage. I googled “taper madness” and there are tons of people running Boston who are feeling the same way, which made me feel better.

- Good, so, do you feel now?

- I want to run.

- You want to run?

- I just want to run for hours and hours and hours and just go. Just run and run and run.

- …

- I won’t feel like this next week. Next week will all be different.

- Right.

I think she got a lot out of the session.

I would like nothing better than to run right now. While what I was doing up to this point surprised me, it now seems crazy that I’m not running.

My legs feel so ready and I’m craving to move. Dead serious, I would like little more right now that to get up and run for two hours in a straight line. I am gagging to run.

My body is begging me to run, and my head is going; “Shut up! I told you I can’t.” By Sunday lunchtime the roles will be reversed.

So now with 4 days to go I am loading up with carbs and checking everything over for the fourth time, making sure that nothing is different for the race. Look at my lunch today:

I’ve checked that Mrs. This hasn’t changed laundry detergents for my kit.

I have bought the same supermarket branded sports drinks and then worried that Alpen, who makes my chewy bars, don’t make them any more. So that’s going to be new.

I can now check the weather for Paris and it’s going to be sunny and hot. I have never run in sunny and hot. I have never run in sunglasses. Or sun block. Will the glasses annoy me? Will the sun block sting my eyes or clog my face up?

Am I really going to write my name on my shirt? Oh god, tell me I’m not going to make it about me and do the quizzicle hand to the ear thing as I run past thousands of people urging us along.

Will I be too hot running in a rucksack? I was planning on taking all my drink with me, and I have to carry medicine anyway in case I have an asthma attack. And a phone. This stuff weighs about 2kg. Will that be too heavy?

This is happening, isn’t it? Have I got this?

Fuck my crickey I need to run.

I went for my last training run at the weekend. I may go out and do a couple of miles in Paris down to the starting line from the hotel, but that’s it. I’m done.

Last night’s run was incredible. Here’s me heading out in the sunset.

I turned towards the Thames as the sky grew dark and it was as dark and slow as I’d ever seen it. Then the night feel and I was running under the stars to the Doobie Brothers. It was an 8 mile run in 1:15. It felt beautiful.

And this is how the kids woke my up on Saturday. Bear in mind this is the first pictures of the children I have ever put online in 7 years of blogging – that’s how much this means to me.

Also, there will be a mid-race twitter update or two from Team Cliff who will be updating www.twitter.com/cliff during the race, which starts 8:45am French time on Sunday 10 April.

If you want to sponsor me for Medecins Sans Frontieres, please do.

Thanks you for all your support and helping me along this way. I am finished training. I’ve gone from couch to marathon in 37 weeks and I couldn’t have done it without the support of my family and you, the reader.

You need a lot of time to do something difficult. Stuff that looks impossible takes a bit longer.

Remember this? Well all right.

21 Valentine – How much time do you spend on – Facebook, Twitter, Myspace or Youtube?

There’s a guy I follow on Twitter called James Seddon (@jamesseddon) who said this week: “The more I use Twitter, the more I want to use Twitter; The less I use Twitter, the less I want to use Twitter.”

That’s very apt, I think.

I’d say somewhere between more than I should and less than most. I don’t think you can make much of an opinion from that without knowing the person who you’re talking to.

Some people go to social networks to goof off, others see it as a  utility or resource. Again, I’m somewhere in the middle. I like being  contactable without being in touch and that’s what I use Facebook for,  so I don’t have to send my email to everyone I no longer talk to. I’m  quite protective of my email and I don’t like being copied along with a  load of strangers who now have my personal email address. That’s what we  have blind copy for and that’s why I like social networks because you  can get in touch with me, but it’s not like you’re emailing me or passing  around my mobile number to strangers.

Twitter is for shits and grins mostly, but I don’t follow more than 50  people because it gets too noisy. I, on the other hand, have more than  300 followers, which must say something.

No, I’m kidding. But I really do have that many followers.

I tend to follow people who use Twitter in the way I do, which is to say  the correct way. I don’t retweet every fucker and their mutt who  mentions me because they are my friends, not yours. My aim is to be  useful and entertaining. Those are my two rules. Or three. And be  concise. Get to the point, is the main thing.

People who tweet: “Oh my god, you have to see this (link URL)” have more  time than do and won’t stay followed. Despite a small band of people I  follow, I like the way it’s a broad church. There are a lot of  journalists, but also a student or two, a comedian and a writer.  My Twitter feed is like a playlist on my interests and I’m always  honing it. Sometimes people find themselves honed, other times I’m the  honee. So it goes with life.

Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for all the questions and feel free to leave comments asking for more.

I went out at the weekend and ran 12 miles. I found it pretty easy, and although my tendon was tight, it wasn’t painful. My time was 1:48.

It was a beautiful run, though, all along the river on a gorgeous spring day. I even composed a haiku while I was out.

Twelve miles in the spring.
Cherry blossom like snowflakes.
Oh my fucking knees.

I shouldn’t say this, but that’s a 3:57 marathon pace. I need to lay off the stats, because I knew I was running a 12 mile run, so I could tell I had that in the tank. Trying to go under four hours from the outset might spell disaster for the whole thing. I don’t even know what that feels like, so to gauge it from the outset would be wrong.

Anyway: I think I’m ready.

It’s still very strange to think like this – to look at a schedule and think: “Phew, twelve miles. That’s a relief.” For the first time, I feel ready for it. Tapering is going well and I feel stronger every day and by the end of next week my mind I will be screaming to run. I’ve already given this blog my heart and soul, and now it’s after my body. It’s always the way, though isn’t it reader?

But for the first time, I feel like I’m all set for the marathon and it still feels incredible, flying along for two hours and not getting out of breath. It still seems like this shouldn’t be happening, though.

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
~Pablo Picasso

YOU DID IT!!! Now Keep Going (Part 1)
I went for a five mile run last night. Thing with the strain I have is that is the pain goes after 20 minutes of running and it hurts the next day, but the sharp sting I had and the pain which caused me to limp had gone and was only an ache which didn’t affect my gait any more, so I headed out to keep in decent shape.


Here’s me last night after the run in my race shirt.

I was actually fine, but some some of the soreness is back today so I’m thinking I will only do 12 miles this weekend instead of half a marathon. I have heard of Taper Madness before and I think I’ve got it. I am worried that I haven’t done enough and am so tempted to go out and train, but I know I have to have believe that I will be OK and shouldn’t risk more serious injury.

It’s going to be hard not to run a half marathon on Sunday. I will be incredibly tempted to run 13.1 miles as I’ve done every weekend since the middle of January, but I know I have to resist the urge, because going over the planned miles with a strain during the taper would be utter madness.

But is it less crazy than going from couch to marathon in 9 months?

Here’s something:

A list Of Things I Won’t Miss When I’m No Longer Training

1. Being completely full every lunchtime, ie: cooking a huge pile of rice and beans, or pasta, or eating whole baguettes and chunky soup in the office. In fact, constantly eating.
2. Waking up and doing a pain audit. First thing I think about when I wake now is: “OK, what hurts? Am I stiff? When I put weight on my feel will it hurt? How are the knees? Is this a pain or an ache? Christ, I’m hungry.”
3. Talking/blogging/tweeting about the fucking running. Sorry to all non-runners out there. If I’m honest I’m doing all this partly for the writing because I wanted to share the experience of an ordinary guy trying to do something extraordinary as quickly as possible. It’ll be over soon, I promise.
4. Not spending time with loved ones.
5. Running on pavements. I’ve never entered a race before, but I’m looking forward to running down the middle of a road. Not on pavements or in the damber or drain where one leg is higher than the other or looking out for cars and crossings and shouting at drivers who don’t signal off roundabouts or run red lights and cut me up, but down the middle of a closed-off road while volunteers hand me free drinks and everything is tailored towards helping me run. That’s got to be worth six miles worth of effort at least. Right?

There are plenty of things I will miss, but it’s too early to think whether I’ll keep this up after this one.

YOU DID IT!!! Now Keep Going. (Part 2)
As a final thing, a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated to MSF UK. You have donated £519.20 so far and with Gift Aid added on, that’s £636.03!!!

If you want to pass it on or make a contribution, please visit my fundraising page or send it around. The latest from MSF in Japan is that they are working with psychologists in the aftermath of the earthquake, and in their other work, the Ivory Coast and Sudan are descending to a deeper crisis. More details can be found at the MSF UK homepage.

Thanks and love to everyone who has helped out so far.

Oh, depression thing – I finally have an appointment. You know how I say that pretending to be brave is as good as the real thing? If that’s right, I might be up for an Oscar.

Maybe it’s not true. But I’ve been pretending to be an athlete since July.

Yes. I am injured and I can’t run because I picked up something called Iliotibial band syndrome. ITB syndrome is where a band of muscle that runs down alongside the side of the leg and attaches below the knee rubs the outside of the joint over and over and becomes inflamed and tender.

When I bend my knee I have this sharp stinging feeling, but not when it is fully bent and not when I land on it. From the symptoms I knew it was something about a tendon so I googled that shit. I googled it right up and I got video of people going: “I have a sharp pain off the side of my knee, but only when I do *this* and at no other time.”

The there were videos of doctors and sport physios and much laying on of hands and, it looks like I have a touch of the ITBs.

But it’s a proper sporting injury common in cyclists and long-distance runners who have built up muscle, strength and stamina faster that a body’s tissue can physically deal with it. It’s worse in the evening when I’ve been walking as I tend to bend my leg as I go about my business of a day.

The good news is that it’s treated by anti-inflammatory drugs and rest. Massage will make it worse, because it would be like rubbing a bruise. And stretching won’t help because the muscle rubbing alongside the bone for 3 hours of runnning is what caused it. It really hurts when I touch the side of my knee joint, but the knee cap  and cartilage are all fine, and the feet and ankles are good.

However the pain won’t go unless I stop running so I’m benched for at least four or five days.

The even better news is that HA! I CAN TOTALLY STOP RUNNING FOR 4 OR 5 DAYS, BECAUSE I AM TAPERING ANYWAY SO YEAH WHATEVER.

This also means that I played it completely right, and that even though I’m bust up now, I could not have trained any harder than I possibly did, because I would have become inured earlier, and if I didn’t train this hard then I wouldn’t have been ready in time.

So fingers crossed I should be OK to do a few short runs this weekend and go out at the weekend for an hour and a half before rocking the big one in two and a bit weeks.

Prince has a song on the New Power Soul album called “I Like Funky Music”. I mean – yeah.

That’s like Bridget Bardot saying “I like my pointy boobs.”

Um, dude: You are pointy boobs.

But yes, I like running. It’s more enjoying the fact I’m running rather than the run itself.

It’s vanity if I’m honest. Like how people like that they are traveling more than the voyage or the destination. They think: “I’m travelling. Fuck yeah.” And they think of all those people who could travel and don’t. Or they feel sorry for the people who can’t, or would but don’t.

Or people who go to the theatre. They enjoy it, sure, but there must be those who like that they are at the theatre more than the play itself.

The attraction to running for me that the act of doing is bigger than the activity itself. For example, people who enjoy cooking. It’s not about “making food and eating it”. No – you’re a cook. When you do what a cook does, that’s what you become.

Knitting isn’t just about making clothes, and playing an instrument isn’t just creating different vibrations on the air.

For me, running isn’t just going from here to there without transport. But also? It kind of is, which like all these activities is what makes it perfect, and when you take away the time and the distance, for that moment, so are you.