When you read this, I’ll either be in the air or in Germany. 

Yep, it’s time to run a marathon... again, my second in the space of five weeks.  

When I started running, I doubted I would ever be able to run that far. 

I couldn’t foresee how my body would ever stand up to the rigours of training for such a distance. 

But I’ve learned you don’t have to just accept that’s how your body is; you can change it through training, altering your mindset and what’s possible in the process. 

Sometimes it’s important to reflect on how far you’ve come. 

I know I’m guilty of always striving and looking forward when it comes to running. Seldom will I look in the rearview mirror and give myself a little credit for what’s been achieved. 

It’s only in those golden few hours after a race that we take stock and bask in the glow of an event. By the next morning, we’ve all moved on, discussing what’s next. 

But whatever happens at the Berlin Marathon on Sunday, I feel like I’ve won. It’s always a battle to get to any marathon start line if you train properly.  

The weeks and months in the lead-up rarely run smoothly and that’s part of the challenge. 

Take this week for instance. It’s wholly predictable, but both my children have colds whilst my son, Logan, had to be taken to A&E with a suspected broken arm after falling off some monkey bars (thankfully it turns out it’s just a sprain, which has only been bothering him at bedtime over the last couple of days...). 

But that’s life – you adapt – either take it in your stride or get knocked from pillar to post wondering what could go wrong next. 

I’ve tried to be kind to myself in terms of expectations on Sunday.  

Understandably, I’ve felt tired since the Helsinki Marathon at the end of August and it’s new territory for me to run two marathons close together; it’s not something I’ll look to repeat any time soon. 

I honestly don’t really know what to expect; I have a target of going under 3:20 in mind but I’m going to be kind to myself before, during and after.  

I’ve asked a lot of my body over the last six weeks, a little too much if truth be told, and I perhaps have to accept that I haven’t put myself in a position to reach absolute peak marathon performance in Berlin. 

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to give it absolutely everything over those 26.2 miles in the German capital.  

But training hasn’t come as naturally as it did earlier in the year. I’ve found it difficult to get back to the levels I showed before the Cambridge Half Marathon in March when I set a new personal best and tore a calf muscle in the process. 

I’ve still had a lot of fun, but I haven’t been able to regain that sense of momentum in my training. It will come again if I make the right decisions and show those two crucial qualities that any runner needs to display that wants to make progress: discipline and patience. 

Doubts were starting to creep in earlier in the week after an ‘easy’ run which felt anything but.  

I took a bit of time to scroll through my runs on Strava over the last six months and it’s amazing the runs you forget. We all fixate on the runs we wished we had done rather than the actual training we did. 

My Round Norfolk Relay leg has given me a bit of confidence that I can achieve my goal but most importantly, I’m looking forward to having a bit of fun with it. 

I feel very lucky to be able to run Berlin again and it really isn’t something that I ever take for granted. Taking part in these big events abroad gives me so much joy and I’m going to do it for as long as my body will let me. 

Having said that I’m looking forward to having a bit of a break after the weekend, mentally as much as anything.  

I want to be able to run without a bit of structure for a few weeks and really assess what I want out of my running in 2025. Races are already starting to fill up and I’ve got a few things on my radar but I’ll save that for another column. 

I can almost sense Neil Featherby, who has been such a running mentor for me (and a lot more besides) telling me to just concentrate on Sunday and forget about the rest. 

And I don’t want to get on his bad side so I’ll end this column by saying how grateful I am to the whole Run Anglia community for the support you’ve given me in my running journey so far. 

I’ll have another story to tell next week... and I can’t wait to see how this one ends. 

See you on the other side.