I just went on a triathlon website.

The navigation bar reads "Tips for....."

and the buttons followed:

"swimming" "biking" "running" and "staying married"

This amused me. That is all.

And I certainly can't type!
Back soon when I can.

(We did it though!)

H
x

This will be my last entry before the marathon. I'm very, very excited. The day before yesterday I took myself off to the Expo to pick up my number and enjoy a bit of shopping (shhh... don't tell... I've hidden it in the wardrobe). I had a lot of fun, but it was a little emotional. Yes, I know, it was an expo. In the Excel Centre. God knows how I'm going to cope with the race itself.

Anyway. I ventured into the Pasta Party to find out whether they catered for ceoliacs (they didn't) and to see whether there was a seat (there wasn't). On my way out the door I happened to tune in to the speaker talking from the stage. He was talking about motivation and he was pretty engaging. I stopped to listen. Apparently - well, I say apparently, I've probably remembered this all wrong - you run the first thirteen miles with your legs (no shit), the next six with your head and the final six with your heart. And as he stood there, explaining how you can overcome the difficulty of the last few miles by holding in your mind the reason for your run; the person you are running for - everything went a bit misty.

Yep. There was I was, at an expo surrounded by strangers, crying into someone elses pasta.

On top of this, I'm marginally terrified. I couldn't have been injured at a worse time. My hamstring, though bearable, would simply not endure the sort of training I needed to put into to achieve my time goal. Whereas once I was on course to get around in under four hours; now I just want to get round. I don't expect to be able to run all of it, I don't think my leg will allow it. Ah well - these are the things that life throws at us. I can be miserable and defeated or I can take it and turn it: I can win the London Marathon another year. This year I will simply potter along and high-five the spectators.

Don't forget to look out for me. I'll be the one wearing a white top.

Feeling strange tonight. Tomorrow will be one year since Matt died. Can't think of anything to do with myself. In the space of the past hour I've put the TV on, turned it off, run a bath, let it go cold, attempted to occupy myself with about fifty different small administrative tasks on the computer.

I feel very out of sorts. I don't know what to do with my hands. I haven't cried.

Injury has ensured I've been pretty much untroubled by running for the last month. I have tried to be philosophical about this, but it's hard. My leg hurts, I am losing fitness. I will be amazed if I am able to complete a run of over 12 miles before the marathon. I am, to quote a technical term, "biomechanically shit" - and am paying the price after weeks of high mileage training. I feel underprepared and, at night, I feel nervous. People say there will be other marathons, other years. But it is this marathon, this year that is so important. And I will get round the course on crutches if I have to.

Anyway I'm going to sign off now. I am being cooked some dinner. Think of us all tomorrow.

Excited! We are in Runners World month. It was a lovely article, although I do look like a partial amputee in the accompanying photograph. Nothing to do with the photographer, he was a great guy and it's testament to his skill that we managed to get any photos done at all (appalling weather). It was just it was so damn cold I surreptitiously sneaked my right hand up into my jumper for warmth. Cue photo showing me finishing at the wrist. I can just imagine all those readers going "Okay, sod the running - what the hell happened to her hand?"

It made me smile. I'll get hold of an electronic version and upload it in the next few days.

I am really, really excited. My race number came through yesterday. Say hello to number 28,776, red. Attached to it was a magazine of War And Peace proportions, outlining the various rules and administrative tasks that seemingly accompany running 26.2 miles through the centre of London. It was all a bit overwhelming. Somehow in my naivety I thought everyone would just rock up to the start line and start running when someone shouted "go". Seriously. I feel a bit silly about that now.

Oh, and the change in weather is so welcome. It has been a beautiful day today. Have been making the most of the sun and attacking the garden. I like gardening, I enjoy it, but I hate all the spiders. No, I don't hate them; I just don't want them walking on me. When they do, I do what I can only describe as FREAK OUT in a very real and very spectacular way. I try so hard to contain it. I think, parenting-wise, one of the greatest difficulties I've ever had to face is the attempt at total suppression of the all-encompassing terror that I feel whenever a spider comes within six feet of me. I present an unconvincing juxtaposition of the initial ("Oh! wow look! A spider! How lovely William!" ) and the inevitable ("Jesus GET IT OFF ME!!") as I run round the garden leaping into the air and ruffling my hair like a mental patient.

At least I try.

Anyway. Arachna-terror aside, Spring brings with it a lot of ambivalence. Its arrival signals the approach of the anniversary of Matthew's crash. A carpet of daffodils are budding in my garden. Last year I was cutting them and placing them at the roadside along with the hundreds of other flowers people had left. Small things catch me unawares and remind of things I have been happy to forget. Cbeebies has started playing its Spring Song; today was the first time I heard it. Last year, the same song was playing on the television as I sat on the floor in the kitchen, with my back against the door, shut away from my children who were playing happily in the lounge, trying to process everything I had just seen. It was a horrible moment, and had been pushed into the "too painful to remember" box. I would rather it had stayed there. Hearing it today stopped me in my tracks. Only momentarily. But it did stop me.

Oh I am trying hard to keep going. I know that to a great extent I am responsible for how I think, and correspondingly how I feel. And so I have chosen the party line: this season, this time, is a time for growth and for being positive. And it's true; the world is coming alive, and it is so beautiful watching this change; from the bare and dormant to the lush abundance we'll all see more and more over the coming weeks.

So that's good. Let's part on a lighter note. It's 22 miles tomorrow. And, dammit, the shorts are coming out. Be afraid, everyone.

Last night was our fundraiser party, The Big Birthday Bash, and it went really well. The room was full to the brim with 150 guests (possibly a few more, actually) the rodeo bull was running all night and the band were quite fantastic - as always. As for the venue, I would quite happily live there. I make no apologies for the fact that I am sucker for beautifully converted barns and Molton Brown hand soaps. (Hmmmmm, Molton Brown….)

In the rush to get everything ready on time my usual housekeeping skills (ah ha) were thrown headlong out the window, and so as I write, I am surrounded two rather sad looking wigs, a large golden Incan fertility idol (Indiana Jones), yesterdays breakfast, lunch and dinner plates, and two very red-eyed children, the elder of whom lasted until 11pm and the younger of whom was still tearing around the dancefloor as the band were packing up at nearly 1 O'clock.

I think I can say, with all honestly, I have never been as busy as I have been the last few days. Well, possibly that's slightly inaccurate. Better to say I have never been more busy. The last time I was as busy was when I was completing six years of study and taking my bar finals. Which I think is saying something. But it was worth it. Overall, so far, I think our efforts have raised just over £4,000.

Thank you to all the people who have made this such a success by supporting our efforts and offering their services; Aviva and The Castle Mall for advertising; Greene King, Adnams and The Fat Cat for their generous donations of beer; Claire and Philip at the Broad House Country Estate Hotel for their beautiful venue. Also John Mace of Jammin' Entertainments for the Rodeo Bull, and Cawdrons Butchers of Stalham for the gorgeous hog roast.

Scratch the Cat, our band, were amazing as always. Thank you. CMA Hire and Epic and Express Printing also deserve thanks, along with Ian at Premier Bars and Alex of Andy's Ice Cream and the countless companies who helped us with regards raffle prizes - Sterling Helicopters, Barnham Broom Hotel, The Theatre Royal, The Forum, Hoolavooloo and Garners hairdressers, Norwich City Football Club, Kettle Foods.

A very special thank you, and in fact, and apology, is deserved for the following people - who may well be justified in hoping that they never again have to pick up a phone and hear me at the end of it: Sam of Peach Plum Creative, Nick at Gowise Printing and Jess of the East Anglian Air Ambulance. Thank you for your help, you've all worked ridiculously hard, been incredibly patient and I will leave you alone now, I promise.

Now I am off to sleep, and later I have the small task of running 19 miles.

I've had the day from hell today. Sleep deprivation and party preparations have left me in a rotten mood. Add in the fact I've not run in over five days (FIVE DAYS) and I'm at the point where I need some kind of UN enforced no-fly zone set up around me. It's really not good.

And, following the old adage that it never rains but pours, my beautiful children have taken upon themselves to insist upon a day of what the parenting manuals rather positively refer to as "messy play". I call it "give your already stressed mum a nervous breakdown". I was drowning in a sea of glitter, PVA glue and several million small filaments of marabou feather.

And, then, finally, Daisy made the ultimate contribution to an already difficult afternoon. I caught two minutes to myself, folding the washing in the lounge and listening to Radio 4. Almost immediately the peace was shattered by 1. shrieks of horror from William 2. slight pause 3. That all-to-familiar dog hack/cough/barf/silence combination.

The joy that greeted me. In the middle of the room, usefully missing the large rug I have put down to protect the carpet, sat a large pile of dog sick. It included, but was not limited to, two pieces of Connect 4 and a whole earthworm. Fully intact. It looked as though it had just surfaced from the ground and gone to sleep on my floor. In fact so implausible was it, I had to prod it with the end of a tea spoon to check it really had "crossed over to the other side", as it were. I did, and it had.

My wonder that Daisy had managed such a feat of physical impossibility got me through the sick clearing process. She looked pretty impressed too. William, who is at that age where anything bodily provokes hilarity then horror, firmly pressed himself against the dining room wall and, so as not to feel left out, started to gag. I am happy to report that I can give a look so sharp that it can actually halt the anti-peristaltic reflex.

God knows how she managed to eat the worm like that. William's theory, a rather clever one really, was that she must have slurped it up like a bit of spaghetti when she was last let out for a wee.

Overall, a interesting day. On the positive side, I now have a full set of Connect 4.

God it takes a long time to walk anywhere. Walking is just so unbelievably slow. I am at the point now where I know my local area like the back of my hand and so, when I am forced to walk rather than run (when wearing heels, taking William, carrying large loads) my brain nearly explodes. Plus I seriously underestimate how long it takes to get anywhere. And I moan about it constantly. I am a running bore. Even on nights out, those rare occasions when I both manage to wear pretty shoes and put a brush through my hair, I find myself wishing that I was wearing my trainers and getting there a lot faster.

On Sunday we all ran the Wymondham 20, a well attended club event. Jesus they were fast. When the gun went off they were off like greyhounds out of a trap. It was most disconcerting. I ignored the fact that I was stuck at the back of the pack, imagined that many of them were pacing themselves incorrectly (nope…) and had a scenic three hour run with Maria, putting the world to rights. The conversation flowed nicely, although the last three miles were a struggle. From therein the chat became limited - through necessity rather than anything else - and consisted of mostly to-the-point punctuations of silence such as "God I'm hungry" (while looking longingly at a cow) and "Maria, I think my leg has died"

It was a brilliantly organised event with a really fab goody bag (I now have a gorgeously fluorescent yellow hat to dazzle the winter traffic with next year). The marshals were unfalteringly encouraging, which is all the more amazing since by they time we reached them they had been calling out to every runner who had passed them for the last three hours and it was a very chilly morning to be standing around. It was a great race with outstanding organisation and I will definitely be back next year.

Ooh! An update! Feeling much happier! Mum won a trophy in the race! Second in her age group! I am massively impressed and very happy. My Mum is not only beautiful, capable and fabulous, she also kicks-ass at running. See, I knew things couldn't be all bad…

Today Lowri, Mum and I ran the Bungay Black Dog 20K. The weather was unfalteringly awful. It started out as torrential rain, and around two degrees, and God, in his Infinite Wisdom, decided to ring the changes with a drop in temperature and a comprehensive presentation of the worst in British winter weather; sleet, snow and then hail. And not your normal "oooh-look-it-bounces-off-the-road" sort of hail. The sort of hail that kills people.

And I didn't get warm, at all. Not once over the entire 13 miles. At mile seven I thought I might take a gel - I took it from my pocket and promptly dropped it. I tried to pick it up and failed; my hands were like claws. Eventually I scooped it up but there was no chance of my being able to rip it open. Three miles later my lace came undone. Cue much spitting and swearing while I tried to re-tie it. It took three minutes and forty five seconds. Yes, I timed it.

The race started sharply up hill. Actually the first three miles were on an incline. Since the route map suggested we returned the way we came out, I was looking forward to an easy final stretch. Which I got; until a sharp deviation half a mile before the end when we headed back uphill again. It was a nasty surprise and having picked up the pace, I was not prepared for it. By the time the finish was in sight I had had enough. Everything was failing.

The race organisers catered very well; there was free soup for all on finishing, and as runners crossed the line there was an army of helpers on hand to remove the timing tag from their shoes. Which, I think, gives an indication of how tough the run and conditions really were. There was no way I would ever have been able to bend down and remove it myself. As my tag was taken the marshal congratulated me. I tried to be charitable, and I thanked him as warmly as I could, but I distinctly remember remarking that the last hill "was an absolute bitch". You did it though, he replied. I could have married him at that point, I think.

We were all soaked through to the skin. Every single layer I was wearing was wet through, and hip had totally seized. By the time I got back to the race centre it was totally stuck, I was rooted to the spot, and had what I can only describe as a "maximum radius". It was agonising. At this point I had serious doubts about being recovered in time to run the marathon, and had a little cry.

I'm still not feeling great about it.

To top it off, a photographer from Runners World magazine came along to take a picture of me for an article that will appear later in the year. It was raining so much I had rivulets of water running down the bridge of my nose. I'm not confident that I was caught in my best light. Ah well.

Anyway, I was helped back to the car and I'm now at home. Four hours later and I'm still not warm. My hip, however, feels much better. Tomorrow I have an appointment with my new best friend, Gemma at Back In Motion Physio. Wish me luck!

Feeling very excited this morning as the BBB's ad is on TV from today! Well, sort of. It's being aired on the television screens in Norwich city centre. I'm very, very excited as it's all great publicity for the night and the services involved were donated absolutely free by the companies involved, Norwich Castle Mall, RamVision Ltd and PeachPlum Creative.... thank you, you lovely, lovely people.

Anyway the ad will be up there 24 times an hour, every hour, until the event. I am slightly agog at this and may well go and camp out there one afternoon and watch it. I will probably take a cushion and a cup of tea.

Better. Yesterday's six miles of intervals helped. You just can't be sad on an interval day. Not that it's fun - it's clearly not - it's just you are working so hard your body can't afford the processing power to be miserable at the same time. The intervals were short, only 200 metres in length, so I was running flat out for the duration; and the recoveries were shorter still. My body was screaming at me by the end of it and when I finally got to the cool down I really felt as though I had achieved.

It pleased me also that, without knowing it, I've got a lot fitter. I rarely use the treadmill nowadays; yesterday was the first time in months. My comfortable warm up pace is markedly faster than it was before; and my interval speed is now as fast as the treadmill will go - that is really gratifying. Sometimes it is difficult to keep track of progress, and yesterday there it was; all lit up Vegas-style in little red LED lights. Good stuff.

I was supposed to run 11 miles on Sunday, my long distance run of the week. The pace was to be slow and I didn't feel that it would be a particularly serious challenge, having runs of greater mileage under my belt already. Unfortunately I didn't factor in getting lost. God knows how I managed it. I checked the map before I left. Third right about seven miles in. First right; passed it, second right; gotcha. Third right?

There was no third right.

I carried on. Any minute, I thought. Any minute.... now. Or... now. Or just round the next corner, possibly.

But no. No right turn. Personally I think I could have run forever and it would have made no difference. There is no right turn on the Irstead road. Ever.

Eventually I got a bit fed up. The first run in months I don't take my GPS and I'm in trouble. I stopped and asked a group of dog walkers who looked a bit concerned and pointed out I'd have to go back the way I came. Okay, I said, fank-yew-very-much, and hoofed it back the other way.

But it's five miles, they said.

Seriously, I thought, the distance I've already done, who cares? Instead I reassured them and started back toward the so-called "second right", which clearly was the "third right", but just pretending.

I called home to say I would be rather late; that I hadn't been murdered nor mugged, but more simply that I was an idiot with minimal map-reading ability, and to enquire about the possibility of lunch on my return.

Lunch was very tasty, and was being taken out the oven as I crawled in the door.

Thank you, David.

I've been feeling very low lately. Sometimes everything is so black. I feel as though I am weighed down, my limbs are heavy, the effort involved in lifting my shoulders or moving about feels monumental.

Sometimes I have good days, sometimes bad, and generally they alternate from one to the other, which is sufficient to function on an everyday basis. Monday might be bad, but it's bearable, because things might pick up again on Tuesday or Wednesday; sometimes I can pull myself up in a matter of hours, or minutes, if I have my children there to cuddle or play with.

But recently they've all been quite bad, and I'm tired. Last week I was driving home from the physio, just humming to myself, not really thinking of anything in particular; and all of a sudden the loss hit me like a fist in the stomach. I had to pull over and catch my breath.

It is a strange thing, but when people ask about him; or why I am running - which inevitably brings up the subject of him - I can talk about it with very little difficulty. I think it is because you learn quite quickly to say the words without associating them to the meaning of what you are saying. To most people I can say "My brother died in a car accident" and be almost matter-of-fact about it. It is a mechanism. But sometimes, and it catches me unawares, I actually think about what those words mean and it is unbearably painful.

A few weeks ago I met some new people, and it happened then. I just couldn't talk about it. As I was talking, answering their questions, I just felt it building inside me, and the more I tried to disassociate from it the worse it got. Thankfully David jumped in and rescued me. I managed not to cry.

And we're nearly ten months on. If you had asked me, prior to all this, I would have thought that almost a year on from a bereavement, the physically raw aspects of grief would have faded. I would have been wrong.

I ran 15 miles on Sunday. Sometimes I wonder why I run. I can run the length and breadth of the world and it won't bring him back.

And I wish he had let me take more photos. I have a handful of photos, a snippet of video, and that's it. Why was he so camera shy? Every other picture I have of him he is hiding his face with anything he can grab; a plate, a stuffed toy, a coat. I go through the photos again and again, I know every little piece of them. Why don't I have any of me grabbing him, hugging him? That's all I want to do now. I would squeeze him so hard and kiss him and tell him how I love him. I'm sure he'd try to peel me off but I wouldn't let him.

I miss him very much at the moment. And I miss the life we all had before. I would do anything to get it back. But all I can do is run. Not a very satisfactory alternative.