I’m hereby giving you permission to tell me stuff like “I told you so” and “we all saw that coming” when, in less than 3 weeks, I take so long to cross that marathon finish line that organisers will have packed up, gone home and started work on the 2014 edition. A few reasons why:

– Today, I went for a run. I didn’t even make it to 5km and that included walking breaks because I needed to double check that what I was feeling wasn’t actually both my lungs trying to escape out of my mouth. I’m not even joking. I’m telling myself that everyone has bad days and bad runs and one bad run doesn’t mean you’re out of shape but nothing really justifies what happened today, less than 3 weeks before having to run 42km.

– After that pathetic waste of clean running clothes, I ate curry (because when all else fails, you should just eat curry) and watched a repeat of The Big Bang Theory that contained the scene above. See Penny and Sheldon trying to touch their toes during their warm-up? When I warm up, I’m Sheldon. With the added disadvantage that I don’t even have a cool Flash t-shirt. Again, 42km in less than 3 weeks time. No toe touching. No Flash t-shirt.

– Last Friday, on a whim, I bought flights to Wellington and paid for the registration for the ISC Lenco Half Marathon which happens… this Sunday. A 24h trip to the capital to run 21k along its waterfront. It’s as good an excuse as any, right? Wrong. Less than stellar planning: three days after that, I’m supposed to be doing the final long (like actually really pretty freaking long) run before the marathon.

I laugh, you guys. I laugh so I don’t cry.