In just 11 sleeps time I’ll be heading to Estonia to run the Tallinn Marathon.  Tallinn is the last chance to get a BQ for next year, which is one of the reasons why I entered.  So, how’s training gone?  Well, it’s been pretty non existent to be honest.  And I’m not sure I care.

Genuinely, I haven’t run more than 12 miles in one go since London and I haven’t done any training of significance over the last few months.  Again, don’t care.

I’ve committed to a marathon training schedule for the last 7 seasons in a row and I forgot what it was like to just do whatever the hell I wanted.  Stay in bed on a Sunday morning, get drunk and dance on tables on a Friday night (not my fault), fall off said tables on a Friday night (definitely not my fault), go out for dinner with my friends on a Tuesday instead of going to track.  Just to say yes to things I would normally say no to..

Sometimes, life happens.  And life did happen.  Sometimes you just have to go a little crazy to get through it.  Sometimes you realise how lucky you are to have some pretty awesome friends to be crazy with.  Because they’re friends with you because you’re you, not because of how many miles you’ve run.  Sometimes you realise there are more important things in life than running.  Yeah, I said it.

I was never sure if I really wanted to run Tallinn, purely because I just didn’t want to do the training.  But somewhere along the line I entered anyway and just decided I would see what happened.  I got sucked into the idea of a weekend in Estonia and the promise of a post race party, it gets me every time.

Of course, I’m not one to sit still for 5 minutes so I’ve still been sweating it out in my lycra at 7am with the best of them, I’ve just been doing different things, a bit of running sure, but mostly anything but running.

I could, and probably should, downgrade myself to the half, but I just can’t bring myself to do that.  I know I’m not going to run a half PB anyway, and the half doesn’t start until midday, so I may as well just spend the morning jogging round Tallinn…

Being so underprepared is strangely liberating because there are absolutely no expectations at all.  I almost broke myself training through the winter for the London Marathon, I was bang on form and still managed to f**k it up.  This time there’s nothing to lose.

So, I’m going to Estonia, I’m going to run a marathon, I’m going to get drunk and I’m going to try not to miss my 6am flight to Croatia.  And I don’t care how long it takes me. Because I really have nothing to prove this time. Not a damn thing.