Last night saw the start of my 16-week training plan for the half-marathon. It felt good to finally be on the structured plan that will hopefully take me to the finish line in 277 miles time. That’s right… 277.1 miles from the start at my front door yesterday until the finish line in Peterborough in 16 weeks.

Training began with a slow 2-miles around the block and I thought this would be no problem after all the runs of 5-6 miles that I’ve been putting in and the rest I’d given myself at the weekend. Well I was wrong. It reminded me that you should never underestimate the distance – even 2 miles can be a painful experience.

So 2 miles down, 275 to go. Last night reminded me that there will be very difficult times ahead as I’d been a bit over confident and started to think that “running a half-marathon will be a breeze”. It won’t be. After last night’s run I kept hearing the words I’ve heard other runners say to beginners attempting a race again and again “respect the distance”.

13.1 miles is a long way and running non-stop that far will be an achievement, but i won’t get there without the 264 training miles I have to put in first.