Getting there ...

So why, apart from the obvious reason (it's 10pm and I hadn't got a photo for the day yet) have I taken a photo of my running shoes?

Mainly because after my long run last Sunday, and on several previous Sundays, my long run has been a disappointment. Last Sunday I even took a photo of the same shoes posed in the bin, a not so subtle expression of how my marathon training had been going up to that point. Thankfully, and rightly, I was talked out of this.

Today these shoes did me proud for the first time in a long time. I completed 18 miles, with all bar a mile or so running. Not perfect, as I should be managing 20 miles with confidence. But confidence is the key word at the moment, and it?s the lack of it that has hampered so many longer runs in the past. I can look at my shoes without wanting to consign them to history. Suddenly the Edinburgh Marathon doesn't seem so scary, and confidence is on the way back ?