A success story

It's been an exciting week for Alzheimer's research!  An international team has identified a gene variant that dramatically increases the risk of developing alzheimer's disease.  This is significant for treatment because it could alert people with a greater likelihood of developing the disease to watch for symptoms, and that could lead to early diagnosis and treatment.  It may also help researchers work out what the gene is doing, and that in turn could lead to new treatments.

The research project, led by scientists at the UK's University College London, found that a variant of the TREM2 gene increases the risk of developing alzheimer's disease threefold.  It's not the only gene linked to the disease, but it has a stronger relationship with alzheimer's than any other gene identified so far.  Interestingly, this gene has a relationship with the immune system, and that could give researchers some clues for what to look for next.  For example, a team in Southampton, UK, are investigating whether inflammation plays a role in the development of Alzheimer's diease.

I'm pleased to be able to tell you that Alzheimer's Research UK funded some of this work.  If you read through a list of the projects they're currently funding, you'll see that they have people investigating an incredibly wide range of issues in causes and treatments.

Running to Save Your Mind

Running is meant to be good for you, and regular activity is said to help reduce the chance of developing dementia and many other illnesses.  So what better way to raise money for dementia research than to run?

In the "run up" to the London Marathon 2013 I'm trying to get myself into some kind of a state of fitness.  Today's effort was just two miles, and I was going for speed.  No such luck - it was a slow two miles - though my fastest time was 6.5 miles per hour, so it wasn't all slow.  I went for the "Tormarton Three Letterbox Run" - so named because it takes in all three of Tormarton's letterboxes - the one outside the excellent Major's Retreat pub, the one on Old Hundred Lane, and the one at the corner of Marshfield Road and Norley Lane.

My thought is that I might make this a regular run for easy days, and see if I can improve my time on each repeat.

This is all in aid of the excellent research funded by Alzheimer's Research UK, and if you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.  After this week's excellent news, I hope you're convinced that this is a winning charity and deserves your support!

Milestones

Today I ran 7.34 miles in 2 hours.  This may not sound like much, given I'm hoping to run 26 miles in 5.5 hours this coming April.  However, it's a major accomplishment for me.  It's by far the furthest I have ever run, and the longest time I've ever run for.  And I really did run it - or rather, I trotted along slowly.  That's pretty much walking pace, less that 4 miles per hour.  But I didn't walk, I definitely sort of gently jogged, so I'm going to count it as my longest run ever.  It's a little over 11 km, so more than a 10K.

It was an enjoyable run, too.  On the country lanes, the drivers were all immensely considerate.  They slowed down, all except the driver of an Audi A4, but he sped up so much after he passed me, revving his engine and tearing away, I can only think that he must have slowed down after all, and I just didn't hear it.

On the A46 drivers were a little less considerate.   And the path by the road was really uneven and overgrown, so not a lot of fun.   Did you know nettles can sting through compression tights?  I think I won't repeat that particular bit of the route.

I took a different route to my usual today, and saw many interesting things.  There was a little field mouse, scurrying out of my path and into the hedgerow; there were two ancient sycamores I must have passed hundreds of times, but never noticed how old they are (they must be at least 200 years old based on their girth), I saw miles of dry stone walls in beautiful condition, there were clouds reflecting the evening sun that glinted as if they'd been digitally enhanced, and there was a funny smell as I passed a large electricity pylon, that I assume must be the smell of ozone. 

I also noticed this milestone, which I'd never seen before.  This is just a little country lane - why does it merit a milestone?   I've looked at an old map that pre-dates the nearby M4 motorway, and at one time this was the B4455, a small but perhaps significant east-west route in an area with comparatively few straight roads.  Whether the cause or the effect of its straightness, this was an old toll road, running from Bristol to Chippenham.  There are signs of this, including a "Turnpike Cottage" and "Turnpike Farm" on the corner with the road between Tormarton and Marshfield.  These toll roads were common in the 17-19c, and were run as trusts, set up to maintain key roads, before the railways brought about their decline and responsibility was given over to county councils instead.

The milestone is a cast iron plate attached to a large stone.  I was puzzled by the first destination - it says "To Malford 13" and I reflected that I'd never heard of this village, which is unusual for me - I know most of the little villages around here.  Then I noticed the X.   Of course.  Christian Malford!  13 miles away?  Well, maybe.  It's just the other side of Chippenham.  I suppose it must have been an important staging post at one time - there are some gorgeous houses there.

Next is "PuckleC 5", i.e. Pucklechurch.  Its main claim to fame would appear to be that King Edmund I of England was murdered there in 946 AD.  He was the grandson of Alfred theGreat.

The last line of the milestone is "Bristol 12".  Presumably central Bristol?  Who really knows.  I'm not going to run all the way to find out. 

Not yet anyway.  There and back, plus the leg to my house, would be roughly marathon distance.  And the route goes to some interesting places, including the iron age fort at Hinton, which is a match for the one nearer to us, by the Old Sodbury petrol station (so called "Roman Camp" - because the Romans sensibly used the old fort as a stopping place on their north-south route from Bath).

I feel I ought to write a bit about the run.  I was trying to keep the pace slow and to stay in the "green zone" with my heart rate monitor.  For the first half hour this was pretty hard, but after that it got much easier.  I didn't slow down - my pace was 15-17 minutes per mile throughout the run - but I think my body must have clicked into running mode and settled down a bit.  I guess that bodes well.

The muddy tracks at the start of the run were not so much fun, but the road running was good - it was a cool day (note to self - need to take hat and gloves from now on), and the roads are in surprisingly good condition considering how little used they are.   As I mentioned, the A46 was hard work and to be avoided in future.  I know from my maps that there are other ways across the motorway, and I should seek them out at some point.

I did not find it hard to keep going, and had I not set myself the goal of two hours, then home so we could get to the fireworks on time, I'm sure I could have run for longer.  I now know that running a 10K race now would be a reasonable thing to do - and I could probably do it faster than today's run, which was deliberately cautious on the speed front.

Unfortunately, my legs are killing me.  During the run, a couple of my toes started to hurt, but afterwards they've been fine, and it's ankles, shins, knees and thighs that are complaining.  I should probably consult a sports physio at some point for advice.

So - a milestone in more than one way.  The marathon is still over five months away - if I was ever in doubt, I'm pretty sure now that I'll be in shape to run it, and to get a not-embarrassing time.

Measurement technology

Today I ran a 7K route, about half of it on farm tracks, in about an hour.  This gives me a theoretical marathon time of 6.5 hours - an hour off my target.  Of course, I couldn't really run a marathon at that speed right now, but it gives me an idea of the speed I could expect if I could build my endurance.

The route tracks some roads that used to be "real" roads before the M4 plowed through the village in the 1960s. They are lovely lanes, lined with hawthorn, sloes, rosehips and blackberries - I should go back and do some gathering for hedgerow jelly!

I've been using Endomondo to track my runs - it's a phenomenally useful app, and of course you get all you really need in the free version.  I recommend it highly to anyone who cycles or runs!  I've also been using Richard's Adidas micoach, which tracks my heart rate and run time (it would also track my pace, but unfortunately I've lost the bit that does that - but that's fine because Endomondo does it in speed terms, rather than real pace - which is practical).  I'm in two minds about the micoach - on the one hand, it's really useful for what it does at the moment, but on the other hand, you can't just buy one bit of it - if I want the pacer back I have to buy a whole new unit - wasteful and shameful!  Adidas ought to allow purchases of the individual components as part of their efforts to be more sustainable.

I like the fact that I can save runs on Endomondo - the next step will be to run the same route from time to time and try to improve my speed.  I've also been trying to work out a safe 10K route from home without too many hills, but as Richard has remarked in the past, the problem with living as high above sea level as we do is that virtually everything is down.  Actually, that only applies to the west, where you soon get to the "Cotswold Edge", a sharp drop into the Severn Vale from the plateau that extends to our east.  My run through Tormarton was of course eastward, taking advantage of the flattish Cotswold landscape.

One alternative for flat routes is to drive down to the common in Old Sodbury, as that has plenty of quiet(ish) roads that are reasonably flat.  The only thing I don't like is that there is relatively little off-road running that isn't impossibly muddy.  The common is just a huge bog - that's probably why it wasn't included in Yate.  At any rate, it just doesn't feel right to drive 4 miles in order to go for a run.

Unbelievable value!

When I signed up to run for Alzheimer's Research UK, they sent me a fundraising pack to help me along - full of ideas, information, and the inevitable logo'd pen and balloon.  Of most interest to me so far has been their newsletter, "think", which includes articles about the research they're funding.

A nice haircut - but is it worth as much as
2.5 hours of Alzheimer's Disease research?

What surprised me most is not how good the research is - I knew that from their website and from articles about dementia research worldwide.  No, the surprise bit of info is that their research only costs £20 per hour!  Now, what can you get in this day and age for £20 per hour?  I got my hair cut today, and that took about an hour including washing it, consultation, and so on.  The bill for an excellent salon experience?  Fifty pounds!  So that's 2.5 hours of dementia research by talented academics at leading universities, vs a one-hour haircut in a provincial salon.  Much as I like the cut, I don't feel it is equivalent in value to 2.5 hours of research into Alzheimer's Disease.   However, that's really not a reflection on the value of the cut - it's an indication of just what good value UK research represents.

[As a small aside, note the way one of my eyes looks wide open and the other is starting to close.  That's a trait that comes from my dad (the guy I blogged about last time, who has Alzheimer's Disease), and my brother and I both have it.  Often one eye is actually closed in photos, though I try hard not to as it looks a little strange.  Having said that, giving the camera a hard stare looks a little strange too.]

But back to the point.  Here is an example of research currently being funded by Alzheimer's Research UK.  The people carrying out the project had already discovered that when rats were fed a diet so high in fat that their bodies stopped responding properly to insulin ("insulin resistance"), they developed memory problems.  The current project aims to test diabetes drugs, which help the body respond better to insulin, as a possible measure to prevent memory decline.  This makes a lot of sense, given that insulin plays an important role in laying down memories, as was discussed in the New Scientist article a couple of months ago on this subject.  Alzheimer's Research UK is providing just £61K for this project - not much more than the price of a couple of family cars, but it could lead to a drug to prevent Alzheimer's - something we simply don't have at the moment.   For the cost of just a couple of cars!  Given how many people are expected to develop dementia over the next few decades, this is phenomenally good value.  Even if the research doesn't provide a prevention drug, it will give us more understanding of the relationship between insulin and Alzheimer's Disease.

So, if you click the donation link in the top right of this page, and give just £20 (25 euros, 33 dollars) to Alzheimer's Research UK, that will fund yet another hour of research - all down to you!  Go on - do it, and then pick an hour in a working day sometime in the future, and put it in your diary.  When that hour comes around, go and celebrate the research being done that you funded!

About Brad Perry

Brad on his 70th birthday in 2008

There are inevitably many myths surrounding Alzheimer's Disease, including the question of prevention.  People often think you can prevent the disease, or at least reduce your risk of getting it, by keeping mentally and physically active.

Brad in May 2012 with his grandson

My dad, Brad Perry, is proof that if mental and physical fitness reduces your risk, it certainly doesn't prevent the disease.  He has kept fit all the time I've known him, mostly by swimming (he used to run, until a thief broke into his apartment in NYC and stole his running shoes).  At the community where my parents now live, he won the "Olympics" swimming competition last year - he has always had a strong butterfly.

He has always kept mentally active as well.  He has a PhD in Physics from Columbia, and did post-doctoral work at Berkeley and Yale.  Even later, when he switched fields to Economics, he stayed abreast of current thinking in physics, reading Scientific American and Science News, and of course more recently keeping up via the internet.  He was always keen to study and learn new things.

As you can see from the 2008 photograph, he aged relatively well, up until Alzheimer's Disease took over.  By 2011, he was emaciated, his skin was in very poor condition, and all the brightness had gone out of his expression - you can see him in a typical pose in the 2012 photograph.  One difficulty with this disease is that you can no longer care for your body, and even with the help of my mother and various carers, his body has shown the effects of his neglect of it.  Some of the drugs he was prescribed by well-meaning doctors also made it harder for him to balance, and upset his digestion, which hastened his body's deterioration.

However, one must have some compassion for the doctors.  There is no drug that will prevent or cure Alzheimer's Disease.  The few drugs that are approved merely slow its progress very slightly, but they can't even do this indefinitely - the disease will inexorably progress, and will kill the patient if something else doesn't get there first.  Presumably many doctors will reach for any drug that they think might do some little bit of good for some of the symptoms, when faced with a bright, engaging patient who is fading fast.

Fortunately, my dad has always been fairly laid back, so the fact that he doesn't know most of the people around him (including his children and grandchildren) doesn't seem to worry him.  My brother and I switched to calling him "Brad" rather than "Dad" about a year ago on the grounds that he might find it unsettling if he didn't recognise the people calling him "Dad", but in fact it never seems to be a problem if I forget.  On my first visit after the onset of his illness, almost exactly a year ago, he knew who I was, but thought I was still at university (that was in the 1980s), and was a little surprised by how I looked (though he said nothing uncomplimentary about my looking 25 years older than he thought I should).  Now, he's comfortable around me, but he only knows who I am when my mother tells him.

I sometimes wonder whether my father knew he was likely to develop dementia.  His mother suspected she would, as I discovered in a letter she'd written to a genealogist in the 1950s.  I'm not sure why she suspected - she was occasionally just a little "dotty" but otherwise a bright and resourceful woman who was keenly active in hobbies (President of the American Daffodil Society, strangely enough), fit, slim, and very social.

You simply don't know who will develop dementia - it seems to attack the most unlikely people, regardless of fitness, social and mental activity, age, or any other clear indicator.   Having said that, Alzheimer's Research UK is funding a great deal of research, including studies that try to identify causes or indicators of the disease.  There has been a great deal of progress in this area, and with any luck there will soon be reliable ways to detect it early and to treat it before it destroys much of the brain.

If you would like to help fund this research, why not click the donation link at the top right of this blog?  I would be very grateful indeed if you would sponsor me to run the London Marathon in support of Alzheimer's Research UK - they are a fantastic charity making possible real progress in understanding and treating this increasingly common and destructive disease.

When in Rome...

...or as it may be, in France.  I was there last weekend, attending a reunion of my MBA class at INSEAD in the beautiful town of Fontainebleau.  Of course, it rained - why on earth do they hold these things in October?

You only live once.

At any rate, I had a dilemma.  We were going by train and bringing all my running kit would require another suitcase (or a bigger one at any rate), which I'd have to lug across London, Paris, and Fontainebleau.  And what should I eat?  There were gorgeous cakes, dinner menus full of things I shouldn't eat... was it going to be a complete wash out in health terms, or was I going to exercise a little willpower?

Well, I decided that I don't get presented with such fabulous food very often.  And I didn't want to carry yet another suitcase.  I settled on the happy rationalisation that it was an experiment to discover the consequences of a "weekend off".

And in some ways I've been pleasantly surprised.  Granted, I did gain several pounds, all of it as fat.  After all that food I needed a serious detox, so I've been consuming large quantities of black coffee and green tea all day, plus raw veg and unadorned fish.  By the end of the day my body was feeling like me again.  Easy come, easy go.

Moreover, I finally went for a run, for the first time since leaving for France!  I feared the worst, but in fact it was an excellent run - only slightly slower than my fastest endurance run so far, and faster than any run last week.  My legs were hurting in unfamiliar places, but apart from that it was progress rather than retreat.

I do not plan gluttonous weekends on a regular basis, but it is at least somewhat reassuring to find that skipping a few sessions and eating unwisely doesn't set me back significantly on my training plans.

To what purpose?

I mentioned previously that I have not had a life-long ambition to run the marathon.  I used to enjoy a morning run, about 7K or so, along quiet country lanes, but a city run amidst crowds and pollution would not normally strike me as an attractive proposition, even if I were fit - which I am not.

But of course I do have some purpose.  Yes, I was carried away by the spirit of the thing after the 2012 London Marathon and Richard's successful performance.  That, however, does not constitute purpose - it's a year on, and the emotions have long since faded.  So why am I running?

In fact, I already knew what I wanted to do when I was watching Richard run.  It's not the running - it's the support for a favourite charity that attracts me.  You raise funds, you publicise your chosen cause through fundraising and running in their jersey (and blogging about them).  And I know my cause - I want to run for Alzheimer's research.

Conveniently, there really is a charity in this country that does exactly that: Alzheimer's Research UK.  They don't spend money on hospices, nursing care, advice lines, or any of those other important but fundamentally short-term fixes.  They fund quality research into the causes, diagnosis, treatments, and prevention - activities with long-term value.

Right side normal, left shows shrinkage due to Alzheimer's 

And this is a phonemenally exciting time for Alzheimer's research!  Scientists are finally beginning to understand the chemical mechanisms that lead to the creation of the characteristic amyloid plaques that stop brain cells from working properly, destroying old memories and preventing new ones from being laid down.  Now that they have a grip on the pathways that lead to Alzheimer's disease, they have a chance to find ways to put obstacles in that path - to stop Alzheimer's in its tracks.  It could potentially even mean rolling the disease back, perhaps one day even curing it.  In short, the work that is being done now is extremely productive, because it is far more likely to result in successful treatment of this awful disease than research 10 years ago.  Money invested is money well spent.

Moreover, the UK is a good place to invest your research money.   Scientific articles in the dementia field here are very high quality - with a citation impact (how often other articles refer to yours) second only to Sweden's, and above that of the USA.  This is nothing to get patriotic about - dementia research benefits everyone around the world - medical research advances are a product available to all.  Investing where the research produces the highest quality results makes sense, and Alzheimer's Research UK is the leading charity providing funding in this area.

Of course, I am not only attracted to this area because investing in this research has high returns.  Granted, with my MBA, I do think about value.  But the real reason I am so interested is that my father has Alzheimers - and his mother had vascular dementia, two of my mother's uncles had Alzheimer's... in other words, it's really common in my family.  Yes, there is a large helping of self-interest in all of this.  Although it's undoubtedly too late for research to help my father, it could help many of my other relatives, and perhaps even me one day.  And perhaps you.

My first week of training

I have completed my first full week of training for the marathon - and it's only now beginning to sink in how much I've taken on. 

My plan was to alternate easy and hard days, and on the whole that came off well this week.  My hard days got progressively harder during the week.  My easy days, on the other hand, got progressively easier, to the point of doing nothing at all on the last one.  I must have some inner karmic impulse that is trying to balance things.

That's not a tan - my face turns
crimson when I exercise

All told I ran (and walked) 17.5 miles.  Not much, for anyone who is a regular runner, but it's a start.  Rome wasn't built in a day, and I won't be turned into a marathon runner in just a week.

I did learn a few interesting things:

• I have to eat when I finish a run - otherwise I feel like I'm coming down with the flu!
• It's not the end of the world if I don't stretch;
• I really need to strengthen my abdominal muscles - they make a huge difference to the amount of oxygen I can take in, but then get sore very fast;
• Walking hurts my legs more than running.

All of you runners will be telling me this is obvious stuff, but there's nothing like learning by doing.

I've also come to love and hate Richard's micoach.  This is a gadget that measures your pace and heartbeat as you run, and can give you readings of these, as well as elapsed time.  I normally use it on "free" mode - I keep track of my own running plans - but you can programme it to coach you to speed up, slow down, walk, etc over pre-planned intervals.  It clips to your clothes, so that's one less thing that needs a pocket.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  Unfortunately, it has two serious failings.  The lesser one is that it doesn't measure your heartbeat until you are exercising reasonably vigorously - enough to raise your breathing rate noticeably.  In other words, you don't get a view of your resting or walking heart rate.

The truly appalling thing about it, though, is that you can't download the data!  Those who know me well will appreciate how much I hate this.  The micoach produces interesting graphs which you can alter as much as Adidas has assumed you will want to.  Unfortunately, there is no facility for transferring it to your computer where you can have a proper go at analysis.

There is one final lesson I've learned from training this week: it's a really good thing that I have a six month run-up to the marathon.  I'm going to need it.  Running hard makes me ill, walking four miles makes my legs sore.  I have a considerable way to go before I can even walk the marathon in one day, never mind run it.

Eat and run?

Ever since my son was born, I've had problems with food.  I don't mean bulimia or anything like that.  What happened is that something in my digestive system changed, and the result was that if I eat wheat or milk (plus a few other odd things like quinoa and garlic), I suffer afterwards - weird symptoms from indigestion and bloating to depressed immune system.  It was several years of continual illness before I worked out what was wrong.

So I am very particular about what I eat.  But to add to these difficulties, I recently read about ongoing research into Alzheimer's Disease, which suggests that it is actually a form of diabetes - now occasionally referred to as "Type 3".  The current theory is that a diet high in fat and sugar can destroy the ability of insulin to work its magic in the brain - where, as it turns out, it is important in laying down memories.  The scientific ideas are a little too complex to go into here, but the short version is that consuming a lot of high-GI or fatty foods is potentially disastrous for your brain.

Unfortunately, those are just the things that runners are told they should consume during training and before a race.  You get these "gels" that deliver a lot of sugar in a rush, as well as sugar-filled sports drinks, protein bars that contain lots of sugar and starch (not to mention wheat and/or milk which I can't eat), and all these things are supposed to help you fill your muscles with glycogen (rapid energy supplies) so you can run efficiently.  Endurance runners are also supposed to eat a lot of carbohydrate-rich foods like bread and pasta for an extended period before their race.

I just can't help but have my doubts.   First of all, I am no lean runner - I'm overweight (BMI 23), carrying a lot of flab around my belly where it's said to do the most harm - why can't my body use that for fuel?  Also, Alzheimer's Disease runs in my family, and I'm not keen to do something potentially harmful to my brain in the long run, even if the running does my heart and circulation good.  I don't consider brain damage an acceptable trade-off for a healthy heart.

So I've had to go to the research in hopes of some sign that there are other points of view.  PubMed makes abstracts of most medical research available to the public for free.  Although you don't generally get the full article, the service at least gives you the conclusions - it's a start.  And so I was delighted to discover  "Glyceamic index, glycaeamic load, andexercise performance" in Sports Medicine, an Australian journal.  Although the conclusions are very verbose and disorganised, they boil down to this - the jury is still out, and more research is needed.  In particular, it's not wholly clear what the trade-off is between a normal diet for an extended period, and high-GI consumption immediately before and during the race.  There are also questions about how all this relates to post-run recovery. 

My conclusion: I don't have to follow the advice on carb loading, but it would be advisable to experiment and see what works for me.  No one knows best, but experiments will at least let me test out different strategies and draw conclusions for this sample size of one.  Conveniently, this is the conclusion of a review article collecting results of a variety of articles on this topic.  We're encouraged to "let practical issues and individual experience dictate the use of HGI or LGI meals and supplements before, during, and after exercise."  Marvellous - though of course that leaves me the difficulty of figuring out what I can actually eat....

Before I begin: the research period

So if you knew you needed to run 26.2 miles in 29 weeks' time, what would you do first?  Get out and do some road training?  Not if you're me you wouldn't - you'd go online and start reading up. 

I checked PubMed for interesting medical research on long distance running.  I looked up marathon training programmes and advice, and scoured the Virgin London Marathon magazine for helpful information (mostly it contained ads).  Once I'd done all this, with varying success, we headed for the bookshops of Bath.  We decided to give Toppings a miss - just because it's at the top of town, so we'd either be carrying books up and down the hill or would have to climb the hill a second time.  Granted, with the marathon in mind, that shouldn't have bothered me, but there was my family to consider, of course.

So the first stop was the local branch of Waterstones, where the staff are friendly and the books are numerous.  There was nothing I really felt taken by, but I picked up a generalist book by Matt Roberts called Get Running.  It's not quite Dorling Kindersley, but it has attractive people (airbrushed?) in instructive photographs, and relatively straightforward content on how to start a running programme.

Mr B's understands the importance of a place to sit

Our next destination was our favourite independent bookseller outside London - Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights on John Street.  This is a book person's bookstore - an eclectic selection of whatever takes Mr B's fancy, carefully organised and displayed with many little notes about what the staff think of the books, spread out over 5 little rooms on three floors.  It is sort of an anti-Waterstones - tiny and personal, and full of many "perfect books" which are hard to pass over as you seek the sort of book you came in for, but which you couldn't have described until you'd found it.  And in the sport section I did indeed fine my book: Marathon Running: from beginner to elite, 4th edition, by Richard Nerurkar.  I'd never heard of him, but I'd heard of Haile Gebrselassie, who is quoted on the front as saying "if you want to run a marathon, or a faster one, you have to read this book!"   Well, I do, and I'm prepared to take his word for it.  So I have the book.

Now  armed with medical literature references, two books, a Runner's World magazine, and the beginnings of advice from friends and relatives, I feel ready to put my running shoes on.  Not that I've read everything.  I've dipped in, got the gist, made up my mind.  Sometimes, that's all research really needs to be.

It all started here

I hadn't realised the letter had arrived.  In its opaque plastic wrap it looked like a motor catalogue.  I might have left it piled up with the other unopened bank statements and advertising brochures, but my husband had got a parcel with a letter too - saying he hadn't got a place on the London marathon, but please accept this nice jacket instead.  He wanted to know where was my letter?  Rifling through all the ignored mail, we found the distinctive red plastic.  I ripped it open and found the acceptance certificate - I had a place on the London Marathon 2013.

I used to run, what feels like a lifetime ago, before thyroid cancer, before kids, before gaining 30 pounds.  Not real long distance running - I'd run for an hour before breakfast, usually covering around 7.5Km.  I thought vaguely about trying to enter a 10K, but then the above-mentioned events intervened, and by the end of it all I was an overweight, overtired Person Who Used To Run.

But for reasons best known to himself, my husband volunteered to run for SeeAbility in the 2012 London Marathon.  I had no desire to join him, but I enjoyed helping him fundraise, and got a tremendous buzz from seeing him finish, in 5hours 29minutes.  We'd dashed all over London trying to catch up with him - managing to meet him near the Cutty Sark, missing him at Tower Bridge, spotting him from a DLR platform, cheering him on in the north Docklands, and finally shouting like mad from the grandstand on the Mall as he sprinted for the finish.  The atmosphere was utterly contagious - all these great charities and causes, swarms of excited supporters, all those exhausted, heroic runners coming in as the Virgin DJ played rousing tunes.  Each was announced - including a runner for Sikhs in the City who was over 100 years old.  Apparently he had declared that this would be his last marathon - because he wanted to "concentrate on shorter distances and faster times."  I'm sure I wasn't the only one thinking that to even be alive, much less making clever remarks and running a marathon, aged over 100, would be a miracle for me.

So when the opportunity to enter the ballot system came up shortly afterward, my husband had no difficulty persuading me to join him in entering.  The chances of winning a ballot place are pretty slim anyway.  I don't think there was any rational analysis of this decision - it just floated in on the continuing feel-gooditis from the 2012 event.

And now I have the letter, and I've got to follow through.  Okay - I don't have to.  But I'm going to.  It's not something I've always wanted to do.  But the time is right for many reasons, even though the euphoria of last year's race is barely a memory.  I've got 29 weeks to prepare.