Excuses

I'm not athletic, I'm not fit and most of the time (due to sleep apnea or so my GP thinks) my favourite thing to do is sleep, sleep and sleep. I won't run for the bus - in London there'll be another within ten minutes so what's the point? Last summer a friend and I tried surfing, I managed a glorious nano second before falling off. What we realised then was that we just lacked the upper body strength to keep getting on the board. Since then my job has kept me really busy and I can reel off a list of excuses for my inactivity:

• Stress of a job
  
• Ill health
• Lack of time.

Now I can see those for what they were - excuses. It's time to awknowledge them as such and move on.

I have tried running before, in Y7 at secondary school we had to do cross country which I did diligently the first time and thereafter cottoned on to the fact we were outside of school, away from PE teachers and could walk chatting all the way. So I did. I also once tried running as a young adult, but I lived on a hill so that really did come to nothing.

My previous career was as an actor (no, you won't have seen me in anything) and I was once on tour with a dedicated runner. Even after a long and exhausting day at work he would throw on his running shoes and go off for hours. The rest of us were inspired to attempt to follow his example, but we didn't really know what we were doing. I just ran/jogged/walked through Fife listening to the Stereophonics, but not for long.

So you see, I'm not a runner and the past year has even seen me stop my regular yoga class (see excuses as listed above).

I'm unfit and...overweight (I much prefer that word to FAT). I won't tell you how much I weigh but at the beginning of this process I decided I wanted to drop 61 pounds, so that should tell you a little.

So, the aims are:

• Loose 61 pounds (minimum)
• Run the marathon in April

No more excuses!