I have run 17 marathons, and the last one was 3 years ago, when I was relieved to announce my ‘retirement’ from ever running 26.2 miles again. I was so pleased that I no would no longer run a marathon I wrote a blog post about it: Sub 3 hour Marathons.

Sean Connery vowed never to play James Bond again, and when he did they called the film “Never say Never Again”. Looks like I should have had the same attitude to Marathons; I have now entered the Paris Marathon which is on 11th April 2010. So what went wrong?

I packed in Marathons because I got fed up with the training, and guess what? I missed it! I started running 20/23 mile long runs with other Spa Striders who were running marathons, and realised that I could also run another one. But I didn’t want to RACE it!

It would be too much pressure to try and run sub 3 hours, and to be honest I don’t think at 55 years of age I am any longer capable of it. But during one 23 mile run with Lucy I discovered that after many marathons, ran at the excellent times of 3.34 to 3.39, Lucy’s ultimate ambition was to run a sub 3.30 marathon.

BINGO! I realised I could run that fairly comfortably, and I could pace Lucy all the way. Then it was just a case of choosing which marathon? London requires a ballot entry, so you can’t be sure to get in. We considered Edinburgh, but finally settled on Paris.

This spring marathon has given me the focus and motivation which my running had started to lack. Now I’m actually looking forward to training hard over the winter months.

John McNally