After several years of competing over distances from 5k to half marathons, I felt the urge to step up to the marathon. It had always been a dream of mine, the thrill of doing something extreme, a huge physical challenge, to push myself to the limit.

Having had no luck in the London Marathon ballot, I decided to look elsewhere and after persuading myself that an ice marathon may be a little too extreme for my debut over the distance, I stumbled across the Nottingham Robin Hood Marathon. So, my journey towards marathon running had begun; I signed up for a charity place and eagerly started to research training plans, giving myself a fairly standard sixteen weeks. At this point, running 26.2 miles seemed almost ridiculous, something fantastical that I would never be able to achieve, but I was determined.

I took my training seriously over the next four months, even trying to skip a family holiday as it would disrupt my regime, and despite my best efforts, I probably became a bit of a marathon bore. In hindsight, I was most likely over-training and highly ambitious with my goal time. I was lucky not to pick up any long-term injuries from my 50-60 mile weeks pounding the streets of Sheffield and the trails of the Peak District pretty much every day, armed with my GPS watch and energy gels. However, I just about survived my punishing schedule and made it to race day. This, I feel, is where my lack of experience began to show. Although I had done my research on carb-loading, hydration, pacing and pre-race nerves, nothing could have fully prepared me for getting to the start line of my first marathon.

I have limited memories of the race itself; I started the first few miles at my goal pace although it quickly became obvious that this was unsustainable and I dropped to something more conservative. I plodded quite happily through the streets of Nottingham for the first thirteen miles, content that my training had prepared me for what still lay ahead. Then, things started to get tough. I had never raced this far before, the half-marathoners had peeled off and I suddenly felt lonely with far fewer runners around. To top things off, someone had kindly placed a home-made sign at the 15 mile mark with the words 'I bet you wish you'd done the half', which didn't exactly help my motivation and I had to try hard to visualise how happy I would feel at the finish line, still some 9 miles away. From here on, I took it one mile at a time, trying to forget how many I had to go and that these were going to be the toughest ones yet.

Eventually, I was into my last couple of miles and the feeling that I would never achieve my goal of completing a marathon finally lifted. Despite total exhaustion, I managed to pick up the pace a little for the last few 100 meters, knowing the end was, literally, in sight. My first words on crossing that finish line were "I am never running ever again". My mother however, merely laughed, knowing full well that there was no way I would stick to that declaration. Indeed, within a week I was jogging again, eager to ramp up the mileage once more and get back into racing, the pain of my recent endeavours fading fast from my memory.